Crunch time for towns as wealth dries up: [1 All-round Country Edition]
John Stapleton, Asa Wahlquist. Weekend Australian; Canberra, A.C.T. [Canberra, A.C.T] 22 Sep 2007: 10.
Abstract
"We haven't had good general rain since 2000," said Mr [Ashley Wielinga]. "This year we are facing a totally failed grain crop. Farmers are putting their stock out on the wheat crops or baling it for hay. We are now heading into a scenario we've never seen before. We have a lot of vacant houses and shops are not trading well.
"There is very little work around. The drought is impacting seriously," she said. "The population is diminishing. People are worried. They're not making any money and are worried about having to put off employees."
Pat Irving, a member of [WARREN]'s Country Womens Association, said the drought was "impacting like mad".
WARREN, in central-western NSW, was once a happy town. Happy and rich.
For more than 100 years Warren was a centre of the merino wool industry and in recent decades benefited from irrigation and advances in dryland farming.
But the town is now in decline, with hundreds of people having left over the past two years.
Almost all of the businesses in the centre of town are struggling.
It is a story that is being played out in once wealthy towns across Australia.
Warren Shire Council general manager Ashley Wielinga said the town had been the vibrant centre of an agricultural-based economy and had weathered many difficulties.
But without a cloud in the sky and widespread failure of the winter wheat crop, along with no water for cotton, this year is proving particularly disastrous.
"We haven't had good general rain since 2000," said Mr Wielinga. "This year we are facing a totally failed grain crop. Farmers are putting their stock out on the wheat crops or baling it for hay. We are now heading into a scenario we've never seen before. We have a lot of vacant houses and shops are not trading well.
"A number are looking at retrenching employees. We are heading into crunch time."
Mr Wielinga said much of the seasonal farm work had been done by contractors or seasonal farm workers, many of whom had been forced to leave town.
Chamber of Commerce head Nancye Marsh said many businesses were suffering.
"There is very little work around. The drought is impacting seriously," she said. "The population is diminishing. People are worried. They're not making any money and are worried about having to put off employees."
Pharmacist Carolina Siufi said people were definitely stressed.
"It is affecting everyone in town," she said.
"You can see people are stressed, depressed. This is a lovely town, a happy town. It is hard to see it so quiet."
Kate Hocking, 67, who was minding her granddaughter's mixed store, Native Nuts Nursery, said: "Just look at the till: that is how bad it is. It is a waste of time opening the door. I have taken $69 for the whole week."
Pat Irving, a member of Warren's Country Womens Association, said the drought was "impacting like mad".
"The younger families are leaving town to get jobs and you aren't going to get them back," she said.
"Warren was a very rich town. Now there are a lot of families with just women and children, because the men have had to go to the major towns for work."
Farmer Greg Whiteley said Warren "has traditionally been lucky, because we have an economic base of dryland agriculture -- a grazing component and an irrigation component".
But the crops failed this year for the fifth year in a row, there's no grass for grazing and there has been no irrigation water for three years.
Farmers planted big on the autumn rains, and the promise of rain, but winter was dry.
"Basically in a line west of the Newell Highway, from Moree through to slightly west of Wagga, that is where the big acres are, that is where the drought was the hardest," Mr Whiteley said.
"This one is going to be pretty difficult to roll over."
ABARE this week halved the outlook for the NSW grain crop.
Nationally, the winter cereal crop has been reduced from 37million tonnes, to 25 million.
Sheep numbers have fallen by 5per cent over the past year. Since the beginning of the 2002-03 drought, sheep numbers have fallen 21per cent. Cattle numbers have also fallen, by 600,000 or 2.1 per cent over the past year.
An unprecedented 23,000 farm families are receiving drought income support, and the federal Government is spending more than $26 million a week to provide it. For the first time, the entire states of NSW and Victoria are eligible for federal drought support.
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