The Impact of Highs and Lows- Critical Breaking Point?

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‘Critical Breaking Point? Understanding the impact of drought on farming families in the Wimmera Mallee’ aims to gain a better understanding of how Australian producers and their families are responding to drought and other pressures. Based on in-depth interviews with farming families in the Wimmera Southern Mallee region of north-western Victoria, this research uses an unprecedented longitudinal approach to track the experiences of farming families during a time of severe drought and – it was expected and hoped – a period of drought recovery.

The research is in two phases. Part One interviewed sixty randomly selected farming families during severe drought in February 2007. Part Two involves two follow-up interviews at six monthly intervals (September 2007 and February 2008) with a subset of twenty of the sixty farming families interviewed in Part One. This group represents some of the younger and older families of the original sample, who were selected in order to allow us to further explore some of the particular challenges that farming families at these stages of life are facing.

This report is an Interim Report for Part Two; it reports on the interviews conducted in September 2007. By providing a snapshot of the situation in September 2007, it builds on the understanding we developed in Part One about the issues farming families are facing in a period of great uncertainty and diminished capacity. Like the first round of interviews, it explores immediate and longer-term pressures upon farming families and their decision making around the present and future.

Eight key findings emerged from the interview data:

After a period of hope, stress was rising again in September
  • Following a difficult period of waiting, spirits rose with the Autumn break.
  • Many farming families are now more vulnerable financially than ever.
The threat of further drought is having a significant impact
  • The threat of further losses is causing great anxiety.
  • Most people’s hopes for a redeeming year have been crushed.
Some people are losing faith in nature and farming
  • Disbelief, despair and depression are widespread.
  • People are becoming frustrated with agriculture.
  • There is growing concern about the challenges facing the industry.
  • Defiant optimism is present and encouraged.
Risk has been approached in a wide variety of ways this season
  • Risk-taking and risk-averse strategies to production have been used by different farmers.
  • The cautious approach being encouraged by drought challenges the dominant professional ideal in farming.
  • Decisions around enterprise mix are complicated by assessments of risk.
  • Efforts to adopt on-farm drought proofing measures are limited by a lack of capital.
  • Forward selling has badly impacted some farming families.
Many farming families are looking to increase their off-farm income
  • Many view alternative income as key to “drought proofing”.
  • The time and capital being committed to farming is decreasing.
  • Farming families of all ages are trying to protect themselves with off-farm investments.
People are questioning their plans for the future
  • Professional and personal plans are being postponed and compromised.
  • Virtually all families are questioning the value and possibility of staying in farming.
  • Some people are restricted from leaving by financial and family reasons.
  • Even those deeply committed to farming are questioning its value to them.
The rural community is fatigued and fragmenting
  • Many people are concerned about how others are faring.
  • Issues of rural decline are ongoing and problematic.
  • Fractures are appearing within the farming community.
Assistance has been utilised and is needed
  • Families have benefited from various types of financial assistance
  • Calls were made for further information and improvements to the financial assistance system.

Overall, the interviews suggest that the six months between February and September have involved an exhausting series of highs and lows for farming families in the Wimmera Southern Mallee region and beyond. The interviews capture a period when the growing likelihood of further drought was threatening to derail the renewed efforts and plans of many farming families. They highlight how farming families’ attempts to recover from previous drought conditions require them to cope with additional calls on their reserves as they prepare for production again. It also highlights how they need to cope with the unavoidable lag period that exists between them committing further reserves and receiving the subsequent financial rewards that will help them recover. This process of recommitting and waiting places farming families’ in a vulnerable position long after drought has seemingly disappeared. It also leaves them exposed if drought appears as a possibility again, as in September it seemed to be doing.

2007 was to play a critical role in farming families’ ability and willingness to continue farming and has prompted far-reaching questions about the future. This, combined with the severity of the shock and disappointment that the apparent collapse of the season has entailed, given the hopes that had been pinned to it, has resulted in many farming families seeming to have reached their emotional and financial limits. Indeed, the current intersection of past drought, further drought, hedging disasters and rural decline is seriously challenging some individuals’ whole outlook on life. This observed darkening of their previously optimistic views suggests another avenue through which drought is likely to have a long lasting and profound effect.

Irrespective of how seasonal conditions developed from September on, the interviews suggest that the threat of further drought had already inflicted a serious toll on the farming community. Due to this and the low levels of financial, emotional and social reserves farming families were already operating on prior to the recent dry conditions, the next months will once again form a momentous period. The pressure on decision making already present in February 2007 will continue to mount as we move towards February 2008. Although to date no major decisions about the future have been made by the farming families interviewed in September, the signs suggest that the interviews we conduct as the summer draws to a close will reveal that, unfortunately, some critical breaking points have been reached.

 

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