The season is hotting up for farmers, many of whom are being dealt a double whammy with the dry weather and low stock prices.
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Bill Ferguson, owner of Cumboogle Farming in Dubbo and Trangie, said demand for his lucerne crop would grow as the weather warmed up.
"We are spraying our crops and we are lucky we diversified. When you have the water in a drought it diversifies your income," Mr Ferguson told the Daily Liberal.
He said it was a watch-and-wait scenario going into a dry season. One of his crops at Dubbo was looking like it might fail due to lack of moisture.
"You've just got to watch your crops. Insects are going to attack them, you've got to make decisions as they come, as they forecast. If we see rain come in the next 10 days, decisions will change," he said.
Mr Ferguson said it could be a tough season for farmers with stock and no lucerne.
![Matthew Coddington, owner of Roseville Park Merino Stud in Dubbo. Picture supplied Matthew Coddington, owner of Roseville Park Merino Stud in Dubbo. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/QQwHRnUv9qYdvjDNLdqaup/9bb396c2-2eb1-4ff1-9221-423635c704ce.jpg/r0_0_1114_1144_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"It is a natural cycle we go through and have to deal with. The extremes will get worse and as farmers we need to deal with it and get better at it," he said.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has declared an El Nino, and with it a higher chance of hotter and drier weather than the last few summers.
For Mr Ferguson, too much focus on the drawbacks of dry conditions for farmers can have a detrimental effect on mental health.
"I try not to listen [to too many weather reports]. I think they do more harm than good ... It's really bad for mental health ... " he said.
He continued: "As farmers, we've got to make decisions as we go and we've got to look at the parameters. When people [focus on] El Nino and bushfires, we know that's coming - we've been in the game long enough so we naturally prepare for that. We don't need sensationalism."
He said weather guides should be heeded but catastrophising didn't help.
"When you watch something constantly you think, 'struth, it's never going to rain again'. But a change could come in the next few weeks and drop 50 millimetres of rain and we just don't know," he said.
Mr Ferguson said farmers who had been around a while thought weather moved in cycles.
"After we've had three wets, we'll get a dry time. For how long, we don't know," he said.
While grain prices are "holding up okay", stock prices are down, making it more difficult for stock farmers.
Matthew Coddington of Roseville Park Merino Stud in Dubbo said the upcoming dry cycle was manageable, but the low stock prices would force many farmers to de-stock early and ride it out.
"I've never seen it go from so good to so bad so quickly. We're walking 1994 prices [for stock]," Mr Coddington told the Daily Liberal.
READ ALSO: Hot summer ahead as BoM declares El Nino
"We can handle dry times, everything is cyclical, but this time the prices for stock are so low that people will de-stock early and sit it out."
Mr Coddington said it was "very dry" in Dubbo. His farm needs to receive 560 millimetres of rain and it has only received 277 millimetres so far this year.
Added to this, he said some people weren't getting enough in the saleyards to cover the cost of freight.
"Prices have dropped 76 per cent in the nine months yet supermarkets have only dropped their [meat] prices by four to six per cent so the average Australian consumer is getting ripped off pretty well," he said.
He cited global logistics, not being able to move product onto ships and planes, and staffing shortages in abattoirs and other facilitates, as contributing factors.
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"We can handle dry times. We can't handle the commodity prices where we aren't getting the cost of production back. That will be the difference this dry period," he said.
He added: "I don't know any mixed farming who can make a profit next year."
"The cost of input is gone through he roof due to inflation, yet the prices we are receiving is below production."
He said during the last dry period, sheep were making $330, and now not even $30.
"Back then we were paying $350 per tonne for grain, and we got around $300 for a ewe. Now, we're paying the same for grain, but a ewe is only making $30," he said.
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