The ongoing drought is forcing farmers to make stark decisions about whether to sell their cattle or to hold on, and it's having a knock-on effect on other businesses.
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Lisa Baker from Wauchope Rural Centre, which stocks farm supplies, says she has never seen a worse drought in more than two decades of trading, and the ripple effects are huge.
"Everybody is needing feed because there has been no rain, so there is no feed. So even local farmers, who have been around for decades, are saying it's the worst they have ever been affected," she said.
"Farmers who have never had to buy feed before are having to buy it. They are trying to sell their cattle but there is no money at the sales for them. Prices have dropped really low.
"So a lot of people are in the position of whether they hold on and try to ride it out, or whether they sell and not get any money for their cattle. Some of it is a lot of breeding stock they have had for years, so that's really bad.
"We have managed to keep up the supply of hay but we could get in 200 bales and it's gone that afternoon, it sells that quickly. We have had the shop for 22 years and this is the worst it has been. It affects all different people, like the seed reps coming in. They have not sold any seed because nobody wants to plant anything because there is no rain.
"With fertilizer, it's the same thing. Nobody wants to buy any fertilizer because there is no rain. So it's got a bad flow-on effect that you don't even really think about," she said.
Lisa and her husband, Mark know what it's like to be on the land. They have rural property that rides the weather fluctuations they same way as their customers.
"We know it's tough when there is no rain, and we know that the Australian climate can be heartbreaking. We share those highs and lows with people as they come through our door each and every day," said Lisa, adding that there's also a shortage of horse feed.
"Because we have been around for so long, we have got lots of suppliers so we are sort of hedging our bets between different suppliers. When one runs out, we can still get it from the other. We still manage to get a good stock of everything.
"Our hay guy is going further, though he has managed to keep us up with a good supply. Our prices haven't increased dramatically. The supply part isn't that bad. It just takes a lot of time to find where we can source it from.
"We feel so bad for some of our farmers. For some of them, their cows go down, and they can't get them back up, and they're going to have to shoot them. It's really awful. Some of the cattle are so poor."
Lisa said they had silage bales and a waiting list of 300 people, but could only supply about 80, and they can't grow any more silage until it rains.
"It's a tough old thing at the moment. We sold all our water tanks. We had to buy in more tanks, and more troughs for water. We have just done big orders for all that sort of stuff," she said.
They are also selling huge amounts of molasses and salt blocks to feed cattle, and they're doing their best to keep up the orders.
"The big thing for farmers is making the decision about whether to sell their cattle, or hold on," she added.
Letitia Fitzpatrick
Worked as a journalist and assistant producer for BBC news and current affairs in the UK, Ulster Television, Q Radio and the Irish News in Northern Ireland. Moved to Australia and joined Fairfax Media in 2016. Won a Rotary Paul Harris Fellowship award in 2018 for reporting the Pappinbarra bushfires and the subsequent Rotary appeal which raised $30,000.
Worked as a journalist and assistant producer for BBC news and current affairs in the UK, Ulster Television, Q Radio and the Irish News in Northern Ireland. Moved to Australia and joined Fairfax Media in 2016. Won a Rotary Paul Harris Fellowship award in 2018 for reporting the Pappinbarra bushfires and the subsequent Rotary appeal which raised $30,000.
