Shoelaces and supermarkets
There was a piece on the 7.30 report last night about a ‘perfect storm’ facing beef producers in Roma. Until yesterday I didn’t know where Roma was, now I’m looking forward to going there. Roma is about four hours inland from Brisbane, an area that had a couple of good years following the worst Australian drought on record, but that rain has since disappeared.
As part of the project I’m working on I just booked a flight to Roma to interview a farming family later this year. I’m also reading Beyond Reasonable Drought, a book of compelling images that show how tough it was for farmers, graziers and pastoralists during that decade long drought.
It wasn’t that they couldn’t take a bath, wash their cars or water their lawns like the rest of us. Farmers lost livestock, crops were ruined and kitchen gardens destroyed. Orchards were bulldozed for lack of water and properties that had been worked for generations were abandoned.
The far-reaching implications of that drought hit me when I heard a story about shoelaces. My neighbour, Gary, used to be in charge of supplies at one of the mines in Broken Hill and he told me the men started complaining about the laces in their boots. ‘They kept snapping,’ said Gary. ‘They thought I was buying cheap imports but those laces were leather, made in Australia. We worked out it was the drought. The cattle didn’t have enough to eat or drink so their hides were weakened. The leather just snapped.’
In some places drought conditions have returned. Producers in Roma face uncertainty over the live export market, a high Aussie dollar and the sudden return of drought. That ‘perfect storm’ has sent cattle prices plummeting as producers sell off stock they can’t feed at knock down prices before hunkering down to get through a winter that promises to be drier than usual.
I’m humbled by the extraordinary conditions Australian farming families have to live through so I can saunter into a supermarket and pick out a joint of meat for dinner.
4 comments on “Shoelaces and supermarkets”
Leave a Reply to Val Lord Cancel reply
I'm a writer based in Australia with a passion for gardening, remote places and people with a story to tell.
You’ll have to cut down your meat intake Deb!
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Ha ha. Clyde eats enough for both of us!
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Loved your story Deb. We have a property (beef cattle) only about 200kms from Roma. 200kms by Aussie standards is not far. However, we received the rain and the floods and have the food for our cattle..so true the prices we hear are bad! Our thoughts are with the people who are suffering drought everywhere but we have friends in the Roma area. Enjoy your visit to Roma, I look forward to hearing about your trip. BTW, does Jen T. have an email address for you? I still have that vegetarian tart recipe I want to send you, which I meant to do before I left.
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Thanks Val! I didn’t realise you had a property near Roma, glad to hear you had good rains, sounds like there were a couple of good years before it turned dry again, so I might have to revise the blog! Are you in Roma in mid July? That’s when I’m heading up there. It would be great to see you.
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