Try to imagine it. It’s four weeks before Christmas and Queensland is 86 per cent drought-declared.
The news item on Sydney radio lasted maybe 15 seconds – Queensland has just passed 86 per cent of the total state being drought declared. Then the newsreader moved on.
It’s frightening when you think of it – such a huge area of Queensland without water as we enter summer. And a quick check revealed that even the 86 per cent figure doesn’t come close to the true story. Even the coastal areas are being hit. Cook Shire on Cape York Peninsula is in the worst drought since August 1978.
Voices from the land
How do people on the land cope – physically, financially and emotionally? Thanks to ABC radio a large number of comments by people on the land are available and it is worth reading a few:
“This drought is different because it isn’t really about the drought. This drought is different because people don’t see a way back.” Ben Callcott from Charters Towers, via ABC Rural
“With silage and failed summer crop stubble, our reduced cattle herd is surviving, with cows giving all to their next round of calves.” Oscar Pearse from Moree, NSW
“This is as bad as previous droughts, but it has come on the heels of being wiped out in the 2013 floods so we are financially stretched to breaking-point. There is nothing that can be done for us now. We are gone (off the land). Our business was a multi award-winning stud cattle property that Australia is now the worse off for not having.” Cheryl from Landsborough, QLD
“What I need is a bigger tractor, so I can dig a deeper hole to put dead stock in. What would I like to see done? You cannot print that, I’d be arrested.” Tim from Alice, NSW
“How pathetic it is when we produce enough red meat to feed 1,100 people for a year but earn so little we have to survive on hand-outs.” John Hall from Longreach, QLD
Survival mode
Hand-outs. How degrading for anyone but especially for fiercely independent men and women who have chosen to be self-employed to put food on our table.
What are we people in the city doing to help these people?
About eight years ago I met a remarkable man by the name of Brian Egan. He was a farmer in the 1990s west of Charters Tower in central Queensland until drought got him, both financially and emotionally. The stress followed by depression debilitated him to the point that he lost his speech. He literally could not talk.
Thanks to a good Samaritan taking a personal interest in him he turned the mental corner by setting out to help others. His first action was to mow lawns for free because he did not have to talk.
On regaining his health, he and his wife set up a program called Aussie Helpers. It was a simple plan where he would drive down isolated country roads to remote farmhouses, dragging a trailer full of simple groceries to give to farms as a gesture. A gesture that someone was aware of their plight.
Brian is still a pensioner and still driving down remote roads but Aussie Helpers is a little bigger now. It operates out of Charters Towers and has 40 volunteers. But they still need help.
Can I ask you to click on this link and read their story? You may be able to help. At least give it some thought: Queensland is 86 per cent drought-declared, four weeks before Christmas. And it is not going to get any better anytime soon.
* Main picture by Tahna Jackson, regional manager of AgForce in Longreach, Qld. See story: Drought pushes west Qld producers to exhaustion by James Nason, published in the independent sheep and wool industry publication, Sheep Central, 23 March 2015.
