If you have ever been west of Geelong, you’ll know how the rolling winds of the south plains sway the grass. But below this serenity lies sadness, drought, fire, crisis. This is the life many of the farmers in the southwest reaches of Victoria face.
One such man is Josh Maher, resident of Surf Coast Shire and owner of farmland in the village of Buckley Australia. Aged 53, a father and husband, Josh has lived and worked in Buckley for 25 years. He’s seen the creeping onset of droughts and loss as a farmer.
His lonely kayak illustrates the point. He bought the kayak to paddle on the nearby Lake Modewarre.
“When we first bought the place, it was full of water,” he says. “One of the first things I bought was a kayak! And I thought that’s beautiful! But then it went dry straight after. The kayak is still sitting under some trees and it’s never seen water.”
For the last 15 years Josh has been breeding shedding sheep and rearing calves. But for the 10 years prior to 2010, he worked the land with cropping. The change was made because of low rainfall and subsequent droughts.
Living in a small town, Josh doesn’t have direct access to health services that those in the city are used to. The closest facilities to him are about seven kilometres away in Winchelsea or, even further, Geelong, 36 kilometres away. But Josh tells me he is very lucky to be in a situation where everything he needs is close by.
Josh says some property owners in the area are thinking of creating a community village.
“There’s nothing here, except the train line, they want to build a village out of nothing! They wanna build up a 70,000-village using the train line and the lake,” he says.
Josh is an enthusiastic man, facing the hardships of being a farmer with a smile on his face.
“Communication is king,” he says. “You just have to talk to people.
“I just love helping young people at the start of their career, people helped me when I was younger,” he says. “You never forget your grass roots.”
This story is part of a project exploring regional Victoria and the issues farmers are facing. See the whole collection here.
