Alan Blackburn and Associates Consulting


Farm Managment and Agribusiness Consultants

Drought Strategies

I have long been of the opinion that the intensive grazing management story has had several important elements missing.  One is it has not put sufficient focus on strategic drought planning.  Intensive systems carry higher risk in drought years and this risk needs to be assessed and planned for.  Consequently we assist clients to do this as follows:

Alan Blackburn is the author of a number of publications relating to drought management.  These include “Self Reliant Drought Management” (for the Bureau of Resource Sciences), and “Managing Drought Risks in the Mallee” for DNRE (now DPI).

Assess drought risk

I use the “Rainman” software to demonstrate historic drought frequencies.  Also it is often of considerable interest to see how twenty year periods can have much different average rainfall patterns.

Calculate size of reserve

Our Farm Business Planner software enables us to calculate the size of drought reserve you need to feed stock for droughts of different durations eg 3 months, 6 months, 9 months.

You then decide what size of reserve and or what size of Farm Management Deposits you plan to have for strategic drought planning.