DROUGHT CRISIS
There’s no end in sight
Bushfires continue to destroy parts of NSW and Queensland, while the drought tightens its grip on struggling farmers. On his farmhouse on the outskirts of Goolhi, in north-central NSW, Ash Whitney would once rise at 6am and step out onto his old wooden verandah to behold the treasured land left to him by his dad: an undulating paddock of deep green grass dotted with leafy kurrajongs and filled with roaming cattle. Today, the farmer still goes through that morning ritual, but his outlook has changed. “It’s just dirt,” he tells WHO, quietly. “There’s a slight grey tinge of grass stubble, but basically just dirt. We should have 400 cows running around with their calves on them. But now you can’t see or hear one. It’s very disheartening.”
And there is no sign things will improve. Since 2017, Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, an agricultural region across eastern Australia, has been in drought, with rural NSW and southern Queensland suffering “one of the worst droughts we’ve seen since European settlement”, says Dr Andrew King, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne.
The lack of rainfall has hit farmers hard, with many unable to feed their livestock on dust-ridden farmland. “We’ve been through some dry spells before but this is the worst in living history,” says Whitney, a secondgeneration farmer and father of two. “We’ve survived until now, but what do we do next year? The bills keep coming, but we’ve got no income coming in.”
Extreme times have called for desperate measures. Due to the cost of feed for his stock, Whitney was forced to sell most of his beloved cattle. He saved 35 heifers (females that have yet to produce a calf ) for sentimental reasons – they hold the bloodline of the first Hereford bull owned by his father nearly 70 years ago. “I sold the rest,” says Whitney, who lives on the farm with wife Jill. “We’d been trying to get up to 400 [cows], but we couldn’t afford to buy more feed.” He has looked elsewhere for an income, picking up odd jobs from neighbours, but nothing substantial. “No-one wants to employ a 59-year-old farmer,” he says.
Also feeling the pinch is Richard Gillham, a sixth-generation farmer whose ancestors have been raising stock and crops in northwestern NSW for 112 years. He continues to raise lambs on his Boggabri property called Barber’s Lagoon, but only through buying-in feed. To produce around 2000 lambs a year, he tells WHO he has to spend $1400 a day on barley and hay at inflated prices. “If someone were to say to you that you’ve got to go to work but you have to pay to do the work, there wouldn’t be too many people who’d agree to that,” he says. “But you can’t just shut up shop.”
The toil can be hard amid the conditions. Boggabri is within the Narrabri Shire, a region normally prized for its rolling green hills and flowing Namoi River. “It’s only water holes now,” says Gillham, a father of four, all of whom are now adults. “And the farm is ... just nothing. A few tussocks of old grass. The verandah is covered in sand from dust storms. But you just can’t let it get you down. We know it’ll come good again.”
The question is, when? “Droughts can be quite prolonged,” says Dr King. “We’ve seen that with the Millennium Drought [in the 2000s] that lasted over a decade. This one has been shorter but sharper.” Climate change is a factor in the cause of dry spells, though not the main cause of the current drought, according to
King. In the future, however, research suggests “that the number of very dry years will increase in the Murray Darling Basin as the climate warms,” says Dr Floris van Ogtrop, an environmental science expert at the University of Sydney.
Though western NSW received a good dose of rainfall in November, the forecast for summer remains dry. “At some point there will be droughtbreaking rains,” says King. “It could be next year. It could be a few years’ time.”
Such an outlook comes with a devastating toll, according to mental health groups. Beyond Blue reports that the suicide rate in remote Australian regions is now more than double of that in urban areas. Queensland grazier Robyn Caldwell has sought medical help for her anxiety during the drought and pleads for anyone suffering to do the same. “I tell everybody I’m medicated,” she tells WHO. “It’s a standing joke with me – my little white pills.”
With her husband John, daughter and son-inlaw, Caldwell runs Tickalara, a historical 147,000ha cattle station in a remote pocket of south-eastern Queensland, where she’s seen her stock dwindle by half. “Don’t be afraid to admit you need a bit of a hand and go and see your doctor,” says the grandmother of 10. “A lot of men won’t seek help. It’s like they think they’ve failed or they’re weak.”
Others, like Gillham, are fortunate enough to find solace through their busy lives. “You’ve got to love it,” he says. “It’s dry and dusty days, and we enjoy a beer at night, that’s all we can really do. You just have to be optimistic. We’ll all be older, but it’ll come good.”
Says Whitney: “I get stressed but I try not to think about it. There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just a bloody long tunnel this time.” If you or someone you know needs support, help is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.
• If you wish to donate to help farmers, contact droughtangels.org.au