Farmers say the drought is so severe that only a deluge of at least 250 millimetres (about half the Walgett Shire's annual rainfall) will penetrate the 1.5-metre-deep black top soil that now resembles a cracked tarmac stretching miles.

Back in 2012, the last time most farmers planted crops, the shire's grain production was the third in the state. This year it is the lowest of any region.

The organisation is asking the NSW government to declare the drought in Bourke, Brewarrina and Walgett a natural disaster. If the government agreed, it would be the first time a drought received the same treatment as a flood, an earthquake or a bushfire.

"The community that is affected by drought is just as devastated as a flooded community but drought is more insidious. You can't put a finger on when it starts, or when it will finish," Ms Simson said.

Come-by-Chance farmer Michael O'Brien describes the drought affecting north-western NSW as a "GFC on a local basis". About 100 kilometres west of the O'Brien farm on the other side of Walgett, farmers Bill and Anne Murray are backing the call to have the region declared a "natural disaster area."

Mr O'Brien, who won NSW farmer of the year in 2009 for soil conservation and drought preparedness, said the problem was the lack of effective rain.

He has invested $900,000 building three sheds, 100 metres long by 24 metres wide, that can each store 8000 tonnes of grain, such as faba beans, to sell in bad years or to feed the cattle and sheep. Two are empty now, and the last has a small pile of beans.

Even farmers like him who had employed the best conservation techniques were finding it hard to survive.

"On these soils in NSW, we need bigger totals of rain to be more effective. While there have been plenty of rain events, there hasn't been nearly enough effective sum totals of rain.

"I can remember every season, going back to 1957, but we have never gone as long having ineffective rain. That's what making it an exceptional event. The duration of the drought is far longer than any previously recorded droughts since European settlement."

"I need at least 10 inches (250mm) to fill my soil profile," Mr O'Brien said, who was standing in a field with cracks so deep that it was a broken leg (or two) waiting to happen. The small amounts of rain only served to "wash the dust from his wife's roses".

While Sydneysiders are enjoying the benefits of low-interest-rate loans, very little was flowing through to the region, he said.

Most drought loans, provided to farmers in drought, had interest rates of around four per cent, he said, and the supply of funds was even more important than the cost.

Because most drought loans require farmers to hold at least 70 per cent equity, many farmers are ineligible because they've borrowed to feed stock and survive. Most say the terms of the loans are too short, many offer only five- to 10-year loans and require farmers to switch financial institutions.

Nearly everyone says they are too complicated: "an absolute nightmare to complete".

For the past 150 years, generations of the Murray family – like most farmers – have been recording every rainfall by hand in a tiny book.

Anne Murray opens the record book starting in 1914 (earlier records were destroyed by a fire) to show the 10-year average to 1922 was about the same as it is now, 400mm. Now the records show that their property, Coonong, has received a total of 500mm of rain in three years.

She says it is extraordinary that a flood is huge news and a natural disaster, but no water (a drought) is not.

"It is every bit as devastating to those experiencing it."

A survey by NSW Farmers found nearly all farmers near Walgett had their income wiped out. Families who have been on the land for more than 100 years are packing up, if they can sell.  Much loved working dogs are up for sale because families are moving to find work.

Ms Simson said following the end of drought declarations, there was a void in policy on droughts.

The organisation was willing to talk to government about drought preparedness, such as the storage of fodder and putting money away for a droughty day. But "no matter how prepared you are, you can't prepare for a four-year drought," she said.

The NSW Agriculture Minister Niall Blair said last week that he was committed to helping farmers, but had not yet decided how best to structure that drought plan.

"I am meeting regularly to discuss drought strategy, but one thing that we must consider in all of this is that we need to make sure when we have money to help people with drought, that it gets to those who need it," he said. "In the millennium drought, $169 million in fodder and transport subsidises made it to only 25 per cent of people in areas of drought."

- Via smh.com.au