Australia likely to run out of locally grown rice next month as drought, water allocations hit farmers

Fourth-generation rice farmer Barry Kirkup and his wife Gillian have found the past few years on the land harder than most.

“Last year we grew 34 hectares of rice where we normally grow a couple of hundred hectares,” Ms Kirkup told 7.30.

“So our income has been, for the last couple of years, virtually nothing.”

This year was the second-lowest rice harvest on record in Australia and many farms did not grow a single grain.

The majority of rice in Australia is grown in the…