GRAIN and fruit growers are on the brink of disaster across southeastern Australia.
Rain has decimated many crops through either downgrading the quality of grain and fruit at harvest or hail damage from intense storms.
The emotional and financial toll from this could see farmers walk off the land, it is that serious.
The chances are that as you read this rain will be belting down on your roof.
After years of drought it is still a fantastic sound.
But not in the middle of the grain, fruit and hay harvest.
For grain crops to be harvested they must be bone dry.
If rain hits at the point of harvest, which is occurring now, then the grain will either rot or become unsuitable for human consumption.
And that means little or no income for growers.
It is the same with fruit. Warm, wet weather can lead to fruit splitting and rotting before it can be picked.
It is estimated that up to $2.1 billion has been wiped from grain growers' income in NSW and Queensland. And that is not counting the damage expected across Victoria this week.
Victorian Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh didn't mince words: ``If we get the rain they've forecast on Wednesday (yesterday), then it will be a disaster,'' he told The Weekly Times.
What makes this episode heartbreaking was that growers were on the cusp of their rotten luck finally changing.
After years of few crops because of drought, they were on track for a bumper harvest.
And it was not as if they were looking to make a large profit to splash on new cars or holidays.
But now, as one farm leader described it, they are ``about to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory''.
The focus now turns to governments and the banks.
Pressure is building on the Federal Government to extend its exceptional circumstances spending, switching from drought assistance to rain assistance.
Consider the cruel irony that farmers will go from receiving aid because of a lack of rain to suddenly needing further help because of too much rain.
Even stranger would be a federal government helping West Australian farmers amid their worst drought, and east coast farmers battling a downpour.
As for the banks, there have been a remarkably low number of forced farm sales during the drought, with all the major banks allowing their farm customers to go into debt to stay afloat.
But, as we know with banks, at the end of the day they will want to recoup their losses.
Some banks may have looked at the bumper forecasts for this season and built that into their projected profits.
The logical conclusion would be that farmers may be forced to walk off the land.
Which brings us to the emotional toll of this rain.
There is a view the effect of this rain on some farming families could be greater than years of drought.
To have a record harvest at their fingertips, then to see it wash away, could be diabolical.
How cruel that the rain that was to save them could now devastate them.
- Ed Gannon is editor of The Weekly Times
