THE drought is broken. In NSW, farmers are preparing to harvest their largest crop - a record $2.8 billion winter yield, based on government figures obtained exclusively by the Herald.
NSW has had the wettest season in five years, according to the Bureau of Meteorology; in some areas of the state, the wettest in a decade.
''At the moment it's a golden situation for our farmers; the drought is behind them,'' the Minister for Primary Industries, Steve Whan, said yesterday. ''Now they want to harvest this bumper crop and get on with business.''
Record crop plantings are expected to produce a 12 million tonne yield, based on figures from the Department of Industry and Investment. The figures show 2.95 million hectares of wheat under cultivation in NSW - a crop worth $1.8 billion, its value increased by the drought crippling Russia. There are 316,500 hectares of canola, flowering in great yellow fields, another 782,000 hectares of barley and 337,000 more of chickpea.
''It's just the perfect season,'' Dan Cooper, a wheat and canola farmer from out past Cowra, said of a crop he reckons could make him $2.5 million. ''I was speaking to an older local guy last week. He was saying things are turning - the drought's behind us. It's definitely got a different feel than it did for the past 10 years. Every time they predict rain, it rains.''
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation report was released by the Bureau of Meteorology yesterday. Its modelling suggests the La Nina event, which brought the rain, will continue into the next year.
The negative Indian Ocean Dipole, which generates moisture, will hold until at least the end of this year.
Only 7.1 per cent of the state remains drought-declared. ''There is still a way to go before the harvest is complete [but] this has been the best start for the winter crop in years,'' Mr Whan said.
''Locust, fungal diseases and waterlogging are the risks still facing farmers this season - but these challenges are less daunting than those posed by the lengthy drought.'' Even the NSW Farmers Association is the most optimistic it has been in a decade.
''It could be [the drought's end]. But we won't know until we get to the … end of December and look back and say that was the beginning of the end of the drought,'' the association's president, Charlie Armstrong, said. ''People are beginning to see a future and are feeling a bit more buoyant and are feeling better than they have in maybe 10 years.''
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