Australia’s government faced allegations it has bungled the response to a crisis made worse by its own climate policies, which led to the drought. As AFP reports, one billion dollar plan should rescue the agrarian sector from the climatic changes caused by global warming.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a large aid package to help drought-parched communities on Thursday. The global warming’s consequences were really underestimated by the Cabinet, so it has unveiled a package of low-cost loans worth around one billion Australian dollars (US$690 million), designed to help farmers struggling with the latest scaled and scaring drought.
The deficit of the rainfalls make farmers truck in water at exorbitant cost, sell off livestock or leave their land to lay fallow. Swathes of Australia have gone months without an adequate quantity of water, and that crisis has threatened whole towns and villages. In other words, Australia’s much-mythologised Outback way of life could end any day without water.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reports that last 18 months with their the lowest levels of rainfall became torture for both agrarian sector and farmers. There were almost no normal rainfall for much of New South Wales and South Australia states, as well as parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Australia waits for rainfalls amid Morrison’s billion-dollar drought plan launching
September rainfall was “very much below average for most of Australia” the bureau reported, with some areas getting 40 percent less rainfall than normal. So, financial support from PM Morrison is highly appreciated.
The loans are designed to support “farmers and graziers who know they have a future in the sector, and are committed to getting to the other side of this drought,” Morrison said.
Agricultural suppliers and other agrarian firms will also be eligible for loans of up to half a million dollars.
PM Morrison has come under fire for his response to a crisis that has been months in the making. Rural members of his conservative ruling coalition had called on him to do more and provide more funds.
