Farmers Continue To Struggle As NSW Suffers Through Worst Drought On Record

Farmer Johnnie McKeown tries to swipe flies away from his face as more sit on his back on his drought-affected property located on the outskirts of the north-western New South Wales town of Come By Chance, in Australia on October 6, 2019. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has declared the ongoing drought across the Murray Darling Basin to be the worst on record, with current conditions now exceeding the Federation Drought (1895-1903), the WWII drought (1937-1947) and the Millennium drought (1997-2009). The Federal and NSW Governments announced a new drought emergency funding plan on Sunday 13 October, with $1billion to go to water infrastructure for rural and regional communities impacted by the devastating drought in NSW, including a $650m upgrade of Wyangala Dam in the NSW central west and a $480m new Dungowan Dam near Tamworth. However, critics of the plan are calling for more immediate solutions as well as more environmental checks around the dams to ensure they don’t further impact the health of the river systems.