“This is a disaster,” 84-year-old farmer Peter Bowling says quietly, shaking his head as he steers his buggy over a scrubby dune.
“I’ve sown this paddock three times,” he says.
He’s on the edge of his sweeping property on the southernmost tip of King Island, north-west of Tasmania.
The sky is blue, the sand is white, and the ocean is crystal clear — but the seaside pasture in front of him is bare.
The island, which produces more than 20 per cent of the state’s beef, has been going through its worst drought in living memory.
Since winter last year, it has only received a fifth of the rainfall it normally does.
Mr Bowling has never seen it like this.
His family has lived, loved, and farmed a patch of land halfway between Tasmania and Victoria for more than 100 years.
A rough track cuts through the edge of his property, where kelp carters in old utes rattle up and down, harvesting the giant bull kelp that washes up on the beach.
That same seaweed has been keeping his cows alive.
“It’s the kelp that saved us,” Mr Bowling says.
“We’ve got about 13 kilometres of beachfront. Kelp is very good for them.”
Even so, Mr Bowling is hesitant to allow photos of his “skinny” cows.
Like many others on the island, he’s had to get rid of hundreds of extra cows this year because of a lack of grass, sending them for early slaughter.
He looks at an empty dam, eyeing the deep cracks scarring the ground as he drives past.
“It’s not just the weather, it’s the wallabies. They eat all the green,” he says.
Across the island, locals talk of the extraordinary spike in roadkill this year.
They say the wallabies made a beeline for the last patches of green over the summer — narrow strips on the edges of the roads from when the small amount of rainfall ran off the tarmac and pooled at the edges.
“Water’s a big problem, we’ve had pumps broken down, and the excavator cleaning out four waterholes this week,” Mr Bowling says.
A mental and financial blow
Simon and Adrian Vellekoop usually run about 2,000 cattle on their property on the northern half of the island.
This year they have sold off 500-600 cattle earlier than normal.
Among those, for the first time, were hundreds of weaners — young cattle, weaned from their mothers, who would normally stay on the farm to be fattened up for selling next year.
“That’s next year’s income,” Simon says.
“It’s probably only 25 per cent of our income that we’re going to get,” Adrian says.
“It’s a huge hit for next year.”
Adrian Vellekoop frowns as he drives through a paddock of bulls.
“Some of them look fine, you can see,” he says, pointing to some of the sturdier cattle before turning his attention to those with bones poking out.
“It’s not their fault. There are some more decisions to be made here.”
The Vellekoop brothers are careful to emphasise that they are by no means the “worst off” on the island.
“We’ve still got a bit of hay and silage, because we always did make a lot … but a lot of that’s disappeared,” Simon says.
Community bands together as island prepares for the worst
The stress and extremity of the situation have not been easy for the community.
Deb Delaney is the newly appointed drought coordinator for King Island, working full time for Tasmania’s peak farm advocacy body, TasFarmers.
Ms Delaney spends hours visiting farmers all over the island, working out what support they need and giving them a chance to share their fears.
She finds it hard to describe the scale of what she’s seeing.
“It’s absolutely massive … We’re finding that people need to just talk and to be able to share that load.
“Farm visits can take anywhere from an hour to three hours.”
For the Vellekoops and many others, a recent sprinkling of rain has brought some mental relief.
“Every night you go to bed and all you’re thinking about is where am I going to put those cows, where am I going to put those cattle?” Adrian says.
“I’ve sort of got over that a bit but … there’s still not a lot there to eat, I can assure you of that. But it is green, so I’m sure that helps the old brain box a bit.”
About 700 tonnes of fodder donated by the Lions’ Need for Feed charity and shipped over from Victoria last weekend has added a much-needed boost to morale on the island.
But, as the weather cools down, so does any chance of grass growth.
Neighbours have been quick to pitch in, gifting unused water to those in need, and donating small amounts of fodder where they can.
Ms Delaney says most farmers have destocked what they can, but, if conditions worsen over winter, the only option left is to start getting rid of pregnant mothers.
“It’s going to be a bumpy ride, no matter whether we get rain or not,” she warns.
“It’s a matter of how we come together as an island.”
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