Drought's end brings small joy

FOR the first time in almost a decade, NSW is drought-free, but the long-awaited relief has been cruelled by the recent floods.

FOR the first time in almost a decade, NSW is drought-free, but the long-awaited relief has been cruelled by the recent floods.

Not since April 2001 has NSW enjoyed a 100 per cent "satisfactory" drought rating, and as recently as 12 months ago, 98 per cent of the state was still in the grip of the brutal dry spell.

Official drought figures to be released this morning will show that the remaining drought-affected 3.5 per cent patch of the state -- farmland just south of Queanbeyan, in the southeast

of NSW -- has been upgraded from a "marginal" drought risk to "satisfactory".

Indeed, that area of the state has swung dramatically from one weather extreme to the other. Earlier this month, Queanbeyan was declared a natural disaster zone after floods left much of the regional town under water. The NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Steve Whan, said last night while the breaking of the drought had been a long time coming, the floods had crippled the hopes of many farmers.

In NSW and Victoria alone, farmers are expecting to incur losses of more than $1 billion to the value of wheat, barley and canola crops.

"These latest figures should have been cause for celebration," Mr Whan said. "Unfortunately, the end to the drought has come with devastating flooding across the state. After 10 years of drought, many of our farmers have received another heartbreaking setback with their crops damaged or destroyed."

It is a similar story in Queensland, where just 1.4 per cent of the state is drought declared, down from 66.5 per cent in 2004.

But heavy flooding has also crippled the state's crops. In February, a year after historic flooding around the Gulf of Carpentaria devastated the soil, the federal government extended exceptional circumstances drought assistance to local farmers affected by the floods.

Between July last year and June this year, the Queensland government approved $31m in exceptional circumstances funding for drought-affected industries. At the same time, $10.7m was handed out as flood assistance.

In South Australia, about 55 per cent of the land is still drought-declared. EC payments have not become flood assistance payments, due to a relatively low amount of flooding in the state.

Much of Victoria and southeast WA also remain in drought.