FILE PHOTO -A dead tree lies in a drought-effected paddock on farmer Tom Wollaston’s property located west of the town of Tamworth in New South Wales, Australia, June 2, 2018.
REUTERS/David Gray (For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails IMG, click tmsnrt.rs/2vgh37q) Record-low rainfall in some regions and successive seasons of above-average temperatures have blighted vast tracts of Australia’s grazing and crop land.
While the weather has improved in parts of Western Australia, winter rain has gone missing across much of the country’s east, leaving farmers praying for rain after planting seed in dry soil or culling cattle and sheep they can no longer afford to feed.
New South Wales, which just recorded its fifth-driest July on record, has been hardest hit.
(For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails Vegitation, click tmsnrt.rs/2M04A1k)
(For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails IMG, click tmsnrt.rs/2vi4BE4) Farmers have been shipping in hay from growers in the country’s west or the far north to feed their livestock.
(For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails Root zone soil, click tmsnrt.rs/2M3fQtL) Last year, drought cut Australia’s output to the lowest level in a decade.
This season has got off to an even worse start, with farmers planting in some of the driest soil in years.
(For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails Moisture seasonal chart, click tmsnrt.rs/2M8Gq4Y) Australia’s official forecaster has trimmed its estimate of this year’s wheat crop to 21.9 million tonnes, but warned yields would fall further without rain.
(For graphic on Australia drought thumbnails Deep soil map, click tmsnrt.rs/2M11xpx) The current dry period is not as extensive as the Millennium drought of 1997-2005, which devastated nearly 50 percent of the country’s agricultural land and was associated with two El Nino systems, which bring hot, dry weather to Australia.