NSW: Agriculture Minister warns of crunch time for farmers
By Jim Hanna, State Political Correspondent
SYDNEY, Aug 8 AAP - More of NSW slipped back into drought this month with farmers nowfacing very dire consequences if there is no rain during spring, Agriculture MinisterIan Macdonald said today.
"If there's no rain, it will certainly be crunch time this summer - no question whatsoever,"
he told reporters.
Some rain in July allowed crops to be planted south of the Lachlan River, Mr Macdonald said.
"This has meant that a large percentage of our ordinary cropping is actually in the ground now.
"It's crunch time in the next few weeks; they'll need follow-up rains ... to get thesecrops to make the farming community viable this summer."
Mr Macdonald said 89.1 per cent of NSW was in drought at the start of August, up from87.8 per cent in July.
Rainfall had been too light and too infrequent across the state to boost water storage, he said.
"The dams that service regional and rural NSW are at 24 per cent capacity leading upinto the summer period, which could indicate that farmers face very dire circumstances,"
he said.
"We'll have to do a lot more water cartage, production levels will be down and regionaland rural NSW will again have its income slashed."
But opposition agriculture spokesman Duncan Gay said the government had no firm plansfor drought relief beyond 2003.
"These drought figures confirm again that our farmers and farming communities are stilldoing it tough, and the Carr government must now go back to the drawing board and setout a drought relief program that will run into 2004," Mr Gay said.
Twelve per cent of NSW was assessed as marginal, steady with the previous month, andjust 0.2 per cent was considered satisfactory.
Mr Macdonald warned that city residents could feel the effects of a longer droughtwhen they bought their groceries.
"Obviously, if the drought continues and there is a squeeze on production, it's goingto have implications on food prices; those prices could only go up in response to thecontinuing drought."
AAP jph/nf/jnb/de
KEYWORD: DROUGHT NSW NIGHTLEAD
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