Fears are mounting over the mental health of farmers hit hard by Australia's ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia as one stockman prepared to shoot 3,000 cows he cannot afford to keep.
Nico Botha, of Moola Bulla station in Western Australia, told the ABC that he would begin killing the animals as soon as Wednesday.
"We'd rather shoot them now than go through overgrazing, dying in the paddocks, struggling to get the paddocks better again," he said.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
"That's going to take us another three years, so (we'd) rather do our decision now than go through all the other dramas."
Botha said he knew of other cattle farmers who would also have to cull following the government's decision to halt exports a month ago, after a public outcry about shocking images of mistreatment in Indonesian slaughterhouses.
Indonesia and Australia are yet to agree on mutual slaughter standards which must be in place before cattle can be shipped north again.
Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig has said he could not predict when live exports to Indonesia would resume, with the suspension set to last anywhere up to November.
Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association executive director Luke Bowen said the longer the ban was in place the harder it would become for farmers to survive, with mental illness now a major concern.
"Every producer is facing problems in terms of feed supply and their financial position and the longer the situation is allowed to fester, the worse it will get," he told AFP.
"We are talking with a number of producers who are in danger of going out of business because of this man-made disaster.
"The psychological impact is enormous. People have invested their whole lives in this and to see it going down the gurgler (drain), and the government's lame attempts at compensation, is hard to take."
The National Farmers Federation voiced similar concerns.
"Moola Bulla station is the first report we've heard where a farmer feels he has to kill his cattle and it is not something we can condone, but we sympathise," spokeswoman Ruth Redfern said.
"The mental impact of this ban is of real concern. Farmers are already recognised as among the worst group of suicide threats. They had already done it tough with drought even before this latest crisis."
Nigel Scullion, deputy leader of the Nationals party, forecast the government would be spending much more on mental health assistance for farmers before the issue was resolved.
"(It's) Aus$120,000 ($128,000) a day worth of cattle he'll be shooting," he said of Botha.
"This particular crisis is going to be a crisis in human terms.
"I don't know how (farmers) are going to recover from it now, let alone how they're going to recover as the weeks roll out."
