Famers still suffering from drought

Farmers still suffering from drought


Thursday Jun 21 11:56 AEST
A coastal deluge that flooded parts of NSW this month has brought little relief to drought-stricken inland areas, Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald says.
Average rainfall across almost all of NSW did make a small dent in the area of the state affected by drought, providing some hope for farmers.
Mr Macdonald said the area of the state now affected by drought was 80.3 per cent, down from 83.3 per cent last month.
However, the affected area is still higher than the 78.5 per cent recorded in April.

Mr Macdonald said figures showed 10.4 per cent of the state was considered to be on the borderline of drought, up from 9.8 per cent.
The satisfactory area is 9.3 per cent, up from 6.9 per cent last month.
"There has been a promising start out there for the cropping regime and we've got a large amount of our normal crop already planted but the heavy rainfalls in Sydney have not been replicated west of the divide," Mr Macdonald told reporters.
"We would anticipate if we do get some good rainfall west of the divide we will get a more normal crop yield this year."
Despite record Sydney rainfall in June, major dams in regional NSW such as Wyangala and Burrendong remained as low four per cent capacity, he said.
"This is not a very good situation but we are hopeful that there is a change to the weather pattern," Mr Macdonald said.
"We seem to be heading into a more normal winter phase and this could bring further rainfall to assist those crops through to harvest."