'Huge impact': Oyster farmer grapples with climate change as 'tight' Christmas looms
A lack of rain nearly four years ago means Shane Buckley doesn't have enough oysters to sell this Christmas, and he worries about the impacts of climate change.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, oyster farmer Shane Buckley should be gearing up for peak season, but instead he's barely got enough oysters to sell to his regular local customers, let alone to supply high-end restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne.
Mr Buckley owns Wapengo Rocks, a certified organic oyster farm on the banks of Wapengo Lake near Tathra on the NSW far south coast. His crop matures on a 3½-year cycle, so oysters that spawned in early 2016 should now be ready to sell.
He says oysters spawn when they feel threatened, with warmer water temperatures, big tides and fresh water from rain the main triggers for them to reproduce.
But during an unexpected dry spell in early 2016, Wapengo received just eight millimetres of rain, about a tenth of the February average. It means Mr Buckley's oyster supply is severely depleted, right at the wrong time of year.
Without any income since August, he's "in a bit of a pickle".
"It makes it pretty tight because you're still paying wages," he says. "It's quite draining on the old bank account, that's for sure."
Oysters, like any other crop, are tricky to farm. A batch can be ruined if they are left out of the water and there is a sudden hot day.
"There are lots of external challenges to keeping them alive," he says.
On top of that, Mr Buckley says climate change presents a major but also unknown threat to his livelihood. While weather is unpredictable, the triggers for oysters to reproduce have historically remained consistent. But that is changing.
"Over the last 10 years or so it's been a little more erratic," he says. "The climate change thing is something I think about a lot.
"The higher the amount of carbon in the water the more acidic it gets, the softer the shell is supposed to get ... there's huge impacts in the future."
But for now, Mr Buckley is taking it in his stride.
"Enough red wine gets you to sleep," he chuckles. "It doesn't keep me up [at night]."
And there's good news in the short term: Wapengo Rocks is expecting a bumper harvest in February.
"It's going to be awesome, the amount of oysters coming on is going to be huge. It's going to be one of my biggest crops," he says.
The Christmas edition of Good Food magazine is available free in Friday's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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