In the past few decades most winter rain has fallen 'just in time' to save crops already under stress. This year it's come at an optimum time so hopefully yields will reflect that fortune.

Once again the vagaries of the weather illustrate just how vulnerable areas like the lower valley are when it comes to relying on the weather and this is why so many people are fed up with the ad hoc way our national drought policies have been rolled out over the years.

An alien looking down from outer space would wonder why, when drought happens so often, that both state and federal governments seem so surprised and take so long to react, rather than set up a long-term plan in the first place.

Take the area around Walgett for example, where the council has been trying to convince the feds to try something different.

Businesses in the town are reeling and people are leaving, never to return, but the commonwealth has so far refused to look at ideas a bit outside the square.

How simple would it be to take some of the millions rolling in for social programs which have never worked, and use it to subsidise the wages of local employees, that would be a much better use of the cash and keep the community alive and working.

This disdain for doing things differently across any aspects of our society is working itself up into a perfect storm.

Australia has been rapidly proceeding down the path of GMO crops and the money into research has long been skewed in favour of biotech, yet many countries around the world are starting to either ban the crops, or at least listen to growing consumer anger and revisit the issue on whether they're safe to eat.

China is the latest country to join this growing trend, a recent conference calling on all mothers to keep their kids away from GMO food.

Any domestic scientific debate about whether or not they're safe is irrelevant, if people stop buying GMOs we're going to be in strife if that's the major focus of our farming production, it's no good producing a product which no-one will buy, and China's a massive slice of the world market.

Other countries could also follow China's lead.

We need to keep a diversity of crops in place so we have options.

When you tie that in to the current strife in the middle east and the rapidly-changing landscape over there, you'd be a brave soul to predict that oil is going to remain at the same price, or even be available at any price.

An oil shock now would massively impact on Australia's primary production, it's not only about finding diesel to keep the tractors going, the raw material needs a transport logistics system in place as well.

And all the fertilisers and chemical sprays Australian agriculture has come to rely on in turn rely on the petroleum industry.

Yet we have no national plan in place to even look at alternative fuel supplies to keep our family cars on the road if we lost our sources of supply.

The NRMA put out a study on potential ways forward and identified alternative fuels for trucks and cars but it didn't gain any traction at a federal level because this sort of structural long-term issue just won't interest the national media.

It's obviously far more important to follow a visiting celebrity around Sydney and wait for them to either perform a staged PR act of kindness or get caught out doing something stupid.

The trouble is, the stupid little mistakes made by these people don't compare to the mistake we as a nation are making by refusing to draw up longer-term plans to restructure our society to cope with future problems.