This year has already tested Australian farmers in ways few other industries ever experience.
From destructive bushfires in Victoria to widespread flooding in northern, north-west and central Queensland, many producers have faced losses that go beyond balance sheets – their homes, livestock, fences, crops and months – sometimes years – of back-breaking hard work.
Yet, if there is one constant in Australian agriculture, it is the determination to get back up and to keep going. Keep pushing.
In Victoria, farmers walked through blackened paddocks, counting dead stock and rebuilding fences as soon as it was safe.
In Queensland, producers waited for flood waters to recede, then began the arduous task of restoring access, salvaging what they could and planning for the next planting or muster.
The scale of the damage has been huge, but so too has been the response.
What stands out – time and time and time again – is the strength of rural communities. Neighbours arrive with machinery, fencing gear, food and simple offers of help. Local contractors delay their own work to help others. Towns rally with fundraisers and fodder drives, not because they have to but because that is what country people do.
Farmers understand risk more than most. They work with the seasons, knowing that drought, fire and flood are part of the landscape. But acceptance does not mean surrender. It means adapting, rebuilding and pushing forward, even when the task feels overwhelming.
After another month of natural disasters, Australian farmers have again shown that while fire and flood may knock them down, in the immortal words of 1990’s rock band Chumbawamba, “You’re never gonna keep me down“.
– Fiona Gowers
