Adelaide facing driest 15-month spell since records began in 1839

ABC NEWS (Australia)

South Australian farmers and landowners are desperate for rain, as drought conditions hamper the state. The SA government recently announced millions of dollars in drought relief, but farmer Aliesha Richards says more support is needed.

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00:00it's pretty dry there's not even weeds growing there's no feed for sheep and we should be

00:07lambing well anytime now there's that yeah some farmers have already started lambing and we're

00:14normally one of the very last uh because of the drought for at least the last five years

00:21um yeah we've put the lambing back later and later and later hoping for a bit of a shower

00:27and a bit of grass to grow to lamb onto and we still have nothing definitely blessed to have had

00:33aussie hay runners come and give us some hay last year um we're at the end of that now and the hay

00:41prices are absolutely crazy the farmers they're meant to be sowing crops at the moment and um

00:49looking at long-range long-range forecast some farmers aren't sure whether they should even

00:55put any in some people are dry seeding in hope it is gonna rain um but yeah if farmers aren't even

01:02going to put in crops then that's more money they're not going to have and they're still in

01:09debt for the last few years so they're not going to be spending anything locally or anywhere we

01:15definitely definitely definitely need help um the problem is i spoke to a few farmers around here

01:22and it's it's autumn what they're offering with grants and funding um but there's some farmers that have

01:30looked into it and they don't even have a spare couple of grand to even access the funding because

01:37there's a two-tier system and you can you've got to either be able to pay 50 or you can get 50 back

01:45or 75 back of um whatever you're purchasing but they don't have the spare cash to even access that

01:54it's it's really scary they're already maxed out at the bank and they can't access anymore so it's

02:01getting pretty scary

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