As I sit down to write this, it starts raining.
There are smiles from my parents. They look at each other and laugh.
The rain hits the tin roof and the house is filled with that familiar smell of water on dirt, and boy has it been a long time coming. But it’s not the end, not by a long shot.
It didn’t rain in January for us but now there is a glimpse of hope from what has been a tough and depressing four months.
Will this rain last? No. But it is a tiny glimpse of hope for a man who has been battling watch his stock get thinner every day, and watching his property get drier and drier, and at the moment it is nothing but dirt.
I am not a farmer but I come from a long line of farmers and graziers who have seen drought many times before.
My father has spent his whole life on the land, and watching him come to terms with the reality that he will have to sell half his cattle to feed the rest of his stock and his family – the fact that there will be no income until late this year but a lot of expense – is bloody gut wrenching.
But it’s not just him or my family; it’s our neighbours, our friends, and the rest of the Australian population who live their lives on the land.
We watch the animals we care for suffer, starve and die. There is nothing we can do but put them out of their misery.
We find our cattle stuck in a dam, too thirsty to move but too weak to climb out.
We sell our stock for a mere profit, or left to eat specks of dirt in a paddock living on hope that it will get better.
More often than not, they starve and die.
After all, it’s not a farmer who controls the rain, it’s Mother Nature and when she wants to she can be a real bitch (if you’re reading this, Nature, please pull your plug out and drop a few inches over inland Australia).
The sad thing is, the drought is only the first problem. What it brings is low commodity prices and more expenses. And with that comes a sense of helplessness and depression.
Last week ABC’s Landline interviewed a man in Queensland who told the story of a farmer who shot his 400 head of cattle and then himself, because there was no hope. He was told that he couldn’t sell his cattle because they were too weak. And in his mind – what else could be done? There was no help, no drought relief, and no understanding.
The rain has stopped. And with it, the hope has gone.
12 mls are in the gauge – sure, it will green the garden, but it won’t fill our dams that are going dry, nor will it bring our crops back to life.
Government assistance couldn’t come quick enough.
Whether or not you think the government should or shouldn’t offer drought relief, whether or not you agree with a farmer’s treatment of their animals, think of the human consequences.
Think of the man with no hope, and think of the families and animals who risk their lives to grow this country’s products.
If you’d like to help with drought relief efforts, visit Aussie Helpers’ donation page here – or visit your local Commonwealth Bank branch to donate to the We’re For the Bush Appeal.
If you or a loved one need to talk to someone, please consider calling Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Top Comments
It's heart breaking as a week or 2 ago we had floods, 4m over one bridge and right now it's storming and raining with the ground being quite wet. Wish we could mail some over to you folks:(
This will be unpopular, but frankly the more struggling farms that close up for good, the better.
The majority of land in Australia is just not suitable for farming. We've ruined rivers and entire ecosystems trying to put water where there isn't any to prop up an industries that are not suitable for the land.
This article and many others talk of generation after generation on the land. It's time this generation realised it is time to move on.
Yes, droughts, fires and floods happen; but when farming in a suitable area you make money during the good seasons to ride out the poor ones.
When you farm in an unsuitable area, the poor seasons outnumber the good seasons and you're left with the contents of this article.
We have a great deal of land in Australia but much of it is not put to good use. We could be using the land for renewable energy farms, and agricultural practices that actually suit the climate.
Providing hand outs will change nothing for the future. The farming system in Australia is flawed and money should be spent in overhauling it and moving onto better uses of our land.
I understand where you are coming from Guest - but how do you expect to get your food and meat if these farms just 'close up for good'? Not all farming destroys the land, sheep and cattle don't destroy the land as much as wild animals such as pigs (which there are plenty).
And also, what do you suggest these farmers who close up shop do with their lives? Because the truth is many of them are generations old - and they love what they do.
What I'm trying to ask you is where would the people go? And more to the point what would happen to the livestock? They get culled to make way for something better and more useful for our land?
I assume the farmers would re-train and do something else, just like thousands of people who lose their jobs or their businesses shut down.
"Because they love it" or "they've been doing it for generations" is kinda not a good enough reason to keep propping up unsustainable industries (and by the way, I'd say exactly the same about car manufacturing and the like).
Except that car manufacturing doesn't feed us - so it's too important to talk about food production in terms of a failing economic model.
Also it's so simplistic to expect farmers with generations of experience and expertise to just 're-train' or 're-locate' - who will do the farming if they re-trained into other professions?
Well Australia in the past has been a predominantly agricultural country. We have space unlike a vast majority of the world. Realistically, even with our lack of rain and tough climate we produce 3 times as much food and agricultural goods than our country needs and export the rest to countries that do need it. So from an ethical perspective, producing more agriculture is beneficial to the world when we actually do have the resources to sustain it with a little help. I also have to wonder about the economical perspective. Looking at just about every industry in Australia, nothing is flawless and gets by without any sort of support. The mining industry has stopped growing, the manufacturing industry is folding. Our education is being more and more exported and we're not really growing. What can we produce? Where is our value in the global economy? The impact of a complete overhaul of an industry is incredibly damaging to our social economy and creates larger costs in rehabilitation and retraining.