THE skies above Dalby have finally opened, but have only dropped enough rain to tease drought-declared farmers.
And the rains did not fall on the parched west where newly-appointed Queensland drought commissioner Vaughan Johnson said the big dry had crippled the bush.
Only generosity from the city had kept some families going and even when the rain comes, the Queensland bush faces years of recovery.
He said the priority was saving what was still alive in paddocks, ready to rebuild.
Mr Bremner said some farmers were being forced to sell up after missing three summer crops in a row, with patchy storms missing their properties and leaving the paddocks too parched.
“We had 7.5mm which was enough to settle the dust but did nothing for our upcoming planting,” Mr Bremner said.
“We plant nine times out of 10.
It is the other end that is the tricky bit.” “You used to think about area-sized storms coming through, a dozen or 20 properties getting a couple of inches of rain.
“The trend for the last few years is we are getting paddock-sized storms, where half the farm will get two inches of rain and the other half will get nothing, or one neighbour will get rain and the other neighbour will get nothing – smaller storms that are more intense.” He said drought declarations had given growers some comfort but the State Government should remove stamp duty from drought insurance like New South Wales and Victoria so farmers could help themselves in tough times, and reduce registration for farm vehicles.
“If you go to the bank and you’re in a drought declared area it gives something for them to take to their credit managers.