Farmers in parts of the NSW far north coast still recovering from last year’s catastrophic floods are now facing drought conditions.

While 99 per cent of the state is not in drought, it is a different picture in the Clarence, Richmond and Tweed Valleys, and part of Lismore local government area.

Large portions of those areas have been declared drought-affected by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), with South Casino in drought.

With little rainfall over the past few months, the DPI’s agricultural climatologist Anthony Clark said the conditions were intensifying.

“It’s one of those things, it’s [not] driven by a big climate driver, just the vagaries of our regional climate,” he said.

“[They] probably missed out on coastal rainfall in autumn, and that’s really set the dry cycle going up there.

“Winter time is the usual winter feed gap, not much going on in terms of moisture and production up there anyway, but certainly you’d call it a failed autumn in parts of the north coast.

Mr Clark said the failure of autumn rain to materialise had led to pasture growth plummeting.

“That combination of higher temperatures and low moisture and drying things out unseasonably at time when we wanted a bit of growth, that we usually get ahead of winter, just didn’t happen in the far north coast,” he said.

Mr Clark said with the El Niño alert, the outlook was not promising for the region’s farmers who were already feeling the impact.

“It’s reasonably certain that El Niño is forming on the Pacific Ocean that generally leads to drier conditions and higher probability of below average rainfall, right across south-eastern Australia, including the north coast,” he said.

Farmers making tough decisions

With the outlook for an El Niño looking more likely, livestock producers are adjusting stocking rates and looking at their feed availability to get through winter and spring.

North Coast Local Land Services livestock officer Nathan Jennings said producers would need to make decisions to manage their businesses in the months ahead.

“Some people that were fortunate enough to have captured isolated showers here and there have some standing dry feed, but for the best part our pasture levels would be well below where they normally would be for this time of year.”

Frost has also taken a toll on pastures, reducing both growth and quality.

“While frosts aren’t overly common on the north coast, we do definitely still experience them, I’d say this year, we’ve probably had the most sort of consecutive frost in May, June, that we’ve had for many years now,” he said.

Some cattle producers have already started supplementary feeding.

“We’re really encouraging producers to take a current assessment of their situation, you know, paddock feed, finances, stock on hand, and then embarking on a feeding program.

“Really sit down and cost out how long and how many cattle they think they could be feeding.

“Because if spring remains dry, or trends the way the BOM’s suggesting it will, feeding could be something that begins to takes us towards Christmas unfortunately.”

While there isn’t a shortage of local fodder, Mr Jennings said quality was an issue.

“After last year’s very wet conditions, it was a very challenging hay or silage making season so everyone’s done their best to produce and make the best they could,” he said.