ACT region farmers forced to sell stock as they struggle with dry and warm autumn conditions

Australia Broadcast Center

20-05-2025

Farming can be a rocky business, and 2025 has not been kind to Tony Butler.
His paddocks are parched and his sheep are hungry.
"My wife and I arrived here seven years ago, three years into the last big drought, and this is certainly worse than that," he said.
His property outside Yass, an hour from Canberra, keeps missing out on rain.
"For the last couple of months, we've had 40 to 50mm promised by the Bureau [of Meteorology] and we've got nothing," Mr Butler said.
No grass on the ground means his merino flocks need to be fed by hand — an expensive and arduous job that takes up to five hours every second day.
To survive, he is getting rid of stock.
"We've sold off probably 800 so far, and we've got another 350 being looked at on Friday," he said.
"It's pretty tough, because we're selling them at a time when it's not the best time to sell.
Unusually dry and warm conditions have been taking a toll on farmers across the ACT region.
While the area is not officially drought-declared, Australian National University (ANU) climatologist Janette Lindesay said rainfall had been well below average since the start of the year.
"If we look at just March, April, May — the autumn season — the average is 137mm at the Canberra Airport weather station, and we've had 96mm so far, so we're well behind," she said.
Patchy falls mean many farmers have recorded significantly less.
If trends continue, Ms Lindesay said the ACT could also be on a path to have its hottest May on record.
For cattle farmer Marcus Truman, conditions are the toughest they have been in 20 years at his Uriarra property on the ACT's western outskirts.
"It's a pretty grim scene here, not just here but all of southern Australia given the very poor spring and autumn we had," Mr Truman said.
He usually fills his hay shed in December to see him through winter.
Having to handfeed his cattle means he is already down to his last bales.
"I'm expecting two more semi truckloads in the next couple of weeks, which we'll need because there's nothing for the cows to eat," he said.
He said producers in Queensland and northern New South Wales were buying up cattle after the floods, which meant graziers could sell for a good price.
It is a silver lining in an otherwise bleak year.
"Everyone back in the city goes, it's a dry weekend, let's go and have fun … but we'd love to see some rain," he said.
"Even if the rain comes now, the temperatures have dropped in the last couple of days that there's a chance there would be no grass growth anyway as the soil cools down.
"You never say no to rain … but it's come so late that it doesn't really help us."