Rural Suicide Rates Soars In Drought-Hammered E. Australia - Reuters

[hatrack]

SYDNEY - "The rate of rural suicide in Australia is amongst the highest in the world as farmers battle the stress of years of drought, failed crops, mounting debt and slowly decaying towns.

"Every day I look outside and I say to myself: 'I get so sick to death of blue sky'," wrote farmer Mick in a recent book, "Tough Times", in which 10 country men talk about their fight with depression and thoughts of suicide. "I just want to see some clouds and some rain," said Mick, who has lived on a small farm all his life. "The strain is just so constant and long and it's like someone grabbing at me by the throat and slowly choking you a bit more each day."

A total of 2,213 Australians committed suicide in 2003, the latest available statistics. The vast majority were men. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Australia has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, exceeding nations such as Canada, the United States and Britain. While the rate of depression, which leads to suicide, is equal in urban and rural Australia, the rate of suicide per 100,000 people jumps more than 20 percent in the country.

EDIT

After surviving a catastrophic 2002-03 drought -- the worst in 100 years -- many farmers thought they'd never see such hardships again. Yet 2005 is shaping up as a return to those horror conditions, with dams bone-dry and sun-baked farmlands cracking. Some farmers have had no income for several years and many rely on off-farm work to survive. Drought has wiped A$8 billion (US$6 billion) off agricultural production since 2002. National farm debt has doubled in five years to A$40.3 billion, as farmers borrow each season to plant crops only to see them shrivel and die."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31138/story.htm

[bloom]

1. And so it goes...

"Coral Russell has fought the despair of watching her beloved "Gunn Homestead" become a barren landscape. To cheer herself up recently she found a 1978 photo album which showed a lush, green landscape, with a bubbling creek running near her farmhouse."

[blindpig]

2. they need to bail

except for the southeast Australia is unsuitable for large scale agriculture, much like our Great Basin, which should be given back to the buffalo who can utiliize it best.