Victorian floods: $5b of crops lost

At least 10 million tonnes and up to $5 billion has now been lost from the national winter crop as unseasonal downpours continue.

At least 10 million tonnes — and up to $5 billion — has now been lost from the national winter crop as unseasonal downpours continue and unwelcome waters keep rising along the eastern seaboard,.

Australia had been on track to record a bumper 55.5 million tonne harvest, however torrential rain across Victoria and NSW in recent days left more growers with washed out fields and facing a wet drought of increased yield losses and quality downgrades.

For farmers who spent most of this century praying for rain, Grain Growers Limited chairman Brett Hosking said it was a cruel twist that the 60-120mm that fell on cropping country was the straw that broke the canola bank.

“There will be substantial losses, we are now comfortably over five million tonnes of crops that will not be harvested and, when you combine disease and waterlogging, 10 million tonnes, or a whisker more, is likely gone, and that will remove $4 to $5 billion from the bottom line,” he said.

“These growers have done an amazing job under the conditions to produce great crops, and just when they thought they had it, it has been taken away.”

The most heavily-impacted areas are the central and northern regions of Victoria and the north and central west of NSW, with NSW Farmers predicting ”conservative” losses of 120,000 hectares of wheat with an estimated value of up to $192 million in the Moree-Walgett-Narrabri area alone.

Destroyed crops. Picture: Zoe Phillips

The sting in the tail for producers is that record-high input costs this year had significantly squeezed margins.

Meanwhile, Victoria is on track to record its wettest ever October, while a 100km-wide flood front has swamped Moree and rendered western central NSW an inland sea.

Residents in both states are bracing for more forecast river-swelling rain over coming days and into weekend.

While an earthen levee that divided Echuca and opinion has saved most of the town, as the Murray River reached a historic peak of 95.28 metres above sea level, scores of homes on the wrong side of the wall are now flooded.

Other towns, such as Rochester, are preparing for the second coming of floodwaters and, as rainfall continues to pour into river systems, the Bureau of Meteorology has warned that “flood warnings are likely to increase in intensity and number over coming days.”

While farmers downstream from Echuca, with crops sitting in sodden ground, have an excruciating wait for a swollen Murray to slowly flow towards Torrumbarry, Cohuna and Swan Hill in the next week and Robinvale and Mildura in about a fortnight.

Moama farmer Fleur Ferris lost 120ha of wheat as the Murray spread across her land last week, while 400ha of irrigated and dryland wheat and canola stands in water following more than 60mm of rain.

“It’s just heartbreaking. We’ve had such a good year and we got such heavy spring rain. But that’s farming. There’s always that risk,” she said.

Elsewhere, Kerang farmer Colin Fenton was pumping water off his cereals and onto pasture paddocks to save his crops but said “it’s extremely difficult … because there’s nowhere for it to go.”

But leaving pools of dormant water in low-lying land makes replanting impossible, the increasing buzz of mosquitoes breeding like rabbits a constant reminder.

National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson said horticulture had suffered badly through a long wet winter and unseasonal heavy spring rain and losses now included recently sown summer crops.

“Dairies have also lost production, but we are thankfully not seeing the livestock losses we would in sudden flooding events,” she said.

“However, the damage to sheds, machinery, homes, fences, roads, dams, contour banks and from erosion will creep up into the many, many billions of dollars.”

Ms Simson demanded governments provide not only rebuilding funds, but support measures to help a shocked agricultural industry through the next harvest periods.

Meanwhile, Mr Hosking and Ms Simson called on the federal and state governments to work with local councils to ensure the great rural and regional road reconstruction does not simply replace like-for-like.

“It is the epitome of madness to be building a poor road back into a poor road without mitigating for future flooding,” Ms Simson said.

The Insurance Council of Australia said 9251 claims had been lodged by flood victims, 87 per cent of them from Victoria, to Monday afternoon.

There were 73 active emergency warnings across Victoria at 9am Tuesday, with evacuation orders for Echuca, Barham and lower Moira.

There were also major flood warnings for the Murray, Edward and Loddon rivers in Victoria, and the Macintyre, Barwon, Darling, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, Namoi, Gwydir and Mehi rivers in NSW.

FLOODS BLACK WATER LEGACY:

Tandarra dairy farmer Ben Govett has lost “the best crops I ever had” in the floods that covered his property in a metre of water.

Only the house and dairy were spared, which has at least meant the Govetts could keep on milking their herd of 300.

But it’s the loss of fodder that is hardest for the Govetts to bear, having 250ha of vetch and cereal crops inundated.

When asked what he needed, Mr Govett said “I just want it to stop raining”.

Next on the list was access to clean water, given the Western Waranga channel that supplies stock and domestic water to hundreds of farms has been filled with water sheeting off flood damaged crops and pastures.

Dairy farmer Ben Govett from Tandarra picture among flooding on his farm. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“The quality of the water in the channel is not so great, and in the next couple of weeks when the rain stops, there’s going to be a lot of rotting vegetation that’s going to cause a lot of issues.

“The water that’s in the channels is still and not moving and that’s where our stock and domestic water comes from and it’s starting to get pretty black and a bad smell to it.”

His next biggest concern, like most farmers in the flood zones, is getting roads repaired so that fodder can be brought onto properties, milk tankers can make their pick-ups and grain can be carted to ports.

So far Mr Govett said his dairy herd was handling the wet conditions, but “you can tell they’re a bit tired and production is down by about 20 per cent.”

The long wet spring has forced the Govetts to almost triple the herds’ daily hay ration from 2-3kg to 6-9kg.

Days of standing in water and soggy ground have also meant keeping a close eye on the herds’ feet and keeping mastitis under control.

The loss of feed also means “we’ll have to consolidate a bit and cut back numbers a bit,” Mr Govett said. “We’re just not going to have home-grown feed available.”

Neighbours have already stepped in to help, bringing in sand bags and another setting up their machinery shed to house the Govetts’ calves.