When desperate farmers prayed for rain in the midst of a hidden drought

For months, I had been writing about the drought gripping much of western and northern Victoria. Though I knew the gravity of the situation, it wasn’t until I drove out to Julie and Stuart Green’s farm in Benalla in late May that it hit home how much we in Melbourne had been living a different reality.

Before heading out to inspect the extent of the drought on their property, I sat down with the sheep farmers at their kitchen table to discuss the state of the land and their worries about the state of Victorian politics as it pertained to farmers.

I didn’t know it at the time, that visit would be the first of three that I and photographer Joe Armao would make to the property in 2025.

After chatting a while, the pair led Armao and me outside and showed us around their place as they fed grain to their flock. It should have been cold and green. Instead, the weather was warm and the land entirely devoid of moisture.

Their sheep were filthy from dust clouds, and thick layers of the dry stuff was everywhere. I would taste it and feel it irritating my throat long after I left.

The scenes from that first trip – chosen by The Age as one of the defining images of the year – also showed a grim deadline hanging in the air. If rain failed to materialise, their pregnant ewes would be giving birth in the dust. How many lambs could survive in those conditions?

For days after, I kept a disciplined watch over the weather forecasts and rain radars. Finally, the skies opened. I called the Greens and asked how much rain they had received. A sweet 33 millimetres, they said. Enough to suppress the dust and send green shoots from the soil just in time for lambing season.

In June, they invited me back to their property (or more accurately, I invited myself back and they obliged). I met the newborn lambs and the Green’s young daughter, Poppy, who chased the lambs and scooped them up in her arms. After seeing the worry etched into the Greens’ faces just a few weeks earlier, it was wholesome and joyous, and such a relief.

The tinge of colour spreading across their land signalled renewal and hope, and I was grateful to have been given a window into the work and lives of Victorian farmers.

Though I thought that was the end of it, in November, I found myself back in Benalla again.

There had been even more rain in the months since, and the Greens had taken the chance to literally make hay while the sun shone – enough to see them through, should lean times come again.

Within months, they overcame a profound and existential challenge that many farmers understand.

The experience may yet become a chapter in the family’s folklore. And if it does, they’ll have the pictures to prove it.

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