The plight of our farmers is devastating. Suicide rates amongst males in rural areas is higher than in the USA and Canada.

A friend at work – she comes from Walgett – North Western NSW – talked to me a few days ago about the rate of suicides in the country areas of Australia and I was shocked.   

Although I realise that the drought is bad and has been for a number of years, I guess I didn’t really think about how bad it really is.  We complain in Sydney, as an example, about the fact that we have water restrictions and that the price of food has escalated.  But I realise now that what we are complaining about in the city is nothing compared with what the farmers have to contend with day in and day out.  And without the farmers there would be NO food, NO milk, with all of us relying on what we could bring in from overseas to feed the ravenous millions.

Watching your cattle and sheep die must be horrendous, and having to sell off whatever you can for a pittance, heartbreaking.  The loss of a harvest that you have waited for and tended for months, and then not being able to even plant a crop because there is no water.  I heard recently about how expensive fertilizers are now.  It is a never-ending battle with no income to pay for anything.  Until I researched the statistics on suicide in rural Australia I gave no thought to the fact that the drought was pushing people to the edge and that many were jumping off for whatever reason.

My friend told me about her husband – also a country bloke – and how he rarely reads anything, even the newspaper.  She said they sometimes share a book, but that he will read part of it and then toss it aside as being a waste of time.  The other day, out of the blue, he rang her at work and asked her had she read a poem, quoting the name of it.  He had been listening to the radio and heard the poem being discussed.  My friend then searched the Internet and found the poem.  Her husband had told her the story behind the poem.

Australian storyteller, Murray Hartin penned this poem in three hours flat. Murray says he's been troubled for a while about young and old fellas deciding things are too tough to go on and he wanted to send a message of hope.

I hope that you enjoy the poem.  I have to retype it so I will just about know it off by heart by the time I am finished.  I doubt that I will get into strife for copyright as you can copy the poem and email it from the Internet (I found this out after I typed it).  I hope that I can bring the poem into the lives of anyone that cares to read my notes.

The words are particularly relevant to me as my ex-husband’s cousin committed suicide a few years ago. He lived at Pilliga, which isn’t that far from Walgett as the crow flies, and in fact both towns share the same river, The Namoi.  Brian’s issues weren’t the drought although life was hard on the large property he had lived on for a number of years.  His issues were family related that resulted in the Court making certain judgements with the property having to be sold because members of his family wanted their share of an inheritance left to them by his mother. 

He saw his world crumbling; everything was being taken away from him.  The day the authorities moved in and removed the farm equipment, trucks etc., was the day he apparently decided to end it all.  After everyone had left he rang the Pilliga Police and told the officer who answered the phone that he was taking his life. He was well known in the area and respected and loved. By the time the Police got to the house, he was dead. 

I met Brian as a boy, when we were both 17, and I will never forget the first time I met him (with my ex).  He played his guitar for me and sang.  That’s how I remember him even though I saw him many times during the ensuing years and spent time holidaying in that house where he killed himself.  One of my sons spent a lot of time with Brian as a boy and then later as a man himself.  He cannot understand why he took his life; how anything could be that devastatingly bad that someone would take their own life.  And yet I imagine that many of us know desperation and how it feels, and how simple a solution it seems to just end it all.  I mourn his loss as we all do, and what I find hard to come to grips with is that his own family drove him to his death.  Their guilt should weigh them down till the day they depart this earth and they will undoubtedly meet their reckoning one-day as I am a true believer in what goes around comes around.

We should all, as Australians, give a lot of thought to the plight of the farmers and perhaps we should be doing a lot more for them than we now do.  In my case I do nothing except buy Australian and pay my taxes.  It’s obviously not enough.

However, here is the poem and I hope that everyone that reads it feels it.

Rain from Nowhere

By Murray Hartin

Frightening statistics.  The next time there is an effort to help the farmers by a radio station or anyone that I hear about, I will make sure that I pitch in and do my bit. Without our farmers and the produce they provide to us, we will be a sad society indeed.  Forget the ‘rich farmers’ talk because that is all it is.  You only have to read those statistics and some harsh facts to realise there is little wealth left on the land.

I was told a few years ago that in the future there may well be wars breaking out all over the world, and even civil war in Australia, while people fight for food and even more desperately, water.  Wake up Australia, the time is nigh.