The plight of farmers in ravished Australia

Multitude’ of problems 

confronting farmers causing 

‘incredible desperation’

Sky News

This year has been challenging and difficult for many people but none more so than farmers who are trying to rebuild after the worst drought on record, devastating bushfires and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Frontier Services National Director Jannine Jackson told Sky News farmers were struggling financially and emotionally and “giving up”.

“Northern NSW has had some rain, but some of it’s just not enough, we’ve just had farmers in northern NSW who’ve managed to get some crop in which got damaged by the hail,” she said. 

“We’ve got farmers in Queensland who are unable to get parts due to COVID.

“We’ve got people that are actually struggling to do harvests because they can’t get the labour.”

Ms Jackson said there was “incredible desperation” among farmers.

“It almost feels like it’s just one after another,” she said.

“What’s really heartbreaking for farmers is if you can imagine having seven to eight years of drought then having enough rain to actually get a decent harvest then actually not being able to get the harvest off.

“This is going to impact us in terms of our ability to get good fruit and veg, good meat, this isn’t just the farmers.”