While local farmers are still holding out hope for late rainfall in the next month, they are preparing for the impacts of drought.
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The end of March saw the Riverina at the ‘drought onset’ and ‘drought watch, negative trend,’ stage and April has yet to provide relief in the form of rain.
Matt Vincent, a local farmer based at Borambola and Junee, said while lack of rainfall is a concern, he is still holding out hope.
“I’ve seen it break later than this before, it’s definitely dry but I wouldn’t say it it’s too late,” he said.
Mr Vincent, however, is taking cautionary measures to prepare for the worst such as not using pre-emergents in early crops over concerns they may have to resow.
“In terms of livestock numbers we are culling and everything that is not up to scratch is gone,” he said.
While optimistic, Mr Vincent is aware of the realities of the situation and the effect a continued lack of rain will have not only for him personally, but for the wider region.
“On one property at Junee, we are nearly out of stock water now so we’ll either have to sell sheep or move them to another place,” he said.
“Then there’s a lack of feed for the dairy farms and higher grain prices, it’s a flow and effect really.
“There’s a lot of livestock being sold due to there being no feed and in terms of crops, the later it gets, the less canola that goes in and yields go down.”
Alan Brown, chairman of Wagga’s NSW Farmers Association branch, said April is always an unreliable month for rain and quoted an old saying.
“‘If you go into April dry you’ll come out dry’ and that’s exactly what has happened,” he said.
“People are hoping for May rain and hopefully we can get some rain soon.
“What we need is the winter pattern which is fronts coming through for seven days.”
The sowing window begins to close if the region has not seen rain well into May because it makes it difficult to grow longer-season crops, Mr Brown explained.
“Everyone is waiting and hoping, it’s tough and the pressure is on,” he said.
”There is a silver lining because the cotton crops are in full swing because they have a nice dry harvest.
“One man’s poison is another man’s wine.”
The NSW Combined Drought Indicator has the majority of NSW classified under ‘drought watch’ or ‘drought onset’ conditions.