After a string of record harvests in recent years, farmers across South Australia have been left counting their losses after grappling with devastating weather conditions. As they look ahead to the 2025 season, the emotional and financial fallout of the drought which has plagued every corner of the state is starting to show.
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00:00Long droughts, late rain and cold frost.
00:07Farmers across the state have battled with the uncontrollable
00:11to salvage what they could after one of the most challenging seasons on record.
00:15As drought conditions worsen in parts of the state...
00:18The frost just burns it off, just burns it off.
00:21...are being felt in areas not normally associated with drought...
00:24At least 80% has been destroyed.
00:27A problem so widespread, the state government released
00:31an $18 million relief package for farmers.
00:34We're now seeing drought conditions in South Australia
00:36that haven't been endured for some time.
00:39With harvest wrapping up for the year,
00:41the true damage of these conditions is becoming clear to growers on the ground.
00:45While other states flourish,
00:47South Australia is expecting to see its worst grain harvest in more than a decade
00:52and yields 40% below the five-year average.
00:56In the Riverland and Mallee,
00:58a spell of frost wiped out paddocks of crops overnight.
01:01It was going to be a below-average year anyway with that rainfall,
01:05but, yeah, the frost certainly dampened it even further
01:09and made us pivot a lot.
01:11And the low rainfall in an already dry part of the world
01:14has only made things harder,
01:16with growers keen to leave this year in the past.
01:19Having some different crops in our system
01:21has allowed us to remain slightly more profitable
01:23than perhaps we would have in the past,
01:25but it will take two years or more to recover from this drought.
01:28A strain being felt right across the state.
01:33Despite recent summer rains,
01:35farmers are still facing ongoing challenges in securing feed for livestock.
01:39The Mid-North is battling some of the driest conditions seen since the 1900s,
01:44leaving fifth-generation farmer Alison Henderson
01:47unable to grow enough fodder for her sheep.
01:49This year we haven't been able to make any hay ourselves
01:52and we didn't reap any barley.
01:54We've had to bring that in from Broken Hill and the Eyre Peninsula.
01:57With nothing to eat in the paddocks,
01:59Alison reduced her sheep numbers by more than a third
02:02and turned to hand-feeding the rest to manage valuable supplies of grain and hay.
02:06She's hoping the new year brings with it improved conditions.
02:10The ideal scenario would be for an early break of the season in April
02:16to kick away a good season.
02:19Farmers on the Eyre Peninsula are pushing through
02:22by investing in sustainable farming practices
02:25to future-proof their lives in an unpredictable climate.
02:28After previous years of droughts around the region's east,
02:31growers have been forced to innovate quickly.
02:33But despite their best efforts,
02:35their story this year is similar to the rest.
02:38I don't know that there's much more else that you can do
02:41apart from set it up to be the best possible outcome if you do get rain.
02:47And that's what most people have done.
02:49The lack of rain has seen a downpour of support
02:52as the community rallies to get through the challenging times together.
02:56Because we had a pretty tough one last year,
02:59it's sort of added to that as well.
03:01So there's a fair bit of hurt.
03:07In the usually reliable rainfall region of the southeast,
03:10this year's extraordinary conditions have caused a green drought.
03:14While the region appears green and luscious to the eye,
03:17the soil has often been too dry to be useful.
03:21You don't get enough rain early when the ground's warm
03:24for those plants to bulk up and get feed before winter kicks in.
03:29For Keith farmer Glenn Simpson,
03:31he's expecting to just break even this year.
03:34But he's fearful there's still tough times ahead.
03:37We've had a look over the budget already
03:39because we know things are going to be tight enough
03:42over the next 12, 18 months.
03:44While growers know adverse weather is simply the nature of farming,
03:48they remain determined to fill supermarket shelves.
03:51They'll be looking to the skies in hopes of a better 2025.