I think what you're looking at here is massively depleted land. I mean I knew that was happening, I knew modern agricultural practises are not sustainable long term but I didn't realise how much impact it has during drought periods - the difference between having native grasses or bare soil in the paddocks is the difference between straight back into production when the rains come or years of recovery. What this guy did after a bad drought in the 80's was sell off half his farm, that got him out of debt and then he bit the bullet and changed the way he did things - this is a family farm, it must have taken a lot to make those changes, and 30 something years on and he has a different landscape to look out on with corridors of native trees (no more locust plagues) and native grasses on a lot more paddock. He has two generations ahead of him keen to keep the farm going. The equation is very good with the good prices on organic produce and the chemicals were 80% of his hard costs. And now he is looking out into his world which is growing more beautiful instead of the aching bare paddocks. So things have turned out well for him but there is also this simple observation of the emotional impact his environment was having on him, how some simple sensible nothing new in it adjustments of how he farmed the land had been able to change it to getting better rather than getting worse, and that was enough to make him feel good again, something echoed through the other farmers interviewed.
I mean I understand these farmers are mere flies on the backs of the giants who stalk the land but it was very nice to see it was happening - vast tracts of pasture and arable land coming back from the brink so strongly.
one man from up North had simply swapped to spraying worm juice and compost from his tractor thingy with the big beams instead of fertiliser and insecticide!
