Over January, Bega saw 17 days where rain made an appearance totalling 105.6mm, while 89.4mm fell during December, according to Weatherzone. 

It may have been enough to bring back the green look to the hills of the Valley, but the region’s dairy farmers are not out of the woods yet. 

Last year, Toothdale’s Phil Ryan spoke to the Bega District News about how a combination of drought, high feed prices and low payments for milk products were causing intense pressure on dairy farmers.

Speaking on January 25, he said all-in-all it had been a decent spring for rain, but it was not good enough to replace what he fed out last year.

“I’m still down one full silage pit from this time last year and that would be 450tonnes of silage, which would be 225tonnes of dry matter. That’s something like $400 a tonne to replace,” he said.  

Mr Ryan said five to six of his dams were effectively dry and he had received about a third of the rain he had to this time last year, when measured at his property.

“The swamps and gullies are completely dry. It will take a lot of water to recharge those groundwater reserves - we basically need a flood,” he said.

Due to the difficult conditions in 2018 he is now about 50 cows down from the herd he had 12 months ago and was concerned it could be another tough year. 

But he remained optimistic, saying conditions looked a lot more positive than they did last September, just not as good as last January. 

“I remain confident. I’m better prepared after last year’s difficult year to make hard decisions early about how many cows to feed,” he said.

Dairy farmer at Jellat Jellat Rob Russell agreed early spring had been “looking fairly grim”, before the rains began to pick up. 

He said having irrigation meant he was a lot more fortunate than other farmers as even small showers could make a difference. 

“We’ve had a really good year as it turned out, it’s a complete change from early October,” he said. 

“It’s a green drought. It looks wonderful, and as far as I’m concerned it is wonderful, but it is a bit hard if you’re not on one of the main rivers.” 

But Mr Russell said despite the welcome rainfall it was still very hard in dairy; the price of grain, pellets and hay was expensive, estimating grain was 35 per cent of his costs. 

“I’m fairly happy with feed supplies for winter, I’m just not sure where the whole industry is going,” he said.

“Grain prices will be very high for sometime into the future. There’s no surplus anywhere, they’re shipping in grain from Western Australia to make pellets.

“I’m relatively comfortable, but I don’t think anyone is making any money with the grain prices; it’s all about survival at the moment. 

“Every farm is different, and we are really fortunate to be on the river and have irrigation.”