Last year Bega had just 300 millimetres of rain compared with its annual average of about 900mm and according to agronomist and owner of Bega Agricultural Services, Peter Albramowski, that followed five years of below average rain.

Grazing paddocks were virtually bare and some farmers were carting water for their stock for the first tme.

Zero water allocations from Brogo dam gave producers little choice but to buy in feed, which many had been doing for several years, and for the first time many had ben forced to cart water.

But last week's falls delivered almost as much as all of last year, with many above 100mm. Bega received 166mm in the week to Tuesday morning, and some farms recorded up to 240mm.

"The rain has been sensational," Mr Albramowski said.

"Brogo dam is overflowing and most farm dams are overflowing."

He said Brogo had been below 10 per cent before the rain and authorities had been on the verge of turning it off.

"With this sort of weather the kikuyu is growing six inches (15 centimetres) a day," he said.

"We've got instant feed at the moment. It was incredibly timely. It was our turn."

Bega Cheese chairman, Barry Irvin, said dairy cattle would now be back grazing on pasture for the first time in several months.

"It will take about a week for pastures to get back to where they can be grazed," he said.

"In two or three weeks we will have an abundance of feed and we'll see a whole lot of sowing of oats."

However, he said that despite the extremely dry period the company's suppliers had maintained a stable milk supply throughout the drought.

"They were assisted by the fact that grain and hay prices were a little easier than they had been," he said.

"However we started to see a drop off in milk supply in January."

He expected milk supply would now start to lift again.

More coverage of the week's widespread rainfall in The Land, February 11.