Back in 1865 a surveyor known as George Goyder got on his horse and traversed 3200 kms across South Australia. When he got home he drew a line across the state. He figured to the south of his line farmers could get enough rainfall to allow them to grow crops. To the north, he felt it was just too prone to drought and you’d best stick to grazing animals.

Just after Goyder drew his line, South Australia had ample rains and farmers said ‘bugger that line’ and started planting to the north. They followed the wisdom that ‘rain follows the plow’. They reckoned that if they till the land they could create a micro-climate which would dispense.

That didn’t quite happen in many parts of South Australia.

As Padma and I drove through the northern parts of Eyre Peninsula of South Australia we could see plenty of ruined homesteads where the rain hardly followed the plow. Now some climate scientists are saying the line is dipping further to the south. We did find a modern-day plow north of Goyder’s Line just outside the rural community of Kimba where farmers figure Goyder got it wrong.

We caught up with our friend John Petering who was helping sow 5,000 hectares of farmland with wheat, rye, barley, lentils and vetch. John was halfway through a six-week stint to drive a GPS-guided tractor which dropped seed and fertilizer in perfectly straight lines across vast fields. John worked from sunrise to sunset and that was taking it easy.

Kimba had only received a trace of rain this autumn and as a result they were dry sowing. No big hurry until the winter rains came and the seed would germinate.

The farmers of Kimba were hoping that John’s plow would prove George Goyder wrong and that abundant rains would come and in a few weeks the fields John had sown during his six-week stay would be lush with emerging seedlings.