“It’s been a very tough year up in the Gums” - Farmers organise hay run for others while in drought themselves

The farmers from the south of the State are intrinsically linked with those of the north, not only through a passion for life on the land, but the hardships it can bring. In the past 18 months, the State has spent more than $3.3 million carting emergency water for livestock, since the first of an unprecedented 12 WA areas — 11 of which are still active — were declared water-deficient. And some of the growers volunteering their time and hay to the latest Farmers Across Borders run are from such areas. The same weeks Salmon Gums farmers Sam and Darren Starcevich organised the “Love Run” and Carnarvon drop, back home the last of their Merino flock were loaded onto trucks and driven away. Water has been carted to the area, declared water-deficient last March, for more than two years. Even the quarry dried up. It brought tears to charity president Mrs Starcevich’s eyes thinking about it. The property has been in her husband’s family for five generations. Once they get another wool clip off their last dry ewes in about six weeks, it will be the first time the property has been without sheep. “There’s hardly any stock left (in the area),” she said. “It’s tough and I’m really sad getting rid of the sheep. It’s the end of an era and they’re all going.” It comes after an “extremely tight” 2020 season following 2019’s “shocker”, which saw them lose 95 per cent of their crops to frost. “We have actually got some water in some dams at the moment,” she said. “On one of the properties, we’re certainly getting it and as you go further east, we’re getting less — I think we got 35mm at our house but our son only got 1mm at his place. Hopefully that’s going to change and we’ll get it all over and the whole district’s going to get it, because it’s pretty sad.” A decade ago, after three dry years, Ross Stone — the charity’s chair and head driver — was given the heart-wrenching news that he and his family had to leave their mixed sheep and cropping farm in Quairading. “It had been in the family 100 years that year,” he said. Mr Stone said the impact was “immense”, and anything he could do to help others going through similar situations, he would. “Like Darren and Sam, a lot of the people in here, we’ve got farmers that suffer from drought in Esperance, we’ve got some farmers in Esperance that suffer from the wet, which is just as bad. So everybody that’s in here is hurting some way and just wants to help.”