The Australian drought continues to worsen, and Australian farmers and ranchers are really feeling the pinch, according to this Reuters report. Farmers have been shooting cattle that they don’t have the ability to feed and the government is encouraging farmers in the drought-stricken southeastern part of the island continent to move to the northern states, where rainfall is actually hitting record levels in some areas.

Scientists say that climate change and global warming are the cause of the shift in rainfall patterns, with the continent as a whole growing hotter and drier. However, water use experts point out that the effects of the drought are being magnified by the heavy development of agriculture in southern Australia – check out this map (about halfway down the page) and you can see that the southeastern farming areas rely on getting every drop of rain that falls there, and in some places actually have to import water from nearby regions in order to irrigate farms and ranches.

Some ranchers are especially aggravated because they’ve spent years or even decades investing in long-term sustainable use for their land, refraining from overgrazing, leaving vegetation in paddock areas, and so forth – all for naught, or so it seems, when the rains just don’t come. Many ranchers are returning to a practice with a long history in Australia – moving stock to what’s called the “Long Paddock”, the roads that wind through the countryside. Dew runs off the roads and creates a tiny greenbelt – not enough to fatten cattle, but enough to keep stock alive for one more day.

Economically, the drought has been devastating for Australian farmers, but not for the country as a whole. Agriculture is still a major part of Australian exports, accounting for about a fifth of total exports, but is only 3% of the gross national product. In addition, farm work has become so highly capitalized in Australia that even major reductions in output due to droughts like this one don’t end up hitting employment figures very hard. Still, this is not a great time to be a farmer in Australia.