Yarrabin Water Security & Pasture Resilience Project
Application by Yarrabin Pastoral Pty Ltd for a NSW Farm Innovation Fund concessional loan of A$850,000 to deliver permanent on-farm capital works at F/DP23769, Spring Ridge, NSW.
1. Executive summary
Yarrabin Pastoral Pty Ltd ("the applicant") operates a 494.48-hectare mixed sheep-and-cropping enterprise on Lot F, DP23769 at Spring Ridge, Liverpool Plains Shire Council. The property is zoned RU1 Primary Production, is mapped as Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land (BSAL), sits within a Coal Seam Gas exclusion zone, and is classified Land & Soil Capability Class 3 — Moderate capability cropping land — premium NSW agricultural country.
The applicant seeks a A$850,000 concessional loan under the NSW Farm Innovation Fund to deliver four integrated capital works that materially improve the enterprise's productivity, drought resilience and sustainability outcomes: two 50 ML storage dams with reticulation, 200 ha of perennial pasture renovation, and 800 t of on-farm grain storage.
Headline outcomes
2. Applicant & subject property
2.1 Applicant
| Entity | Yarrabin Pastoral Pty Ltd |
| Trading name | Yarrabin Mixed Farm |
| Role at property | Owner-operator |
| Years at property | 22 years |
| Enterprise mix | Self-replacing Merino flock (1,900 ewes) + dryland winter cereal rotation (wheat / barley / canola). |
| Primary-production income share | 100% |
2.2 Subject property — geospatial profile
All values below are sourced from authoritative NSW and Australian Government datasets and are reproduced unmodified. Each row carries a citation to its source dataset.
| Attribute | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lot / DP | F/DP23769 | NSW DCDB |
| Locality | Spring Ridge, NSW 2343 | NSW DCDB |
| LGA | Liverpool Plains Shire Council | NSW Spatial Services |
| Area | 494.48 ha | NSW DCDB (computed) |
| Zoning | RU1 Primary Production | Liverpool Plains LEP 2011 |
| Min lot size control | 200–399.9 ha | LEP 2011 |
| Land & Soil Capability | Class 3 — Moderate capability cropping land | NSW DPI LSC v4 |
| BSAL | Mapped — Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land | SEPP Mining 2007, BSAL Map |
| CSG exclusion | Excluded from CSG (protected) | SEPP Mining 2007 |
| Actual land use | 3.2.0 Grazing modified pastures | ABARES CLUM 2023 |
| Mean annual rainfall | 648.5 mm | BoM 30-yr grid (1 km) |
| Geological province | Lachlan Orogen | GA national geology |
| Climatic region descriptor | Northern Slopes (sub-humid) | BoM Köppen-derived |
| Existing built form | 1 dwelling, 175.3 m² footprint | NSW DCS Building Footprints |
2.3 Hazards & overlays
| Overlay | Status |
|---|---|
| Flood | Not mapped |
| Bushfire prone land | Vegetation Category 3 |
| Landslide | Not mapped |
| Salinity | Not mapped |
| Groundwater vulnerability | Not flagged |
| Contamination (on-site or proximity) | Not mapped · nearest contaminated site 44.3 km |
| Heritage listing | Not listed |
| Acid sulfate soils | Not classified |
| Threatened Ecological Community on lot | None mapped |
3. Proposed project
Two storage dams, reticulation, drought-tolerant perennial pasture establishment and grain storage to lift carrying capacity and survive a 12-month dry sequence without forced destocking.
| Component | Cost (A$) |
|---|---|
| P1. Water storage — 2 × 50 ML earth dams (turkey nest, lined) | 340,000 |
| P2. Reticulation — 8 km poly mainline + 12 trough sites | 165,000 |
| P3. Perennial pasture establishment — 200 ha lucerne + phalaris/sub-clover | 240,000 |
| P4. On-farm grain storage — 800 t flat-bottom silo + aeration | 105,000 |
| Total project cost | 850,000 |
Capital allocation
- Water storage 340,000
- Reticulation 165,000
- Perennial pasture establishment 240,000
- On-farm grain storage 105,000
3.1 Construction timeline
3.2 Component detail
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| P1 | Two compacted-clay turkey-nest dams sited on the SE rise (~150 m elevation) so they can be filled by 3-phase pumping from the existing diversion + rainfall harvest off lined catchment. |
| P2 | 63 mm and 50 mm poly with float-controlled concrete troughs; eliminates 6 km of unfenced dam access and supports rotational grazing. |
| P3 | Direct-drilled into modified pasture paddocks on the deeper black soils. Targets 2.5× carrying capacity uplift on those paddocks. |
| P4 | Holds drought feed grain and own-grown wheat for marketing flexibility; reduces forced sales at harvest lows. |
4. Modelled productivity, drought & sustainability uplift
4.1 Productivity (FIF Criterion C5)
Carrying-capacity uplift modelled on the 200 ha pasture renovation block only; whole-of-farm weighted average uplift is ~31%.
4.2 Drought preparedness (FIF Criterion C6)
12-month rolling rainfall ≤ decile 1 (≤ 425 mm). Modelled outcome: no forced destocking, no agistment outlay, 60% retention of ewe flock.
4.3 Sustainability (FIF Criterion C7)
Sustainability profile — baseline vs projected
Bare soil and ground cover modelled via DEA Fractional Cover regression on comparable lucerne-converted properties in Liverpool Plains; carbon uplift uses Emissions Reduction Fund Method: Estimating sequestration of carbon in soil using default values.
5. Eligibility statement
The proposed project addresses every spatially-assessable NSW Farm Innovation Fund eligibility criterion. The applicant satisfies the personal-circumstances criteria (NSW primary producer; income mix; repayment capacity) which are out of scope for spatial assessment and are addressed by the financial information at Section 7.
A criterion-by-criterion machine audit of this application is attached as the Audit Dashboard — every verdict cites the dataset row that justifies it.
6. Risk & conditions
The composite spatial risk score for the subject parcel is 15 (tier: low). The only material risk is bushfire (Vegetation Category 3 mapping).
The applicant proposes the following self-imposed conditions, consistent with NSW RFS Planning for Bushfire Protection 2019:
- Dam-access tracks include a fire-truck-grade turnaround within 200 m of each storage.
- Grain silo siting maintains a 30 m Asset Protection Zone (managed pasture) on all sides.
- Annual fuel-load inspection and reporting against an APZ photo log.
7. Financial summary
| Total project cost | A$850,000 |
| Loan requested | A$850,000 |
| Applicant equity contribution | A$0 cash · A$2.45M land security (suburb-median benchmarked) |
| Term | 20 years |
| Indicative rate | 3.5% |
| Indicative annual repayment | A$59,500 |
| Modelled gross margin uplift (whole-of-farm, year 4+) | +A$45,000 / year |
Three years of trading accounts and the projected cash-flow under base, drought, and price-stress scenarios are provided as Annexure A. The applicant authorises RAA Credit to verify income and security positions directly with the applicant's accountant and bank.
8. Data sources & methodology
Every quantitative claim in this application is traceable to a named, public dataset. The provenance ledger below records the source, organisation, dataset name and confidence rating for each layer.
| Layer | Organisation | Dataset | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lot boundary & identity | NSW Spatial Services (DCS) | NSW Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB) | High |
| Land & Soil Capability (LSC class) | NSW DPI (Environment & Heritage) | Land & Soil Capability Mapping v4 | High |
| Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land | NSW DPI | BSAL Map (SEPP Mining, Petroleum Production & Extractive Industries 2007) | High |
| Zoning & permissibility | NSW Department of Planning | Liverpool Plains LEP 2011 — zoning layer | High |
| Climate (rainfall) | Bureau of Meteorology | 30-year mean annual rainfall grid (1km) | High |
| Land use | ABARES | Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia (CLUM) 2023 | Medium |
| Vegetation & soil cover | Geoscience Australia / DEA | Digital Earth Australia Fractional Cover (Sentinel-2, 2024) | Medium |
| Bushfire prone land | NSW Rural Fire Service | Bushfire Prone Land Map (2023) | High |