WHEN you’ve been growing rice for nigh on half a century, you pretty well have the importance of performance and business planning down pat.
Take the Chalmers family, from Noorong, who not only have the nailed, they seem to have the whole rice thing under expert control.
And for Michael and Felicia, that cutting-edge attitude to their farming saw them recently crowned 2025 SunRice growers of the year.
With Michael the first to admit it was an honour to receive the award.
“We don’t love being in the spotlight but there is a fair bit of pride in receiving this award and really, it is a recognition of multiple lifetimes of work from the generations before us,” Mr Chalmers said.
“It is also a credit to the team we have around us – our on-farm staff and our advisers.
“We were judged on many things, including performance and yield, whole of business planning and environmental stewardship.”
Rice is central to the business and Mr Chalmers said their heavy, black clay soils, about 40km west of Swan Hill, are perfect.
“We have moved toward direct drilling of rice rather than aerial sowing which has been better for us and enabled us to get better establishment and more uniform crops,” he said.
It has also helped reduce management issues with ducks, snails and windy conditions.
For cereal crops including wheat, barley, oats and canola, they have also moved away from flood irrigation and invested in overhead sprays.
The cereals are grown on both irrigated and dry country.
“One of our main business focuses has been on water use efficiencies and we run a full farm recycled, cropping practice, which enables us to increase our yield per megalitre used,” Mr Chalmers said.
Mr Chalmers added he loves growing rice and enjoys being part of the wider rice industry, which he describes as a supportive community.
He said part of the award was environmental stewardship and he and his family are proud of the fact that they, through the Commonwealth Water holder and Murray Irrigation, are delivering environmental water onto a wetland on one of their properties.
“We have an 80ha site and this will be the first year the environmental water is delivered,” he said.
“We also have a couple of other sites we have been watering with runoff in wet years, and it is amazing to watch the farm come to life with waterbirds, frogs and snakes.
“Growing rice enables us to increase the biodiversity on farm and that is important to us as well.”
The business currently employs five full time staff and growing summer crops are always part of the overall business plan.
“We like to keep everyone busy and growing rice is really central to that,” Mr Chalmers said.
“Of course, there are dry years, and we all get those, but we do manage our water to predominantly grow rice.”
Despite New South Wales Murray general security currently sitting on a 2 per cent allocation, Mr Chalmers said he believes there will be opportunity to grow some rice this year, with water sitting in the dams awaiting allocation.
And when it comes to temporary water prices; he said he can still run a core rice program if the water prices are below $200.
“Obviously we like to see temporary water prices as low as possible, but we can really make things work when prices are anywhere under $150 a megalitre,” Mr Chalmers said,
SunRice said the family was nominated for its consistently exceptional results and long-term strategic approach which has underpinned the growth, especially during the past eight years in which they have been farming independently.
The business is continuously striving for improvement through a distinct focus on water efficiency, soil health and trialling new technologies and approaches.
