Honestly, who'd be a farmer?

This week it was announced by the Federal Government, after the failure of good winter rains, that they would be providing financial assistance to farmers who, after ten years of drought, want to leave the land.

Also this week, it was announced by an agricultural supplier that they expected much higher returns to farmers, especially those with grain and biofuel crops.

What would you do, toss the coin one more time, or get out?

I suppose if you read the report of more frequent catastrophic fire events in Melbourne every two to five years by 2050, and that Mildura in 40 years time will experience this fire weather every year, that could just about make up your mind. Though predictions of fire every two to five years are probably incorrect. If the long term drying out of Australia is to continue, when a fire burns through an area, unless there are some follow up rains after the event, which is looking increasingly unlikely, there won't be much growth to fuel another fire for a long time.

One thing's for sure, less rain equals higher food prices. Another thing to note is that less farmers equals higher food prices too. It will be millions of years before our northward continental drift rights things. With months of torrential rains in normally dry parts of Africa and increased drought elsewhere, it looks like sceptics of climate change might become thin on the ground. Whether or not mankind has caused it though, we need to either find a way to fix it or learn to adapt to our new climate.

I know where my money is.