With the mouse plague beaten - for now - floodwaters raise the Osbornes’ fears again

First it was drought and fires. Then locusts and mice in plague proportions. And now devastating floods. Regional NSW has seen the worst of mother nature over the past year or two.

The Osbornes are seven of the 125 people who live in Beckom, a truck-stop town between Temora and Griffith in the Riverina. Like many, Renee and Doc Osborne have had to turn their attention from battling mice to preventing floodwater from seeping into their home. With Mrs Osborne working as a nurse 70 kilometres away from her husband, who is the local chaplain, the pair are bracing themselves for another 40 millimetres of rain next week.

The Osbornes, their flood-ravaged home from 2016 and the possessions they burnt to eradicate the mice.

When the mouse plague hit in May, the pair and their five children had to torch thousands of dollars worth of household goods to beat the infestation. They also lost their pet parrot and 15 chickens after mice droppings contaminated their food and water supplies.

Six months later, the Osbornes are still discovering the extent of the devastation. “We just lost a chest freezer full of food due to a nest in the fuse box which didn’t ignite until last week when I turned it on,” Mrs Osborne said.

To instil some much-needed cheer this week, she went to decorate the house for Christmas but found even their decorations and lights were gnawed. All up, the mouse plague cost them at least $15,000. They received a $500 rebate.

NSW has recorded its wettest and coolest November ever, the Bureau of Meteorology said, with nearly three times the average rainfall for the month, breaking a record from 1917.

Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said it was still “too early” to realise the full extent of the damage the floods have caused landholders in rural NSW. There are 38 local government areas that have been declared natural disaster zones from which people can apply for concessional loans of up to $130,000. Future government support is expected.

“As water recedes, we will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with farmers to help clean up the damage these floods have caused,” Mr Marshall said.

Deputy Premier Paul Toole is also committed. “Mother nature has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at farmers over the past few years – droughts, fires, floods, a mice plague – but they are the most resilient humans you’ll ever meet and we want them to know we’ve got their back,” he said, adding the SES had received 5000 requests for help recently.

At Forbes airport, in the state’s Central West, 172.6 millimetres of rain was recorded in November, breaking the 2010 record of 136.2 millimetres.

Forbes agronomist Max Ridley isn’t sure what to tell his clients after this spring’s flooding. When the town last flooded in 2016, it suffered more than $80 million in damage. While the volume of water isn’t as high this time, the region’s farmers can only watch as what would have been a bumper crop of canola is wasted.

Mr Ridley estimates about 70 per cent of the town’s canola is yet to be harvested and he fears it will be unable to be sold if it doesn’t make the market testing grades.

“There’s not much anyone can do except wait,” he said. “The crop yields that occurred before this last burst of rain were very good. It’s all just so frustrating.

Wyangala Dam has been releasing up too 85,000 megaliters of water a day over the past few days . Downstream areas around Cowra and Forbes have experienced major flooding.Credit: Nick Moir

“We can’t finish the harvest and three-quarters of the town’s crops are sitting in paddocks completely exposed.”

Mr Ridley said it was not just canola that had been affected, but wheat and barley too. “We have wheat that was looking at a valuation of $350-$400 a ton, after this rain event it will be $200.”

Some of the crop will be able to be sold as feed but at far less than the record prices Mr Ridley and the rest of regional NSW was expecting. Thanks to a global shortage of canola, price estimations before the onset of La Niña grew to $850 per ton, close to a 70 per cent increase on last year.

Even with the flooding, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates this harvest will be one of the biggest winter crops nationwide, meaning the devastation shouldn’t impact supermarket supplies, or the cost of food.

According to CSIRO researcher Steve Henry, the mouse levels across regional NSW are no longer in plague proportions, but the risk remains. “They’re there, and they’re breeding, but it’s patchy,” he said.

He’s concerned by how long it is taking farmers to harvest because of the rain. “We’ve had so much wet weather that when farmers get a chance to harvest they go as hard as they can,” Mr Henry said. “Between that and crops falling over, there’ll be a lot of grain left behind for the mice.”

He advises farmers to exercise caution, and continue to monitor the stubble size of their crop to make sure the numbers are in control before the next season.

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