Foreign Correspondence

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Drought Crisis Hits Australian Farms .. 2007 .. more photos

Sydney 2000 CC - Slim Dusty(1927-2003) & "Waltzing Matilda"

Related: Kangaroos Invading Australian Cities as Drought Worsens (July 18, 2007)


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070718-roos-drought.html



A farmer harvests a wheat field stunted by drought near Warracknabeal, about 186
miles (300 kilometers) northwest of Melbourne, Australia, on November 14, 2006.

In a normal year in Australia, wheat farmers should be wading through fields of
green. But seven years into the worst drought in modern history, farmers of every
variety across the country are attempting to salvage what they can of their failed crops.

About 65 percent of Australia's agricultural land is in drought—and in crisis, experts say.

A lot of the farmers are having a significant loss of income, said
Jock Laurie, president of New South Wales Farmers Association.

A lot of people are considering leaving the land.



Sheep graze the stubble of a drought-affected wheat crop near West Wyalong,
310 miles (500 kilometers) west of Sydney, Australia, on October 17, 2007.

Poor grain crops have led to soaring prices for livestock feed, forcing many farmers to sell their animals at a
loss. Despite of billions in aid from the government, the drought has become a financial disaster for farmers.

The catastrophe has also taken a hit on farmers' mental well-being. Suicide rates in rural Australia are on the
upswing. Experts point to isolation, financial distress and lack of psychological services as contributing factors.

Rod Chalmers, a farmer in Wakool, in the state of New South Wales, said idle time contributes to the stress.

We have no irrigation water this year, so there is nothing to do, he said. These are
active workers who want to be productive. That makes a lot of people really unhappy.



Farmer Marshall Rodda (left) and farmhand Gilbert Fryatt (right) stand on the
parched earth of an empty dam northwest of Melbourne on November 14, 2006.

La Niña conditions in the Pacific, often associated with heavy rain in Australia,
failed to fill water catchments in the Murray-Darling River Basin this year.

Though some hope several consecutive La Niña seasons can break the
drought, the prospect of long-term climate change is spawning other ideas.

For instance, the government has created a task force to help
move farmers from the dry south to the wet and tropical north.



Hume Weir, the largest dam on the River Murray, about 289 miles (465 kilometers)
southwest of Sydney, is at 2 percent capacity, as shown in this February 23, 2007, photo.

As a result, trees once submerged are again visible. Many of the 50,000 farms
that depend on River Murray to irrigate crops have no water allocation this year.

In November 2006, a United Nations panel on climate change predicted the
annual flow into the Murray-Darling basin is likely to fall 10 to 25 percent by 2050.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has also forecast that on the east
coast, rainfall could drop 40 percent by 2070, and that temperatures will rise about seven degrees.



A rainbow fills the sky after heavy rains hit Cobar, Australia,
442 miles (712 kilometers) northwest of Sydney on May 17, 2007.

Rainstorms in parts of the Australian state of New South Wales in April and May gave hope to farmers that the
drought was breaking. But the optimism was short-lived as farmers struggled through a hot and dry winter.

No one knows what will break the drought cycle. La Niña conditions that usually promote
rainfall are dissipating, and climatologists say it is too soon to know what will follow.
Another El Niño pattern associated with drought may settle in, or La Niña could return.

We probably need two years, back to back, of classic La Niña to make a real difference, said Roger
Stone, professor of climatology and water resources at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/photogalleries/Australia-pictures/index.html