`there's More Money In Mud Than Dust'
The Age
Monday July 3, 1995
The emotions of a Mallee town, farmers say, ride on the fortunes of the wheat crop. They have since the region was subdivided in the 1860s, the scrub cleared by heavy rollers and the land turned into the breadbasket of Victoria.
When the crop is down, like last season, the Mallee suffers. Towns like Rainbow, on the margins of the Big Desert, feel the pinch.
Figures released last week show that 55 per cent of Victoria's broadacre wheat farms, most in the Mallee, lost money during 1994-95.
Debts for crop farms in Victoria rose from $79,000 to $94,000 a farm last financial year.
As the money goes, so do jobs and people. It has been that way for the past 25 years, in towns such as Hopetoun, Jeparit and Ouyen.
In Rainbow, 166 students were enrolled at the high school 10 years ago; now there are 114. The football club, the Rainbow Saints, has difficulty fielding a team, let alone winning. It is at the bottom of the Southern Mallee League ladder.
But on the land, farmers have their fingers crossed that things have turned the corner. The best start to the cropping season for more than 10 years has coincided with record wheat prices, helped by a poor North American harvest.
Already, 257 millimetres of rain has fallen around Rainbow; only 171 millimetres fell in the whole of last year. In weeks, the land has turned from parched brown to green.
Asked what it means for farmers, Mr Michael McKenzie, whose family has scratched the Mallee earth for four generations, said: ``There's certainly a lot more money in mud than dust."
He said the season had started with ideal conditions, relieving many fears that northern Victoria was on the brink of a prolonged drought, like that experienced by Queensland and parts of New South Wales.
A local stock agent, Mr Ian Gould, said about 80 per cent of grain growers around Rainbow would borrow to plant crops this season. It's an annual gamble but, he says, judging by the new plantings and ploughed chocolate earth, it looks set to pay off this season.
The favorable weather has coincided with high commodity prices.
Australian Standard White wheat was $195 a tonne yesterday; it has reached that level only twice in the past 25 years.
Mr McKenzie said most farmers were walking around with a smile, but would remain cautious until the wheat was in the silos. ``Nobody's jumping about saying it's going to be a great year. . . but the signs are certainly there," he said.
Many growers, aware of the vagaries of Mallee weather, remain concerned about frosts, hail damage, or a wet harvest. There are three months, they remind themselves, until the wheat shoots turn golden brown.
© 1995 The Age
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