00:00Every morning, Ken burks a welcome sight for his Angus cows.
00:08Very hungry. They don't leave anything.
00:11They get a bale of silage and a bale of hay, and there's just nothing left every day.
00:16Since spring, he's had virtually no rain.
00:19There's just no green feed at all.
00:21He's got enough fodder to see him through, but many livestock farmers,
00:25from the Gascoyne to the South West, have run low.
00:29The areas in darkest red show the lowest rainfall on record since August last year,
00:34until the end of March this year.
00:37The cost of hay has skyrocketed.
00:40Just the freight alone from the Wheatbelt to the South Coast.
00:44Per tonne for Lake Grace, you're probably looking around about $140 a tonne.
00:50The square bales now, to land in Denmark, you're looking at $500 a tonne.
00:54Just the normal beef farmer, he can't afford that.
00:58There's no way in the world that'll just break him.
01:01Either that or he's got to sell all his stock.
01:03Everything in here's got to go.
01:05Farmers are making heart-breaking decisions.
01:08What they can't feed is being sold off, and prices are at rock bottom.
01:14We're in a situation there is nowhere to go.
01:17There's some orders coming out of the east that's certainly helping,
01:22but, yeah, it's a proper tricky situation at the moment.
01:26If they can't sell animals, then they do have to sometimes make tough decisions,
01:30and that does include sometimes euthanasia in animals.
01:33And I know this causes mental health concerns for farming families across the state.
01:38The Minister has asked a taskforce to urgently provide her with advice
01:43as to how to help farmers through the crisis.
01:47But at this stage, there's no timeline nor deadline
01:51as to when the taskforce will deliver its findings.
01:54Yeah, if they can subsidise transport to get it to some of these farmers
01:57that are really struggling, that would be a fantastic option.
01:59Southwest Cattle Farmers will hold a crisis meeting in Yornup on Wednesday.
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