So how are things looking visually?

They're looking very good.

Most crops are still standing up.

There's a few been blown over with the last lot of rain, but not too much.

And the rest of the crops are all pretty good.

Some people have started to spray out barley crops to spray top them and start a bit earlier on their barley.

But that's about where it is at this time of the year.

What are you hearing from your neighbours and farmers around where you are? Is the sentiment pretty similar to what you've just shared?

And talk to me about the current regulations around roadside ripping and how efficient it is.

Okay, so the Manly Landcare Group, we acquire funding from the Mildura Rural City Council to rip on roadsides.

And that is all inhibited with... cultural heritage surveys and native vegetation controls.

And the contractors, it costs an enormous amount of money to the contractors that we employ to do that roadside ripping in compliance and reporting and everything else.

It's absolutely ridiculous the amount of red tape that goes on with a simple operation of ripping or fumigating rabbits on the sides of roads.

Now, the other issue with ripping is that in our national parks, which in the Mallee there is considerable acreage of national parks, they have a limit of ripening to 500 millimetres deep.

That's not even two feet in the old scale.

Is that right?