Lockhart, Australia - The wheat on Colin Weise's 513-hectare property near the town of Lockhart in Australia's south-east is ripening to a biscuit brown.

"It's the wonder crop. If they were weeds, they'd be dead," he said approvingly.

The crop has received hardly any rain this year and in October it should be tall, heavy and dark green rather than knee-high, feathery and fawn.

In the midst of the worst drought on record, grain growers like Weise are glad to get any sort of harvest at all. It's been dry since 2002 and what constitutes a good crop has changed in definition.

One in six of the nation's 130,000 farmers is receiving government support. It's called Exceptional Circumstances drought relief and it's costing the taxpayer 2 million Australian dollars (1.4 million US dollars) a week.

Keeping farmers in business with government hand-outs is controversial. Some farmers don't like it, saying it protects the inefficient from takeovers. Farmers not in receipt of taxpayer funds complain that it rewards neighbours who borrow heavily and are deep in debt.

The argument is gaining ground that the lower rainfall and higher temperature that comes with climate change is not an exceptional circumstance any more.

Many farmers are accepting of the proposition put in a report from an expert panel chaired by Peter Kenny that "governments consider a mutual responsibility policy that only provides assistance to farm families which have developed an appropriate plan before dryness gets to a point, or a trigger point, that could be described as beyond their control."

Mutual responsibility, according to Kenny, means farmers must make adjustments for climate change in return for taxpayer funds.

A likely change is that farmers will be lent money, rather than given grants, and be obliged to repay the money when they get good harvests. There would be grants, but these would be for initiatives to drought-proof farms like lining irrigation ditches to conserve water.

James Stacey, an Adelaide dairy farmer, says sentimentality has no place in the disbursement of public funds. He would welcome funding being tied to progress in achieving sustainability.

"I just think with some farmers the writing is on the wall and they should get the message," Stacey said. "At the end of the day, we are just another small business."

Weise marvels at how advances in technology have been reflected in better yields even in bad years.

The soil isn't ploughed any more; seeds are drilled into the ground in rows made straight by tractor-mounted global positioning systems. After harvests, fields are not given over to weeds in order to preserve soil moisture until the planting season. Crop rotation, once a chancy business, is now determined by sophisticated soil testing techniques.

Within 10 years Australian farmers could be planting the world's first transgenic wheat seeds - drought-resistant strains that could raise yields by 20 per cent.

"To see genetic innovation in a major crop like wheat for drought is very exciting," said German Spangenberg, a biotechnologist at Melbourne's La Trobe University, who is leading the research.

Richard Carn, who has been farming across the valley from Weise for 37 years, looks on the bright side.

"It's actually good for the young farmers because their properties haven't experienced a drought in 70 years," he said. "If they can get through this, they will learn a lot and they will really prosper when we get through it."

Carn is learning a lot himself. He'd expected to be retired by now but will have to keep soldiering on until the drought breaks and his savings have been restored. (dpa)