Here Comes The Water Train

Considering much of NSW and Queensland in still in drought, it's surprising that more isolated outback towns haven't been forced to truck or train in their water supplies :

An outback Queensland town is preparing to transport in drinking water by rail as a drought sucks the last of its dams dry.

The first water tanker could arrive in the northwest town of Cloncurry, population 2400, as early as next week.

There are plans to rail up to 12 million litres of potable water to the town, between Mount Isa and Townsville, which has watched helplessly as its supplies have dried up.

160,000 litres of water a day will arrive by rail, from Mount Isa.

What happens if Mt Isa dries up too?

Southern Australia Drought Now Worst On Record

It's Not Just The Longest Drought, It's Also The Hottest

Melbourne Suffers As South Australia Dries Up

Water Civil War?

How desperate will state governments become, and how far will they go, when their cities become truly dry? Obviously the idea of a civil war breaking out over fresh water flows is ridiculous. For now. But another decade of drought might change all that. The driest country in the world can still become even drier, especially when you remember that Australia's population is expected to increase by another five million people by 2020.

I'm still undecided on whether South Australian premier Mike Rann is ranting like a loon, in this story, or if he's right on the money. Regardless, it's truly bizarre to hear an Australian premier accuse another state of terrorism :

...Rann says the diversion of water from the Paroo River in Queensland is an act of terrorism during a water crisis.

The river runs from south-west Queensland to north-western New South Wales.

In 2003 the two states agreed to protect it from dams, weirs and irrigators but satellite images of the river show 10 kilometres of channels and a dam have been built.

Mr Rann has described it as a criminal act.

"That is an act of terrorism against the nation, it's terrorism from within during a water crisis," he said.

"So my view is that anybody and I don't care who they are or how big they are or how important they are, if they're diverting water illegally they should be locked up, it should be a criminal offence."

Soon enough, it probably will be.

Extended Drought Shuts Down World's Largest Cattle Station

The drought that won't end continues to wreak economic destruction, and is now so severe in parts of South Australia that desert trees are dying :

Anna Creek station, which is bigger than Israel, encompasses 9,267 square miles of scrub, sand dunes and savannah in the Outback of South Australia.

It is normally capable of supporting 16,000 cattle but the "Big Dry" – the worst drought in a century – has exhausted the land, forcing the herd to be whittled down to less than 2,000.

This is only the third time the ranch has been cleared of cattle since it was established more than a century ago.

"Since the European settlement of this part of Australia, we've only experienced these conditions twice before.

We've had four years of below average rainfall, and last year and the first six months of this year have been particularly savage," said Greg Campbell, managing director of Kidman, which was founded by cattle baron Sir Sidney Kidman in 1899.

"The drought is very severe. Before the weekend, when there were a few millimetres of rain, Anna Creek hadn't had rain since December."

The extreme lack of rain has killed off some of the Outback's hardiest tree species and is even threatening the survival of mulga and bluebush, tough shrubs which can withstand all but the worst dry spells.

The station's managers must now simply sit tight and wait for a decent fall of rain – whenever that might be.

"It's a boom and bust environment," said Mr Omond. "It will come back to life eventually. No drought lasts forever."

Let's hope not.

Australian Scientists Warn Global Food Shortages More Vital Battle Than Fighting Global Warming

How's your food stockpiling going? Think of it as an investment. $500 worth of 'long-life' food will probably be worth about $1000 this time next year :

A worsening global food shortage is a problem far more urgent than climate change, top Australian scientists have warned.

The Australian Science Media Centre briefing heard why prices for some staple foods had risen by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, and how dramatic price rises are expected to sweep across all staples in the near future.

Executive director of the Australian Farm Institute Mick Keogh said dairy products, grain and poultry had seen the strongest price rises in recent months.

Beef and lamb were forecast to follow, with nationwide livestock shortages taking the average price for a cow from $700 a head 12 months ago to $1400 a head going into autumn.

Key speaker at the national science briefing Professor Julian Cribb said the security of our food supply is "the global scientific challenge of our time".

The problem was more urgent even than climate change, said Professor Cribb, from the University of Technology in Sydney, because it will get us first . . . through famine and war.

"By 2050 we will have to feed the equivalent of 13 billion people at today's levels of nutrition," he said.

"This situation brings with it the very real possibility of regional and global instability. Investment in global food stability is now defence spending and requires proportionate priority."

Global grain stocks have fallen to their lowest level since record-keeping began in 1960, while Australia's sheep flock is at its lowest since the mid-1920s, with about 86 million.

The days of cheap food now look to be well and truly over. More from Mr Keogh :

Australian consumers are facing another sharp rise in meat, dairy and bread prices, stretching budgets already under pressure from rising mortgages, rents and petrol.

According to the Australian Farm Institute, meat prices could surge by 15 per cent or more in the next few months.

Institute executive director Mick Keogh said the rain now bringing relief from the drought would result in a shortage of livestock available for meat production.

"Typically what happens going in to a drought is that farmers sell off any stock they can to avoid having to feed those stock through the drought," Mr Keogh said.

"Then at the end of the drought, a lot of farmers go into the re-stocking phase."

Mr Keogh said the increased competition to buy livestock for re-stocking had already seen big increases in prices at saleyards in NSW, and the same could be expected in Queensland soon.

He said that would quickly flow through to supermarket meat prices.

"I think most people would suggest a 10 or 15 per cent increase wouldn't be surprising at all. In fact, you would think it would be likely to be more than that over the next couple of months," he said.

Mr Keogh also predicted consumers would be paying more this year for dairy products and bread, due to increasing costs.

Prices had already risen about 30 per cent over the past six to eight months.

The price of wheat reached its highest-ever level on international commodity markets in August and has jumped about 70 per cent in 18 months, with world stocks at a 26-year low.

Bread, milk, beef : three of the hardest food sources to grow in your own backyard. Unless your backyard is a farm.

City dwellers are really going to miss the loss of all those urban market gardens and small dairies.

Australia's Driest City Comes Back From The Brink

Great news from Goulburn, as the rains fill the city's vastly depleted dam and the locals are freed from the harshest water restrictions faced by any city dwellers in Australia.

The dam was down to 14% capacity earlier in the year, but the rains began to fall in June and water restrictions started to be eased back in July. The rains have kept falling and now the Level Five Restrictions have been wound back to Level Three.

Goulburn's water restrictions became infamous when we learned that many showered surrounded by buckets to collect every splash, so they could try and keep their gardens and lawns alive.

But the ultra-tight water restrictions have had an interesting effect on Goulburnians. Even though they don't have to conserve every spare drop of water like they once did, the years of restrictions have ingrained a conservatism when it comes to water that will delay the day, if the regular rains fade away again, when they have to go back to Level Five once more.

Goulburnians are using less water than they did before the drought hit their city, and the water they do use, they are using more effectively :

For three years, Goulburn in southern NSW endured the tightest water restrictions in the country. But as rains continue to bring relief to swathes of eastern Australia, the town's dams are more than half full, kids are playing on the ovals again and the deputy mayor even has his vegetable garden growing again.

Under Level 5 restrictions, residents were allowed only 150litres a person a day, but they were so water conscious many cut their use to closer to 100 litres a person a day.

Under Level 3 restrictions, residents are allowed to water for an hour a day by hose, and there is no limit on watering cans.

Sally Nelson, from Goulburn's Gehl Garden Centre, said the business had had a good spring. Townspeople had stopped buying plants during the severe water restrictions, she said, but after the June rain they began to garden again, opting first for vegetable and annual flower seedlings.

Playing fields that were rock hard and closed at the height of the drought are now green and in use again. (The mayor) Mr Sullivan pointed out the local racecourse and soccer fields were being watered with recycled water, and there were plans to increase recycled water use on all sports fields.

Goulburn's water supplies are now at 60%. There were predictions earlier this year they would run out of water completely by May, 2008.

By the time the next drought arrives, if it actually does, Goulburn should have a new pipeline in place, but even then they won't use as much water as they did before the drought began in 2004.

These are lessons in water conservation that are, and have been learned, in towns and cities all over Australia in the past few years.

For the world's driest country, these are lessons we probably should have learned a long time ago.

July 2007 : The Skies Finally Open Over Australia's 'City Of Drought'

Australia Loses Half Its Wheat Crop To Drought



How would Australians cope if such a staple food source as bread rose to $8 or $10 a loaf?

I'm not talking a handmade rye sourdough, but your basic white or wholemeal loaf of bread. With warnings of further inflation to come, and the stunning news that Australia's projected wheat crops for 2007 are down by almost 50%, a $10 loaf of bread might not be such an unthinkable reality in a few years time. If the drought continues, and there's not many climatologists or scientists out there claiming its going to end any time soon. In fact, it's more than likely to get worse.

The problem with wheat shortages, or vastly more expensive wheat, is how those costs soak into the price of nearly everything in your fridge, from milk, yogurt and ice cream, to steak and eggs.

More here :

Wheat is a hardy plant. But without essential follow-up rains the crops were devastated. The country's official forecaster has now slashed the year's wheat production from the 22.5 million tonnes projected in June to 12.7 million tonnes.

In a further blow to farmers, the optimistic start to the season meant many sold their projected wheat crops on the futures market for the security of a fixed price.

When the crops failed, they were left without the means to pay back the advance. To make matters worse, they have to repay it based on the current wheat price, which has skyrocketed given global shortages.

"There are blokes that owe a million bucks and they've got no crops," Duncan Lander said.

The wheat price advance deal discussed above is stunning, and clearly someone is making huge profits off it, but it's not the Australian farmers.

Here's how it works. Say you're a wheat farmer who did it tough last year, and the year before, after years of drought and huge financial losses. Your family's under pressure, your mates are taking their own lives and your local town is breaking apart as more and more people walk off their farms, sell up and head to the cities, or to the mines, to find work.

Earlier this year, you get some rain, and there's talk that there will be more rain to come. Probably.

You take the gamble. You'll give your wheat farm one more season. You decide to sell the wheat crop you're about to put in for, say, $260 a tonne. You score an advance on that crop, at $260 a tonne. You'll owe the bank, or an international wheat broker, a decent amount when you harvest that crop, with all the interest, but you figure you'll make some money. You might not get too far head of the debts from the previous three or five years worth of losses, but it will be a step back onto the road towards something close to prosperity.

You get the advance, you put the crop in, the rain keeps falling, your fields start to turn green. There's money coming in from the government as well, to help people cope with 'The Rural Crisis', so you start thinking about buying that new farming equipment you should have brought a few years back.When you drive to the bank to talk about about a loan for new machinery, the roads are flooded. You laugh.

But then, a few weeks after you walked through those green fields of young wheat, the rain stops falling. The heat hits. In ten days your crop is dead.

But there is still more pain to come, because the wheat crop failures, and shortages, are now worldwide. So the price per tonne is rising, as the second half of 2007 unfolds. $280 a tonne. $320 a tonne. $360 a tonne. $400 a tonne.

You don't have a crop, so you can't cash in on a 12 month 40% increase in the price of wheat anyway. If you'd been flush, or flush enough, and not needed to borrow so big, and if you'd put that crop in and if the rains had kept falling...if, if, if...

But you don't have a crop and now have to pay out that loan. That $260 a tonne advance for a crop now worth $400 a tonne. You know farmers in other states who put in crops and got the rain they needed. But like you, they pre-sold their wheat crops for $260 a tonne. They harvested their crop, they sold it, but they didn't get rich. They barely broke even. But the international broker who lent them the money made $140 a tonne profit in just a few months.

Mind-boggling.

Between 50% and 60% of all the land in Australia that was farmed for food - for wheat, for sugar, for fruit, for vegetables - in the late 1990s is now ravaged by drought. Wheat crops died, and now fruit trees are being bulldozed because no rain means those farmers can't afford to pay the increased prices for water access.

It's mind-boggling to even think about, let alone live. Which is why so many people in Australia's cities have such a hard time getting their heads around what is going on 'out there.' There are more farmers blowing their brains out in their sheds today than there are leaning on a fence, tilting back their hat and admiring the sunset.

What happens to a country when half of its primary food production capability is lost?

What happens when it loses 70% or 80%?

The drought continues...

Drought Causing Long Term Price Rises For Food

January 2007 : Monster Floods Bring Smiles To Drought Devastated Country Towns

The Skies Have Opened, And The 'City Of Drought' Eases Back Water Restrictions

Many residents of Goulburn, in the NSW southern highlands, used to shower with buckets around their feet to collect every spare drop of precious water. Water was precious they weren't allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens.

For more than two years, Goulburn was the largest 'dry' town in Australia, and the savage drought that almost emptied local dams looked like it was never going to end. Lawns turned to dust, gardens died and people all over the country saw in Goulburn a dawning reality that they feared they would soon have to deal with themselves, in their own towns and cities.

But the skies have opened up over Goulburn and the primary dam for the city's water supply is now more than 50% full, after a low of a mere 12% capacity.

Goulburn residents may not be dancing in the streets, but they are watering their gardens.

In a number of interviews with locals aired on television and radio today and tonight, Goulburn residents talked about how they would never take water for granted again, and how the drought and increasingly harsh water restrictions had changed their lives.

Many seemed to think the changes are for the better.

They said they had learned that water could not be wasted, and some shook their heads in disbelief at how, years before, they had treated water as a commodity that would never run out.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The NSW southern highlands city, which had come to symbolise the plight of the state's drought-stricken rural areas, will go from level 5 to level 3 water restrictions following June's heavy rain.

But one nursery owner said it wouldn't make much difference to his business as most residents had already adapted to the dry conditions.

"When it first started [in 2002], well, you could stand in the store and there would be no one around,'' said Shane Nelson, 42, who owns the Gehl Garden Centre & Wholesale Nursery in Goulburn.

"As time has progressed people have actually seemed to have adapted pretty well to the restrictions. People started adjusting to the conditions and got water-tanks on their houses, used grey or bore water. We definitely diversified ourselves into other things like garden furniture and pots.''

Mr Nelson said the restrictions had meant his customers moved towards plants that were less thirsty and more able to cope with the dry conditions.

"Roses have done very well as they actually seem to thrive a lot better in the dry conditions,'' he said. "They are very disease and pest-prone in moisture.

Plants such as camellias and rhododendrons, which favour moist positions, are not as popular now, Mr Nelson said.

"I talk to customers now and they use more water than they've ever done because of their tank supply,'' he said. "The first couple of years of the restrictions, if I could have picked up my plants and left, I would have. But soon we were holding our own.''

After strong June rains Goulburn's dam levels more than quadrupled, with one of its storages spilling over for the first time in six years.

Major Australian City Running Out Of Drinking Water

Vegetable Crops Destroyed By Drought, Production To Drop By Two-Thirds

The primary dam supplying the majority of Melbourne's drinking water is only weeks away from draining down to a level regarded as critical.

Within a year, and without heavy rains, the Thomson dam is expected to be dry.

The Victorian government is weathering a storm of criticism for relying on rain falls that are clearly not guaranteed to occur.

But extremely low levels of fresh water are not only the problem with the dam. According to this story in the Melbourne Age, "equipment needed to pump the dead water from the dam is not ready, meaning Melbourne could face a water crisis in quality and quantity...."

At the same time as harsh water restrictions are expected to become a reality across the state, more than half the dam's water washes down river to meet irrigation demands.

The claims are made by former Melbourne Water hydrologist Geoff Crapper and engineer Ron Sutherland. Their latest predictions follow their forecasts about the Thomson dam last year, which contradicted Melbourne Water's projections but were later proven true.

"The Government is taking a punt on the weather to solve the crisis … while an outrageous amount of water is being wasted every day," Mr Crapper said.

Also from The Age :

Water supplies in Melbourne's main dam are set to fall below 20 per cent for the first time.

Rural water levels have fallen to 25 per cent, with paddocks turning to dust in parts of the state, a separate Government report shows.

Melbourne storage levels are estimated to fall by an average of 0.5 per cent a week.

The water restrictions due to come into effect within weeks are referred to as 'Stage 4' and will see Melbourne residents banned (under threat of heavy fines) from watering gardens and lawns and they will also not be allowed to use fresh water to wash their cars, except "car windows, mirrors and lights".

Rural farmers are facing a drought unlike anything in living memory. Production of vegetable crops is predicted to fall by two-thirds in the coming months.

The city of Melbourne could realistically be facing severe water and fresh food shortages by the end of 2007.

Monster Floods Bring Smiles To Drought-Devastated Country Towns

Priorities Sorted - "We Won't Run Out Of Beer"

Australian farmers and the residents of dozens of outback towns across three states, have been praying for some decent rain for years. The drought has been the worst in recorded history.

In some towns, those prayers for rain have gone unanswered for five long years.

But in the last week, dozens of outback towns had their dreams come true.

They got their rains. But they got a few years worth in only a couple of days.

That's when the floods begin...

From abc.net.au :

While most of the country is in drought, floodwaters now cover large parts of northern and central Australia after heavy rainfall in the past week.

It is expected the floodwaters will reach Lake Eyre for the first time in years.

The rains have brought relief to struggling cattle stations and outback communities, though they now face weeks of isolation.

Bedourie, in south-west Queensland, promotes itself as a gateway to the Simpson Desert but it is difficult to spot the sand hills for the water at the moment.

It started with a downpour last weekend and since then, 250 millimetres of rain has fallen.

The downpour has broken all records and left part of the town flooded.

But no-one is complaining. Residents, like former station hand Jodie Girdler, are rejoicing in the boost the flood will give to the region's cattle.

"Cruise around town - you look at all the water around and you think, 'They're going to be putting out some good cattle soon and bringing some good money into the country,'" she said.

To the south, Birdsville has also been left isolated, as the Diamantina River spreads its banks across the Queensland-South Australian border.

Birdsville Hotel publican Kim Fort says his famous pub has seldom been quieter but he is taking no chances.

"We've got enough supplies at the moment and if it's here for four weeks, we'll boat some across," he said.

"We won't run out of beer."

As Birdsville is reconnected to the world, waterholes are expected to be topped up all the way to Lake Eyre, brimming with native fish and attracting huge flocks of birds.

The cities may be running out of water, but for now, a string of outback towns that were as dry as the desert sand have their water supplies taken care of.

Small Town Runs Out Of Water As Scientist Warns Drought Could Become "More Acute"

Tankers Haul In Emergency Water Supplies

Wallabaddah is a small town in northern New South Wales which now portents a terrifying new reality for drought-devastated Australia. The town's water reservoir has run dry. The town of 300 has, literally, run out of water.

The only steady supply of fresh water for most of the town's residents is from the tankers now hauling in supplies.

This is going to get expensive.

From ABC News, Australia :

The Liverpool Plains Shire Council says the water reservoir in Wallabaddah became empty at lunchtime after the town well, serving about 300 residents, failed.

Council acting general manager Bob Stewart says the town has recently been looking for other sources of water because the well's levels were so low but the situation has now become critical.

"I've just ordered the carting of water at the moment to fill the reservoirs and we've replaced immediate level seven water restrictions, which basically bans all external use of water."

Australia's drought could become even more acute :

A stronger Asian monsoon could bring harsher drought to Australia, a new study by Dr. Mike Gagan, a palaeoclimatologist with the Australian National University has revealed.

Dr. Gagan and his team looked at how drought in Australia is affected by an El Niño-like climate engine in the Indian Ocean called the Indian Ocean Dipole.

They found that a strong Indian Ocean Dipole involved a cooling of the eastern Indian Ocean, which in turn caused changes in weather patterns that decreases the amount of rain coming from the west to Indonesia and the south of Australia.

... a strong South Asian monsoon could drive winter rain-bearing winds towards the Southern Ocean, missing mainland Australia altogether.

"Over the years, everybody's been looking at the El Niño-Southern Oscillation as the driver of drought in Australia. It turns out that a lot of our drought is caused by changes in the Indian Ocean," said Dr. Gagan in his study published in the journal Nature.

Another town, Woy Woy, on Australia's east coast has water reserves down to only 14% capacity. Ironically, Woy Woy means "much water" in the language of the original Aboriginal inhabitants of the area :

Summer vacationers have arrived to find beachside showers turned off, and the lawns of rental houses are crispy brown because of a ban on watering. Local authorities have handed out four-minute shower timers and low-flow shower heads to every household, and most people now shower with an array of buckets underfoot to catch the precious “gray” water, the only thing that can be used to wet gardens or wash cars

Australia's Dwindling Fresh Water Supply Is Now A "National Emergency"

Lethal Snakes Move Into The Suburbs In Search Of Water

Crippling Drought In South Australia, Now Widespread Flooding After Huge Rains

AUSTRALIANS TOLD TO GET USED TO ONLY THREE SHOWERS A WEEK

60 SECONDS IS "IDEAL LENGTH" FOR A SHOWER

Australia is suffering through the worst drought on record, and numerous towns and cities are close to running out of fresh water.

Outside of the towns and cities in the upper Northern Territory and far north Queensland that is, where rainfalls of two to three metres a year are not exceptional.

But for massive sprawls of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, water restrictions and recycling measures are set to become the year round norm.

One proposed solution to stopping the waste of fresh water pouring down the drain is an effort to convince Australians they have to cut back on their showers.

A dermatologist has claimed that daily showers are luxuries we can no longer afford, and that we can get by with only three or less a week, with a duration of only 60 seconds or so.

The national average time for the daily shower is supposed to be seven minutes. An average family is estimated to "waste" some 60,000 litres of water each year, straight down the drain.

The Victorian government is planning an awareness campaign to get people to cut their shower times in half.

Another awareness campaign.

Don't smoke, don't drink and drive, don't speed, don't eat shit food, get more exercise, remember to vote, don't run down motorcyclists who get in your way, be nice to old people, don't abuse alcohol, eat more vegetables, don't abuse drugs, watch your cholestorol, watch out for arse cancer.

For fuck's sake, Get Off Our Backs!

Whatever happened to towing icebergs in from the Antartic? Massive ice shelves are supposed to be breaking up, huge bergs drifting into shipping lanes. Lasoo some of those ice blocks and bring them to the coastlines and carve those suckers up.

The 'three-showers-a-week' dermatologist also suggested we could get by with no showers at all.

He clearly has not been stuck on a crowded city locked in a traffic jam in the peak of a deodorant destroying summer heat wave.

No showers at all?

What are we supposed to do to keep clean then?

Get the dog to lick our armpits until they're sweat-free? Bathe only in the ocean and get used to living with a salt-encrusted exterior? Carry a bar of soap at all times and quickly strip off in the street at the first sight of a rain cloud?

We could always go back to the pre-World War II bath-only days, I suppose, which Elton John (I think) once likened to "sitting around in a tepid pool of your own filth."

Of course, some tepid pools are filfthier than others.

From TheAge.com.au :

Dr Stephen Schumack of the Australasian College of Dermatologists, says..."I always tell people 'God did not give us caves with hot running water'.

"So from the purely anthropological view, we weren't meant to have showers or wash our skin. It's really only been in the past two generations — the past 50 years — that people have been having regular showers.

"Up until the 1950s, bathrooms were not common and people would have a weekly rinse in the tub in front of the fire. So the skin is fine without having a shower in most circumstances."

Dr Schumack notes that from "a medical point of view" there is really no need to have a shower longer than 60 seconds.

"I used to advise my patients to keep their showers to two or three minutes, but 60 seconds is the ideal. You can do everything that needs to be done in that time."

Everything? For some people, the shower is the only privacy they get all day.

This doctor is captain fun-kill. Not only does he favour no showers, he insists that if you are so rampantly tempted to stand under flowing water in the privacy of your own home, you should try and take cold showers.

He doesn't see a need see a need for a full-body soaping either.

"You really only need to use soap where you produce body odour — only the armpits and the groin. You shouldn't soap the rest of your skin."

Yeah, he's right. Why bother washing your feet?

Or your arse for that matter?

A good long, hot shower is apparently our "national obsession".

Maybe, but only if you can see the cricket on the tele from under that hot torrent of water.

"....they've become a national obsession in very recent times," says Professor McCalman.

"If you went back before World War II, there were a lot of people in Melbourne who didn't have a shower at all. They washed only under a tap in the back garden. We probably wash too much: a lot of doctors would say that we do. It's not necessarily good for the skin. The thing about showering is that a lot of people find it relaxing, rather than cleansing."

Right. Who needs to relax?

Washing off the daily scum under piping hot sprays of water was not the done thing five or six decades ago. And it was a concept beyond all comprehension in the 19th century.

The Professor claimed that a century ago, "a lot of people in Europe" made do with only two good washes in the course of their whole lifetime. At birth and at death.

He also had some cruel and nasty things to say about Melbournians.

"There were still a lot of very dirty people in Melbourne into the 1930s and into the 1940s because they didn't have a bathroom or a change of underwear."

Some things never change.

The Shocking Truth About The Big Dry's Impact On Australia's Farmers And The Economy - Food Crops Disappearing, Gardens Dying Out, Almost Two Thirds Of Wheat Crops Failed, 72,ooo Farmers On Welfare & Subsidies, Grocery Prices Climbing Steadily