It is customary on looking back at a year to sum it up in a defining word or image.

A hard enough job in any year, but in 2009, such is the state of the world that just about any adjective could describe 2009 – frightening, disturbing, confusing, disconcerting, but also funny, hopeful joyful, peaceful – if you look hard enough.

You want bewildering? Try the global financial crisis or climate change.

You want depressing? Look no further than dairy farming.

You want weird? Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods are your men.

You want all of the above? Try the Liberal Party.

There were plenty of images, too, to define 2009.

Take one of any hundreds of the fire-blackened landscapes from Black Saturday, the charred remains of homes and people kicking through the ashes of their lives. It’s hard to get them out of your mind.

Among the parade of disaster and woe, there were still the odd images of hope.

The picture of separated conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna was one of those. In the midst of seemingly intractable problems, here was one that could be solved with enough goodwill, skill and determination. And so it was.

The outpouring of compassion and the incredible hard work by all concerned to save the lives of two little girls was a sign that there is something right about a world where so much is wrong.

For something closer to the hearts of rural Australians, what better image could there be than the sight of water filling a creek or a lake that had been dry for years?

Drought has become so entrenched in this country that it has sapped the energy and drive of many rural communities. But after a decade of lost hope, something magical happened. In the hardest-hit area of northwest Victoria, dry lakes and creek beds began to fill.

At some point there was even a flood-watch warning for the Wimmera River.

Could it be a mistake? A cruel hoax perhaps? No, the rain was real enough. The water did indeed begin to flow at Dimboola and even on to Jeparit, where it began to empty into Lake Hindmarsh.

It was a similar story elsewhere, with storages across the state receiving a boost.

In the end, there was no flood, no fairytale ending with overflowing reservoirs, but it was enough to lift sagging spirits and hopes that maybe, when it comes to a changing climate, all is not yet lost.

There were more heart-lifting images – waving green fields of wheat and dazzling displays of canola gold.

It was a mixed season for sure: a good early start, followed by the usual late-winter early-spring dry and talk of the bogey man, El Nino, but then a last-minute reprieve with good late spring falls.

And then an early hot spell in November followed just to remind farmers Hughie had not left them entirely off the hook.

In the end it was not a bumper season, but you take what you can get these days and even average is something to write home about.

There were other reasons to be optimistic, with not all the dire expectations of the year coming to fruition.

The swine flu, for one, which initially had us running for the hills in fear of our lives and authorities stopping just short of daubing red crosses on the doors of infected families.

Even the global financial crisis, as bad as it was, did not hurt Australia as much as elsewhere – unless you were a dairy farmer or an investor in the failed managed investment schemes Timbercorp and Great Southern.

Everyone waited for the money men responsible for the global financial mess to be put in stocks and given a public flogging. Instead, governments bailed them out, they rewarded themselves with bonuses and carried on as usual.

No such luck for dairy farmers, whose incomes went from break-even to broke.

In Europe, dairy farmers protested and jumped about, demanding help. Australian dairy farmers just sighed and suffered in silence. Unlike the top end of town, there was no government bailout for them.

It’s strange that, faced with the prospect of world economic collapse, the world’s governments were united, galvanised into action, pumping billions to prop up their economies.

Yet in Copenhagen, they could not do the same thing for the prospect of environmental collapse.

Thank God we had the Liberal Party to take our minds off the serious things.

Watching Utegate unfold and the Liberals pass round the leadership hand grenade was just as much fun as seeing a billionaire golfer cop the rounds of the kitchen.

But ultimately, what defines 2009 is not so much what happened, but what didn’t.

There was little in the way of recognition for what our farmers achieve under the most trying circumstances, little acknowledgment of their role in feeding the world.

There was no Nobel Prize for milking cows, no OBE for bringing fresh vegetables to people’s tables or Hall of Fame nomination for a Mallee wheat grower.

We did not see any grand vision outlined for Australian agriculture, little in the way of rural polices that would help rural communities.

That is unless you count the exclusion of agriculture from Kevin’s emission trading scheme. It was a victory of sorts, but perhaps a little hollow given the ETS looks increasingly unlikely.

More importantly, little was done to equip rural communities to respond to the challenges of climate change. We saw the impact of drought and water buy-backs on irrigation communities such as Deniliquin, Merbein and Finley.

Hundreds of communities like these face huge changes if the climate change scientists prove right.

Will we let them wither and die or help them find a way to re-invent themselves?

People need hope that something will be done. And it will take more than a government stimulus hand out to fix.

What about the wider challenges of corrupt world markets and escalating costs?

The only solution offered is the mantra farmers have heard before. Do it better, be smarter, get more productive.

Oh, and be sustainable while you do it. Can’t have you buggering up the environment as you squeeze more blood out of the stone.

If there was one flicker of recognition for farmers in 2009 it was that the world was at last not taking food for granted.

Worries about the ability of the word to feed itself surfaced this year as concerns grew over population growth, global warming, the loss of farmland to urbanisation, competition from biofuels and shortage of fertilisers.

It would be shame that it would take a calamity such as famine and starvation for people to value the crucial role of farmers.