Growing numbers of farmers face homelessness and the loss of their livelihoods as parts of Queensland and New South Wales enter their fourth year of drought, financial counsellors warn.

The Department of Agriculture-funded Rural Financial Counselling Service (RFCS) provides free assistance to farmers burdened by economic hardship.

Its south-west Queensland chair Karen Tully said the biggest challenge her office faced was helping farmers who are battling drought to handle their debts.

"The biggest need by hours — so the hours that our financial counsellors are putting in the most work with — is debt mediation," she said.

"This is where people have squeezed profitability circumstances, which at the moment is predominantly drought, and they are having to prepare for conversations with the banks."

When forced off the land, the primary producers find that although they may still be farmers at heart, they no longer qualify as such on paper. Therefore drought support funding ceases.

With that in mind, Ms Tully anticipates the number of farmers hitting roadblocks with banks is yet to peak.

"Once the drought is over... I believe financiers will honour the contract that they have signed with the primary producer and that may see increased people having to make decisions," she said.

The gruelling situation is evident in Regional Farm Debt report, published by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The number of northern Queensland beef farmers with loans more than 90 days in arrears rose from 23 to 43 between 2012 and 2014, while in north-west New South Wales the amount of all agribusiness lenders doubled, from 12 to 25.

A Department of Agriculture spokesperson told the ABC the Federal Government had "assistance available to help people during difficult times in their life by providing counselling, support and information".

But farmers say the support is inadequate and difficult to access, often leaving them to fend for themselves.

From running a property to homeless, living on the dole

Former grazier and father of two Lee Wallace lost two of his Charters Towers cattle properties through bank foreclosure last year.

Left homeless, his family lived with neighbours for six months.

Mr Wallace is now back on the property he once ran and called a home, but this time as a farm hand, working in return for accommodation.

It was his sister who bought his foreclosed property "out of a good heart".

"She's got cattle on the property that I'm looking after for her because she gave us a home, and I just work for her for letting me stay in the house," he said.

With a roof over his head, but no reliable income, Mr Wallace and his partner depend on Centrelink payments to survive.

"We're both on the dole at the present moment, because it's a little bit hard when you're trying to look after two kids who are going to school," he said.

"I've never been on the dole before. I never thought I would ever be on the dole."

While it was his sister and neighbour who came to his rescue, Mr Wallace said he has not received sufficient government assistance since being forced off his land.

"From the public I've got full support but from the government bodies I haven't got any support, as in help," he said.

"But I'm lucky that I've been working closely with the [Bob] Katter party and they've been very, very supportive."

Families walk off 'in the middle of night'

Cate Stuart from Charleville in south-west Queensland was escorted off her cattle station after she lost it to drought, and in effect to the bank in 2014.

Ms Stuart told the ABC she knew of "many" families who could relate to Mr Wallace.

"I know one family that walked off on the 30th of June this year. Literally packed up and walked off," she said.

"But they're not alone, many families just pack up and walk off in the middle of the night. We are the unspoken-about homeless of the outback."

Ms Stuart resorted to living in an emergency housing, saying she was lucky her family did not have to live in other graziers' sheds or camp along the river.

"We were fortunate we got the last emergency housing. There were nine [of us] in a two-bedroom house," she said.

"Alternatively, other people had offered us accommodation in the shearers' quarters: roll out a swag and put down on the river and take over their shearing sheds and things like that, but that is not fair to them as well."

Ms Stuart, who described her own eviction as "humiliating and degrading", said there were "too many deaths because there's no-one there to help".

"Some people come out of it fine. However, there's too many that are slipping through and have the battle of their lives," she said.

Cate Stuart (second left) is taking photos before being escorted off her property. ( Supplied )

Displaced status limits job prospects

The situation is even more arduous because farmers face the double-whammy of losing their livelihood as well as home.

Claire Priestley has attempted to find work on and off since 2013 when her financier foreclosed on the Carinda beef cattle, cotton and wheat farm in New South Wales that she inherited with her brother.

"[Our bank] refused to finance cotton when it hit $1,000 a bale and we could have traded out of debt and rather they chose to send us broke," she said.

With "literally no money", Ms Priestley unsuccessfully tried to find work at the local council.

"I'm a farmer. It's very hard to just go from that to applying for jobs at the council and other jobs because, I don't know, I haven't got any work experience," she said.

"Plus, I don't think it helps when you say that you've been kicked off your farm.

"I think that is definitely going against me because you're viewed as incapable or a loser."

Ms Priestley said there was "a lot of assistance for drought and flood victims", but displaced farmers often felt they were forgotten about.

"There's always assistance for farmers who are going through drought and that's great, I'm not anti that, that's fantastic — but what about the ones who have been kicked out on their arse? There is nothing," she said.

Claire Priestley (right) was evicted in 2013 when a bank foreclosed on her property ( Supplied: Jarek Gasiorek )

'It comes down to being strong in mind'

The ongoing drought has taken the final toll on some farmers, leading them to vow not to invest in another property again.

Former beef cattle and cane farmer Raymond Porter's education was cut short at 13 when he was taken out of school to help out at the farm.

The north Queensland man, who has lost two farms to financial difficulties, said "the gap is too far" to finance another agribusiness.

He now stays at other graziers', doing contract fencing and truck driving.

"You can sit and dwell or you can move on, work out what you're going to do. For me it was easier to go into contracting," he said.

"It comes down to being very, very strong in the mind. It's mindset. I don't get depressed. I just go harder."

Countless hours of driving through Queensland have taken Mr Porter to areas where people are struggling with extreme drought. He is doubtful whether many of them are ever going to recover.

A Canberra University research that studied 625 farmers who have quit farming since 1960s found that two-thirds of them have left in the past 15 years.