This article appeared on the 'AFR' website at just after 1800 hours (AEST) tonight (5 July 2022):

(Further advice from multiple garingrower sources would be good, because sometimes such stories of 'doom and gloom' can be exaggerated. However we city dwellers ought retain an open mind):

NSW floods leave crops unplanted, seeds rotting in the ground
Jul 5, 2022 – 6.14pm

NSW farmers say there is “a disaster unfolding” as the heavy rain flooding the state’s east stop them from sowing broadacre grains such as wheat and canola this season.

Much of what does get in the ground rots before it can grow.

“A lot of farmers” have been able to sow just a quarter or less of their usual winter crops, NSW Farmers grains committee chair Justin Everitt said. The rain is not predicted to significantly ease until after the planting window ends.

The state has been battered by four days of heavy rain that has triggered flooding and has left more than 50,000 residents without power and under evacuation orders and warnings.

Central NSW farmer Chris Groves said waterlogged land meant farmers could not get equipment into paddocks to plant crops and that, even if they did, the wet conditions made growth unlikely. Brent Young

Farmers and industry groups said the damage to cropping added to the strain of rising fuel and fertiliser costs, stymying western and central NSW’s recovery from years of drought followed by 2021’s mice plague.

“There’s a disaster unfolding in NSW in the broadacre cropping country,” central NSW farmer Chris Groves told The Australian Financial Review.

Mr Groves, who grows wheat, canola, fodder crops and prime lambs in a mid-size family farming operation near Cowra, said he had got most of his winter crop in but others had managed just 10 per cent.

He said waterlogged land meant farmers could not get equipment into paddocks to plant crops and that, even if they did, the wet conditions made growth unlikely.

‘The paddocks are a minefield’

“The paddocks are a minefield, whether you get bogged or not, and our sowing machine would be nearly 25 tonnes all up when it’s fully loaded,” he said.

“Then even if you got it in, crops are suffering now with the long periods of overcast and cool weather. They need light to grow and now we’ve also got wet patches in crops that just aren’t growing. The wheat is rotting in the ground.”

Farmer Tom Green, who produces wheat, canola, barley and lupins on 1300 hectares 10 kilometres south-west of Forbes, said he expected damage to 10 to 20 per cent of the crops he had planted before the rain started.

“At the moment, all we can do is hope we don’t have too much damage but we were reasonably lucky and at least got [crops] in the ground, because by the time the land dries out again, it’s going to be too late for the vast majority of people.”

Many farmers in NSW and Queensland have winter crops such as wheat and barley as their only options, as summer crops are not viable without irrigation.

Weather perils

GrainGrowers chairman Brett Hosking said weather perils were “just the nature of farming in Australia” but that the barrage of rain events had left producers tired.

“This last weather front had some growers really struggling. There will be hectares not sown ... probably ranging from central NSW in Forbes and Parkes up to the Queensland border. They’re not large areas, but for those growers affected it would be significant,” he said.

“There’s not much they can do apart from praying for fine weather but [the wet weather’s] been quite pronounced and I think they’re getting a bit tired of it, much like the people in Sydney.”