Australian Farmers Commit Suicide as Hope Evaporates

[nam78_two]

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38589/story.htm

AUSTRALIA: October 20, 2006


SYDNEY - One Australian farmer commits suicide every four days, defeated by the country's worst drought in 100 years which has left them with dust-bowl paddocks and a mountain of debt, says a national mental health body.


As drought rolls into a sixth year, stoic farmers are reduced to tears under the stress of trying to produce a crop and hold onto land sometimes farmed by the same family for generations.
"One male farmer every four days is committing suicide," Jeff Kennett, chairman of beyondblue, said on Thursday.

"My fear is that when under prolonged stress and when they see their assets totally denuded of value, that we will see an increase (in suicides)," Kennett told local radio.

The rate among male farmers and farm workers is more than twice the national average, the NSW Farmers Association says.

The figure is all the more worrying because only about 10 percent of Australia's 20 million population live in rural areas and the number has been declining for years as the rural economy struggles. The vast majority of Australians live in cities.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics suicide report says 2,098 Australians took their lives in 2004.

Crop losses stretch across the country, 92 percent of economically dominant New South Wales state is in drought, and farmers have started off-loading stock before the hot, dry summer when they would be forced to buy feed and water.

With an El Nino weather pattern, which will bring more dry weather and soaring temperatures, now on the horizon and little prospect of rain until early in 2007, rural hope is evaporating like water in Australia's mud-cracked dams and rivers.

Farmers' wives calling talk-back radio in the city describe their husbands' depression at trudging out into their dry paddocks, day after day, knowing they are losing money

[Hav]

1. .

Must be very hard seeing everything you and your ancestors once owned getting destroyed.
Sad that they see no other way to deal with this critical situation.

[demosincebirth]

5. Yeah, but suicide?

I can never understand it unless you're mentally ill.

[Hav]

7. .

I guess it's a combination of some mental issues and of being left alone with great problems.
It's a tragedy when people apparently come to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing left worth living for.

[tularetom]

2. Why is it only the males offing themselves?

Don't the women feel depressed at their prospects also. Are they genetically better able to deal with it than men? Or is it that the men feel they are letting down their fathers, grandfathers, etc, by failing to make a success of farming the land that was left to them, blaming themselves for the drought.

Very sad article.....

[nam78_two]

3. Yeah and its not Australia alone

It seems to be happening in rural areas throughout the world. The consequences of climate change and dwindling natural resources seems to be felt in rural areas first.

[Hav]

6. .

I don't know whether it's true, but I once read that among those committing suicide, there are more males.
A theory was that the reason for that might be that women are more likely to talk about their problems than men.

[Norbu]

4. how about algae feedstock crops?

the lipid oil in algae yields biodiesel (100x more than other kinds of feedstock like soy and corn) or biobutanol to fuel Richard Branson's fleet of airplanes

New Zealand is at the cutting edge of putting algae biofuel technology into practice, and they're right next door

[Massacure]

8. How do you grow algae without water?

[Norbu]

9. billions spent on oil pipelines

even in extreme ocean conditions, and you're asking how to get sea water or sewage water to the desert ..

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Here's how it works ...

As the environment goes to hell, the smallholders of all nations will be forced into bankruptcy, poverty. Many will be driven to suicide.

The prices of agricultural land will plummet. This will probably happen along with a world-wide depression.

Then, a Miraculous Solution will be found. But since only big business (and business-like governments) will have the capital necessary to invest, the takeover of the world's economy will be complete.

Sure, it's my irrational paranoid fantasy, but the "shake-out model" has been working for predatory capitalists and bloodthirsty socialists alike for more than a century.

Solution: techno-peasants with cybernetic pitchforks and ropes. Americans seem to (temporarily) lack the guts for it, but I wouldn't count on the Australians to tolerate neo-liberal Howardism much longer.

--p!
a paleo-liberal ...
"paleo and precious" (after Partridge and Gregory)