‘It’s hard, but there will be no harvest’
Farmers describe how Australia’s worst drought for decades has forced many to sell off their livestock and accept state aid
On Monday afternoon, James Hamilton, a sixth-generation farmer in south-east Australia, looked out at the dry bristly stubble covering his 4,000-acre property and then went inside his homestead to have the conversation that he and his wife Amanda had both been dreading.
Since the beginning of the year, this usually lush stretch of farmland near the inland town of Narromine, 260 miles west of Sydney, has received just two inches of rain, compared with an average annual rainfall of 18 inches.
The long dry spell has emptied creeks and riverbeds, withered crops, left animals starving and forced farmers such as Mr and Mrs Hamilton to acknowledge – as they did this week – that they will have no harvest. The couple, who have three teenage daughters, will also soon have a farm without livestock: on Tuesday, they are putting up for auction their 475 sheep, which have become too expensive to feed.
Pointing to a paddock of hard soil, Mr Hamilton, 47, whose family has been on the land locally for 150 years, told The Sunday Telegraph of his dawning realisation that – for the first time in his life – he would have a barren farm. The conditions, he said, were the worst he had ever seen.
“It had been playing on my mind that we are not having a harvest,” he said. “With no rain predicted, you have to make a decision. As of Monday, my wife and I have accepted that we are not having a harvest. That is hard. It is heartbreaking. Until then you are looking to hope. Every time they predict rain, it doesn’t come.”
It is a scene that is playing out across much of the country’s south east, which has experienced its driest autumn since the Federation Drought of 1902. This week, New South Wales declared that the entire state was in drought. In some areas, residents are restricted to three-minute showers and a two weekly washing loads.
For farmers, the crippling 18-month drought is raising difficult questions about their future on the land. In recent decades, farms have been disappearing due to falling profits, lower prices for commodities, water shortages, the increasingly tough weather and a trend of consolidation. There are now about 123,000 farming estates in Australia, a drop of 20 per cent since 2006. The traditional image of Australia as a nation of toiling workers on the land is fading: the average age of farmers today is 56. When conditions are unfavourable, it can be a gruelling existence.
Instead of the lush foot-high wheat crops that would normally cover Mr Hamilton’s paddocks, tiny shoots can barely be seen above the brown soil. A pond in a sheep-grazing paddock is at 10 per cent of its capacity.
To add to his troubles, hordes of kangaroos have arrived from the drier west in search of food. What they find in any field they eat. Earlier this week, Mr Hamilton hired a licensed kangaroo rifleman. He arrived at 2am and shot some of the larger kangaroos, which can be sold for meat.
For the Hamilton family, no harvest means no income. As for the livestock, each sheep costs £90, produces £39 of wool and sells for about £20. This means the farm, despite hours of toil, will produce a net loss for the year, heightened by expenses such as buying seeds and hiring labour.
“It just sucks the energy out of you,” Mr Hamilton said. “You start getting your head around getting more debt. My wife [who is from Sydney] still struggles with the notion that you can do everything right and it all comes down to the weather.”
In towns across Australia, communities have run charity food drives, collected hay, driven tanks-full of water to affected areas or even knitted jumpers to help lambs make it through the cold. The drought has attracted media attention. Front-page pictures have appeared of stricken sheep and struggling kangaroos. It has helped generate millions of dollars in donations.
Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister, said the drought was shocking and promised payments of £6,900 to struggling farmers as part of a £109million relief package. This adds to the £9,000 payments already made to the poorer farmers.
“It is designed to keep body and soul together, not designed to pay for fodder,” he said of the extra payments.
“The prospect is that it’s going to be a dry spring and a hot dry summer. They will need more support right through that period.”
Edwina Robertson, a campaigner for supporting drought-affected farmers, said the package was “very disappointing”.
“I think there’s just no understanding of what people need and how dire it is,” she told ABC News, the country’s national news broadcaster.
But the package also raises concerns about the role of the government in propping up farms which may not be viable.
“I think the long-term future of drought assistance can’t be divorced from the judgment that ultimately has got to be made about the sustainability of agriculture in certain parts of the country in the face of climate change,” said Saul Eslake, a British-born economist and vicechancellor’s fellow at the University of Tasmania, told Fairfax Media.
“Just throwing cash at farmers in what seem to be increasingly frequent droughts is ultimately not helping the farmers, as well as being a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Tim Wiggins, a local stock agent who has worked around Narromine for 20 years, has been busy helping to sell sheep and cattle for farmers who can no longer feed them. Some of the breeds have been in the families for generations.
“The graziers who are keeping their stock and are continuing to feed are doing it really badly,” he said.
“There is a fair wedge of the farming community that is starting to suffer mentally. Financially they may be OK – they can borrow money if they have to – but the sense of failure is a big thing for them. They think they messed it all up, having to sell all the sheep or the cattle off the farm.”
Mr Wiggins said the lack of rain was the worst he had seen but, unlike during previous droughts, livestock prices have remained healthy and can still fetch some money.
“A lot of people are only an inch or two of rain from being back on track,” he said. “It is so close – you only need a little bit. It makes it hard.”
Speaking on the paved terrace at his house as a pair of emus foraged in the paddock behind him, Mr Hamilton said he remained hopeful that his property would revive when, or if, rain finally arrived.
“We have always been able to harvest a crop before and then you have good years that help you through the bad,” he said.
“Our turn will come on too. I hope we are still in the game to take advantage of it.”
‘A lot of people are only an inch or two of rain from being back on track. It is so close – you only need a little bit. It makes it hard’