SA’s hidden drought: SA farmers do it tough as focus stays on eastern states
South Australia’s farmers have just struggled through their driest October in history. But they’re being forgotten with all eyes focused on supporting country’s east.
SA Business
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South Australia has experienced its driest October on record, providing no relief to the 4500 farms estimated to be drought-affected in the state.
While much of the focus is on drought in the eastern states, if you travel just 130km north from Adelaide to Robertstown, the bone-dry ground resembles the surface of Mars.
Jamestown stock agent Shannon Jaeschke said SA was suffering from a hidden drought and “nobody is talking about what’s happening here”.
In the state’s northeast, farmers have been forced to destock their properties for the past two years, with no feed being grown.
“We’d usually have 5000 lambs at each (bimonthly Jamestown) sale, but in the north of the state the lamb numbers just aren’t there to sell this year,” he said.
The State Government last year implemented nine family and business-support mentors to work with drought-affected families. Mentor Kay Matthias said many farmers were struggling, with 70 per cent of the state considered drought-affected in some way, accounting for an estimated 4500 farms.
“Farmers in SA are doing it tough, with the state’s year-to-date rainfall only 41 per cent of the normal average,” she said.
“But because the state’s rainfall has been so patchy, whereas the eastern states are in drought pretty well all over, the focus has tended to go towards those states.”
The extreme variability in SA is likely to translate into one of the state’s lowest grain harvests on record.
About 100km northeast of Adelaide at Sedan and Cambrai, farmers are expected to reap grain crops of half a tonne per hectare – about a quarter of the average.
Agricultural finance specialist Rabobank has estimated the state will produce 5.7 million tonnes of grain this year – two million tonnes less than the five-year average and almost half of the 2016 season’s 11 million tonne-plus harvest. Rabobank senior grains analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon said that for many grain-producing regions this will be the third consecutive year of severely drought-affected production.
“This means that the tough times are getting tougher and the enduring impacts of the drought are getting longer,” she said.
South East stock agent Robin Steen, who travels across SA, said “patchy” was the best way to describe this season. “If you go north of Pinnaroo through to Loxton, it’s looking very ordinary,” he said.
“And if you go to the back of Eudunda, it’s looking very, very ordinary.”
Mr Steen also said there was a major issue looming for the state’s livestock sector when widespread rain finally arrived and farmers rush out to buy replacement stock, likely at highly inflated prices.
“Restocking, when it does rain, will be a huge problem,” he said.
