It had been such a long stormy summer
There’d been floods all over his land
The crop yield gave another poor harvest
He was defeated, he couldn’t make a stand.

Whenever the tanker called on him
It cost him more than he made
For every litre of milk that he sold
Had cost more to produce than they paid.

He’d lost sheep to the ovine foot rot
And cattle, he’d lost to TB
The bank manager had rung him that morning
Said foreclosure was a near certainty.

When they found him he was hanging in the cowshed
He was dead, and had been for days
There was no one on the farm there to miss him
He’d had to let them go with half-pay.

©Joe Wilson – Farmers, milk quotas, TB & suicide…2015