Lisa Harper: Supply of power so vital to farmers

When farmers lose power, machinery doesn't work - costing both time and money.

Electricity is one of those boring basic services that it's easy to take for granted, until suddenly you're without.

For anyone with a small business, power outages come with extra worry and costs.

Chilled product starts to warm up, lights go out and of course machinery doesn't work.

Farmers also rely on electricity to power both the household and the business.

Overall, the agriculture sector consumes 1258 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

Assuming there are 58,000 farm businesses, the average farm consumes 21,700kW/h. By comparison, an average household uses around 8000k/W/h, about a third that of an average farm.

Electricity use on farm is often seasonal, peaking in spring and summer, especially on dairy farms in the milking season.

Without power, milking machines won't work and chilled milk waiting for collection can be lost if it's out for any length of time.

If you're feeding young calves, having their milk warm enough is important for animal health too.

Emergency generators and spare fuel are commonly carried as a backup. But even the best of precautions can't protect you completely. Combine this with often unreliable electricity in some rural areas and the impacts are more than annoying.

One farmer in a nearby district has had six power outages in the last fortnight, causing them to lose 5000 litres of milk.

Another in the same area had cows waiting to be milked for six hours, while a faulty insulator was located and replaced. When the power was finally restored, the pumps still wouldn't start so electricians were called.

The end result was added stress, unbudgeted costs, and the milk quality wasn't what it should be.

Many farmers would love to be self-sufficient for electricity, but the technical limitations of alternative power sources make it impractical, or the cost benefit doesn't add up.

Electricity, phone and roading remain essential for people's wellbeing and livelihoods.

While understanding the challenges of sparse population, geography and weather, Federated Farmers argues for adequate maintenance of electricity infrastructure and provision of services to our economic heartland.

It's more than a convenience, it's a lifeline.

- Dr Lisa Harper is Federated Farmers regional policy adviser