Graeme Hicks’ family set up Buccleuch Villa in Lowesdale in 1925 and he said he had never seen things as bad as they are now during all his years of farming.

“You have got to be positive but it is getting harder,” Mr Hicks said.

“Every paper you read is doom and gloom, but you do hope it is just part of a cycle.

“It’s not just the drought — with the cost of fertilisers, fuel and chemicals skyrocketing it’s getting harder and harder to farm.

“So you wonder how long you can keep on looking on the bright side.”

While very drop of rain is precious, he agreed with comments made by agronomists last week that rain had come too late for some.

“We had seven millimetres of rain on Friday which was great,” he said.

“But a lot of us are on a knife-edge and gradually slipping off.

“As the year has gone along the carrot has been dangled out in front us with every bit of rain keeping us going for another week — but in between rains the crops diminish.

“We used to be very reliable in this area and two years in a row of little rain used to be unheard of. Now we have had three.”

The Bureau of Meteorology have forecast a cold front will bring scattered showers which will fall as snow over 1000 metres today and could result in isolated falls of up to 20mm in the ranges.

Those showers look set to clear as the week draws on, though forecasters said another front will develop which could bring more rain next week.