Four Australian Farmers Commit Suicide Every Day As Drought Grinds On - Chicago Tribune

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Australia has long been the driest continent, and droughts are anything but unusual. But the one under way is the worst in the country’s 114-year history of record-keeping and, some authorities believe, the worst in a thousand years.

In parts of rural Australia, emaciated cattle and sheep have been turned out to forage on what’s left of dried-up crops. As supplies of irrigation water dry up and legions of farmers haul their animals off to the slaughterhouse, prices for mutton have fallen by 50 percent, and harvests of key crops such as wheat, barley and canola are expected to fall 60 percent this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Debt-strapped farmers are committing suicide at the rate of four a day in the nation, according to Beyond Blue, an Australian organization that deals with depression issues.

Whether the drought is a result of climate change is a matter of debate. Barrie Hunt, a researcher with the government’s science agency, insists that over the past 10,000 years, Australia has seen at least eight long droughts like this one. And El Niño, a cyclical change of Pacific currents now going on near South America, regularly brings Australia dry spells. But the scale of the current drought has pushed Australians to begin making plans for what many believe is a permanently drier future.

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http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/16503631.htm

themselves over drought.