While regional Australia once famously rode on the sheep's back it is now living on the edge. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size It's 5.45am in Casino, just over an hour's drive inland from Byron Bay in northern NSW, and the smoke from weeks of bushfires lingers, casting a gloomy haze over the sunrise. The early shift at the town's meat works has filed in and the piercing noise of an electric hand saw cutting its way through carcass after carcass drowns out the Monday morning chatter. The Northern Co-operative Meat Company is the town's biggest private employer with 1000 people - 10 per cent of Casino's population - relying on a constant flow of cattle to make ends meet. The company has turned around a torrid previous year where it posted a $7 million loss following a fall in the international hide market and a temporary loss of access to the lucrative Chinese market. Boning room workers at the Northern Co-operative Meat Company abattoir in Casino. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Last month it announced a $2.3 million profit, cashing in on a hungry and growing Asian middle class and drought conditions locally as farmers made the call to offload their stock with access to feed drying up and farm debt rising ahead of a forecast scorching summer. While regional Australia once famously rode on the sheep's back, it is now living on the edge. One town clings on against the odds and another slowly declines. Fortunes can change in the blink of an eye - a decent drop of rain here, a trade dispute there - but many communities are at a tipping point.


Loading "We have friends moving away. Businesses in town are struggling, cutting staff or not paying overtime anymore," says Bec Reardon, who farms sheep and a variety of crops on more than 4000 hectares near Moree with husband Dan. "Bit by bit the community is losing something. Even things like the kids' sporting teams don't have the numbers anymore." "Lairdoo", their farm 20 kilometres east of Moree, hasn't been this dry in nearly 90 years. The Reardons' crops have failed three seasons running but their 1500 ewes survive in the dust. "We've always prepared for bad times. You know they come but you can't feed into oblivion. Something has to give," Dan Reardon says. "I'd say 95 per cent of Moree's population is affected in some way. I can't imagine anyone from here is going on a flash holiday this year." Collectively, despite making up just 30 per cent of the national workforce, Australia's regions account for around 40 per cent of annual economic output. A dry dam at Rebecca and Dan Reardon's property Lairdoo, near Moree. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen But the ongoing drought across the eastern states will be responsible for an estimated 5 per cent decline in farm production to $59 billion this year - the lowest recorded since the Millennium Drought. Farm export earnings are forecast to fall by 11 per cent to $44 billion.


The economic blow from the big dry jumped the farm gate long ago and is now smashing the small businesses in regional towns throughout the supply chain. Town water supplies across the state are running low, irrigation allocations are next to nothing and the anger over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has compounded with growing anger towards governments. McGregor Gourlay Agricultural Services has 13 outlets throughout northern NSW and south-east Queensland, employing 120 staff. In October, one by one, they were told that to ensure the business could make it through the drought the majority of staff would have to move to a four-day week and take a 20 per cent pay cut. Josh McGregor, the century-old firm's managing director who delivered the news to staff, has taken the pay cut too. McGregor Gourlay branch manager Mick Jensen in the company's warehouse in Moree. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Branch manager Mick Jensen says the thought of rain gets everyone through but it will take more than a good year to get communities back on track. "It's all everyone talks about from first thing in the morning to the last thing at night. We just live it now," he says. But relief for small businesses has come from social media's "buy from the bush" campaign.


Dibs Cush runs Robin's Nest, a boutique toy store in Moree, and embraced online sales four years ago. "The drought first hit hard on retail about 18 months ago. People just stopped spending money. Employees were laid off and people moved away," she says. "But the past six weeks or so, through this campaign, my sales have doubled or tripled. It's been the most incredible phenomenon." Cush says it won't replace a good drop of rain but it has ensured many stores in town keep their heads above water and the bills paid. Moree toy shop owner Dibs Cush has seen her online sales grow thanks to the 'Buy from the Bush' campaign. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Even in the usually lush dairy farming valleys of Goolmangar, an hour and a bit up the road from Casino between Nimbin and Lismore, the green paddocks have disappeared, creeks have dried up and life is at a crossroads. Leigh Shearman, a third-generation farmer, is gradually reducing the size of her herd, now at 220 cows, as pasture all but disappears. She cannot remember a time where anyone was reliant on buying hay. Now she's spending $19,000 a week trucking it in from South Australia. 'You try and stay positive': Goolmangar dairy farmer Leigh Shearman. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "You try and stay positive but I really worry about the young ones," Shearman says. "They're taking on more and more debt just to survive. I just wonder how sustainable it is ... and once they get out of farming they're not going to come back."


Shearman only has a couple of days' feed left and is hoping the next load arrives in time. Trucks along the Pacific Highway have been diverted for weeks because of the bushfires. No feed, even for a day, lowers the amount of milk she can send to Norco, the dairy co-operative she sits on the board of, and in turn means she'll have less money to pay the bills. Frequent rainfall is critical for this region, which cannot rely on irrigation. But the farm dams are empty. "People are running out of water," she says. "Lismore floods - in 2017 this place was under water. You've got to let farmers do more with that water when it comes, we need better infrastructure and more help to do that." Tenterfield, a community of about 4000, is unsure how far its water supplies will go, despite the discovery of two new underground sources in October. A new level 4.7 water restriction was imposed earlier this month to manage the town's dwindling supply. Elaine Maguire at the Tenterfield Saddler museum. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen As store owners gather in Tenterfield's High Street they wonder what will be sacrificed if restrictions go to the next level. Elaine Maguire has lived in the town just south of the Queensland border for 48 years and has "never seen it as bad as this". Two years ago she began volunteering at Tenterfield Saddler, a private museum that attracts tourists from around the world courtesy of the town's famous son, the late Peter Allen. The red leather shoes he wore in his last Australian performance take pride of place in the window. Last year more than 9000 people pottered through the old store, which proudly displays saddles made by Allen's grandfather George Woolnough, the subject of his iconic ballad. In recent weeks visitor levels have struggled to reach double figures.

Advertisement