EARLY morning clouds that build up then blow away have been taunting Flinders beef producer Rob Atkinson and his neighbours as they shake the dust out of their rain gauges at the end of a very dry wet season.
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Mr Atkinson, his wife Donna and son John, who run a commercial operation and Glen Ruth Droughtmaster stud at Katandra, 100km south of Hughenden, have measured only 40.4mm of rain this year and have begun an early weaning program along with supplementary feeding of cows and calves.
"If this was the 7th of October, this would be a lot more palatable, but to be talking about this on the 7th of April is very concerning," Mr Atkinson said.
"At this time of year you'd like to think you were right for a while."
The Atkinsons are among many northern producers staring down the barrel of increased financial burdens and the loss of years of work through forced sales as rain continues to elude large parts of Queensland and northern Australia.
A rain influence over the Top End around Easter caused localised flooding and road closures on the Stuart Highway but didn't venture down as far as the Barkley Tablelands or into Queensland.
Stock agents have confirmed that the flow of cattle from these areas remains unchecked, with very large yardings once again at all Queensland saleyards this week.
Destocking is one option being employed by the Atkinsons as their situation worsens with each passing week.
"Any passengers and dry cattle, older steers and the like, have been the first to go," Mr Atkinson said.
"Under current market conditions, people are trying to preserve their breeding animals, especially younger breeders." He was aware of others in the district who had already sold more than 80 percent of their herd.
"There are definitely people who are worse off than us. We know of several producers who slipped in early and sold the majority of their herd. I suppose being drier meant they had to pull the trigger earlier." He also blamed extreme heat through much of January for des-troying what pasture there was.
He has been feeding urea-based supplements since the end of January and is now in the process of weaning everything down to 50kg in order to feed his cows separately to the calves.
"It's a case of weighing up our options now we can either lease, agist or buy grass as our next move."
The increasingly dire situation for producers is complicated by a lack of agistment options as those with grass chose to buy cattle for their own operations as prices dip lower each week.
Mr Atkinson said another issue was a meatworks backlog with Townsville backed up through to June or July. Elders Blackall manager Ben Pelizzari said only four commission buyers were operating at western sales. "When they run out of orders, I hate to think what will happen to prices," he said. People were ringing him daily trying to buy grass.
Mr Atkinson said hay had also been hard to source. "Lots of things have been making this situation more difficult. The level of debt in the beef industry is greater than at any time in our recent history, and none of this is helped by the live export problems or the BJD outbreak."
"Any producer with movement restrictions is facing even more problems."
Immediate impacts of the ongoing dry will be budget blowouts, with average prices for livestock less than budgeted for and supplementary feed bills greater than planned.
Rob said that in the longer term there would be a fall in pregnancy rates which would hurt the hip pocket.
The only positive he could see was low interest rates.
"Most of us were carrying extra cattle after the run of good seasons, but we didn't expect the tap to turn off like this," he said.
"We just have to try and manage what we've got in front of us."
