While we are all sick of the rain, the big wet is putting local farmers under severe stress that isn’t appreciated by many who are happy to see the fields green after long years of drought.

Cows are getting sick and producing less, crops can’t be sown and unless the sun comes back on a regular basis, things won’t look up until after winter.

“A lot of people are down in production about 25-30%,” says Steven Downes of Waterside dairy farm near Minnamurra Rainforest, who milks about 100 cows.

“The rain is particularly hard on the cattle. They all have soft and sore feet so they’re miserable.

“And the nutrient availability from the grass is just not there because when there’s no sun, the grass isn’t photosynthesising any sugar.

“The grass that is available is basically water and there’s very little energy in it.”

Joe Chittick of Alne Bank dairy farm in Gerringong, who has between 280 and 300 milking cows, says that the rain has not only meant less milk production but also a greater risk of illness.

“It’s very hard on the cows and there’s a decrease in production because obviously happy cows give you more milk,” he says.

“This time of the year we often have an outbreak of the three day sickness [borne by mosquitos], and this year it’s been quite severe.”

Three day sickness (Bovine ephemeral fever) results in symptoms including a high fever, a drop in milk production, lameness, reduced water and food intake and depression.

“In some regards,” Steven says, “all this rain can be worse than a drought because there’s more risk of mastitis and health issues for the cows.

“Even if they just get a break of a few sunny days, it makes a difference.”

The conditions make everything take so much longer to do

The constant wet weather has also meant local dairy farmers have not been able to sow ryegrass to feed their cattle over winter, which Steven says will create extra costs as they will have to buy it from elsewhere.

“It’s ironic we’re almost under drought like conditions and we’re going to have to buy in the vast majority of our feed until spring time,” he says.

While milk prices are relatively high, the lost production and extra costs are taking their toll.

“While we have seen a marked increase in milk prices, a lot of farmers are really feeling it now as we are still suffering from those years when the price was really depressed,” says Joe.

“Milk prices are actually near the highest they’ve been in about twenty years, but if you look at the inflation of everything around us, the record high prices don’t even get us close,” says Steven.

“The supermarkets say ‘that given the inflation and the war we’ve got to put the prices up’, well they’re not sending any of that money back down the line to us.”

In the face of all the extra work and costs, Steven stays resilient, “You’ve just got to find a way to keep going because you don’t have a lot of choice.”

Adam Walmsley of Buena Vista Farm in Gerringong, who has about 75 goats in total and is milking 24 of them this year, says the past three months have been challenging.

“At the moment farming feels like an exercise in resilience because you go from a two to three year drought and then you come out on the other side and you have a really prolonged rain event,” he says.

“For us the biggest challenge has been goat health because goats don’t thrive in really wet conditions so we’ve had to spend a lot of time on hoof care and moving them around. Fortunately they’ve got an indoor barn area where they sleep at night.

Adam at the Kiama Farmers' Market

“We’ve also had to adapt our regenerative farming plan to accommodate wet paddocks that we haven’t been able to use.”

There has also been an economic impact on the Buena Vista Farm with the rain not only causing a decrease in the production of goat’s milk but less agri-tourism income as well as local markets being cancelled, which Adam says is a big part of their business.

“Any time the goats have an indoor day, as much as we feed them, it’s never the same as a full day on pasture, so on an indoor weather day we lose about 20% of our production,” he says.

“Typically that’s the occasional day here and there but when you’ve got prolonged periods when they’re indoors, it’s the additional feed cost and the reduction in yield which is the double whammy from a financial perspective.”

Despite the rain and the costs to keep the farm running, Adam is positive that things will get better in the coming months.

“It’s a challenging period but you’ve just got to work around it. It’s the nature of farming and you’ve got to adapt to what the situation is,” he says.

“If you had a fortnight of clear weather and wind, you’d usually start to see significant improvement in the useability of paddocks but I think it’s going to take longer than that.

“It will probably take a month of normal weather conditions before that subsoil level moisture returns to a normal level where plants can survive and then there’s a chance for oxygen to start permeating the soil so things can get back on an even keel.”

The rain has also affected local growers, Lauren Beresh and James Allen of New Growers Jamberoo, who had to stop growing vegetables in March and are now limited on how much of their plot they can actually use.

“We are only just starting to replant now,” says Lauren.

“While we’ve got close to half an acre of available space, we are only able to grow on a third of that area now because of how wet and waterlogged it’s been.

“It was a pretty big blow for us considering we had only just started having consistent enough produce and developing our customer base.”

“Now we’re gearing up for Spring and Summer,” says James.

“With this style of farming you need to be able to plan a couple of months ahead to be able to plant things so it’s about making a plan that’s achievable and working towards it.”

According to BOM, up until the end of April, Bombo Headland received a total of 1666.2mm which is already more than the 2021 yearly total of 1225.8mm, and even more than the average rainfall of 1053mm.