While images of starving livestock in desolate paddocks have become synonymous with the terrible drought ravaging NSW, the plight of the state's crop farmers seems to have been overlooked.
Neil Westcott, a fifth-generation farmer near Alectown in the NSW central west, argues they simply aren't getting the same level of assistance as those carrying sheep and cattle on their land.
"There's a lot of emotion with stock, it's easy for the prime time media to portray, whereas I suppose watching crops fail doesn't rate quite as highly," Mr Westcott told AAP.
The 58-year-old sunk around $1 million worth of seed, fertiliser and time into the ground earlier this year and is facing the prospect of getting nothing in return.
"Realistically looking at the crops now, we could have nothing and having nothing is not a very nice situation to be in because of the costs of putting it in."
Expensive fodder for hungry livestock is being subsidised by the state government, as is transportation, but Mr Westcott says crop farmers are being overlooked.
"I don't know of any subsidy at the moment targeting cropping enterprises," he said.
"It's uncharted territory for us. I've been farming since the 1980s and I've never not stripped a crop."
NSW Water Minister Niall Blair insists the coalition hasn't forgotten crop farmers but acknowledges their plight has in some ways been overshadowed.
"I can understand how they feel like that because a lot of the focus has been on the livestock side of things," Mr Blair told AAP.
"Crops unfortunately don't make the same type of image that the media have picked up on."
The NSW government has committed $1 billion to drought relief in NSW and Mr Blair said some measures, including concessions for farming vehicles, were available to crop farmers.
"I know that it's not the same quantum that some of the livestock producers are going to get but we're also not going to forget our croppers because we know that coming into spring and summer, many of them will be missing out on an income," he told AAP on Wednesday.
The minister said the government was considering extra measures over coming months to assist those without animals.
Mr Westcott, who moved away from livestock during the savage millennium drought, says he expects the current dry to push more farmers away from sheep and cattle.
He knows some will stop farming altogether.
"This will be another watershed - a structural change will occur again," the 58-year-old said.
"Perhaps how we produce our meat and fibre will once again be revisited by many farming families who don't wish to go through something like this ever again."
