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Hi All,
It's good to know that those that live in the cities and suburbia are at least contemplating and considering rural areas in NSW.
I live in the central west of NSW about 250-odd km west of Sydney and the drought is pretty bad here though other areas are worse off than we are.
I live on just over 10 acres and there currently ageist just four heifers in my back paddock that has three dams. Two of those are bone dry and have been for almost 12 months. The third has some water in it only because a neighbour with a water allocation (who owns the stock) put some in there a few months ago. Nearly all the small farm dams here are dry -- the larger ones are well down. We have had just a little bit of rain over the last couple of months but all up it is less than 30mm. All the grass is either dead or bitten right down to the ground. When the wind blows, we get dust storms (starting to become frequent). The last 12 months have been extremely dry -- less than 200mm of rain here where the average is just over 600mm.
I'm not a primary producer and am in no way *directly* affected, but when drought hits, it hits nearly everyone in the area in the end, not just the farmers (though they are in the worst predicament by some margin). If there's no crops or stock being sold (ie money being made), primary producers can't keep staff on and the money-go-round slows down -- after a while dramatically. As a result, the whole economy slows and goes into a local recession. Retailers feel the pinch and either go out of business or put people off increasing the problem. All the industries associated directly with servicing primary production suffer the same problems. Even if it started raining now, it would probably take two or three years before substantial recovery takes place.
I've done my bit: I bought a new telescope so it would rain but it didn't work.
More seriously, there's not much individuals are even charities can do given the scale and wide-spread nature of this drought. Government has the resources and the organisational capability to make a substantial difference with direct financial assistance to keep the whole money-go-round going but the action taken thus far has been pretty trifling -- I guess there just aren't enough votes in it.
We're all hoping for 3 or 4 big (+50mm) dumps over the next month or so before the weather warms up. If it doesn't happen, things are going to get worse -- for all of us.
Best,
L.
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