The tenets of farming systems such as no-till cropping lent itself to this single focus, and many got out of their livestock operations.

However, sentiment is swinging back, and more farmers are realising the value of a mixed enterprise to minimise risk.

Certainly, farmers who have stuck with livestock have seen the results over the past six months, with sky-high prices, particularly for sheep.

However, even today, the two income streams are seen as separate, even within the same farm, so many growers will watch with interest one Western Australian farmer’s efforts to find a way to wholly integrate the two businesses.

Rob Warburton runs a mixed enterprise at Kojonup, in Western Australia’s Great Southern, a traditional mixed farming stronghold.

He has won a Nuffield scholarship to study ways to integrate grain and grazing on his 3000 hectare property.

At this stage, his hunch is that it will be possible to better combine pasture and cropping phases, primarily through over-cropping, which will mean a seamless pasture establishment following the cropping phase.

“Currently, there’s a significant cost to establish good pasture after a cropping phase, and yet more cost to change back as part of a cropping rotation,” Mr Warburton said.

“I’m already grazing some crops and planting canola over the top of lucerne, but I think we can find a lot more synergies, which will help maximise profits.

“Long term, the ideal is to crop over perennial pasture, so you don’t have to change land use in and out of cropping, and hopefully during my scholarship I can find other people and places where this is happening and what species allow it to be done.”

Mr Warburton is being sponsored by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and has just left on a six-week international tour, investigating agricultural marketing, trade and environmental issues, before he finalises his itinerary for his personal study tour later in the year.