DROUGHT is fuelling an exodus from the bush as a crisis described as the "social equivalent of a bushfire" continues to grip country Victoria.
State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu today met with grain growers in Birchip, in northwest Victoria, where he was told rural communities were in decline and the drought was ripping the soul out of country towns.
Mr Baillieu, who is on a two-day tour of drought ravaged northern Victoria, said Melburnians had no comprehension of the crisis and country people were crying out for critical social support.
"Metropolitan Melburnians have no idea of the depth of the crisis that these communities are facing and they are real human, social crises," he said.
"They're not crises about farms not producing, they're about communities, really struggling communities on their knees and communities facing it with all the stoicism that they're known for.
"I am acutely reminded of the need to tell the stories again to Melburnians that this is the social equivalent of a bushfire."
Mr Baillieu heard from grain growers who spoke of a 35 per cent reduction in rainfall over the past seven years and yields that were down by at least 20 per cent this year.
In Buloke Shire, calls for assistance to St Vincent de Paul's food bank had quadrupled in the last three months to 384.
Birchip Cropping Group chief executive Alexandra Gartmann said the drought was accelerating the exodus out of the country and fracturing communities as some farmers suffered worse than others.
She said towns in the Wimmera-Mallee needed help to prop up services and community organisations that had fallen by the wayside as people focused on saving their livelihoods.
Shops and schools were closing because of a lack of demand and hospital beds were in decline, she said.
"Once you lose that sort of hub it's the ripple effect that other things tend to close with it," Ms Gartmann said.
"The drought exacerbates the trend of moving from rural to metropolitan as our standard of living and our expectations rise.
"That whole trying to create a place where people want to live requires that there is infrastructure and services and an appropriate community and social interaction."
In Robinvale, southeast of Mildura, table grape growers said security of water allocations was their biggest concern as they bought in water to keep their vines alive.
AAP