UP to 500 hectares will be cut out of Owen Grahame's cropping program this season, following widespread flood damage across his Ravensthorpe farm.
Most paddocks on Mr Grahame's 9000ha property were affected by the 300 millimetre downpour in February, and the on-going consequences are still being assessed.
Paddocks have been split by gullies created along run lines, 15 kilometres of fence line has been washed away, access tracks have been damaged and topsoil eroded away.
Mr Grahame said it was difficult to calculate the damage bill in the aftermath of the event, but direct costs had exceeded $140,000.
"I'm not sure how you put a figure on the erosion damage, because our topsoil is so shallow it takes a few years to build that up," he said.
"In 2000 when we had a little bit of erosion damage, it probably took us 10 to 12 years, with a few crop rotations and that sort of thing, to actually repair the damage.
"I would suspect that's probably how long it's going to take again."
Mr Grahame said earthworks would take several weeks to complete, but were a priority before seeding started towards the end of the month.
"Once we've finished the spraying we're going to have to be at least another two weeks just fixing all of the roads so we can get the seed and fertiliser truck down it," he said.
"The roads are all cut out, much the same as all of the main roads.
"It just needs a lot of earthworks , not to repair it, just to sort of Band-Aid it so we can get the crop in."
After a visit from Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan last week the Ravensthorpe farmer hoped repair work along local roads would be fast-tracked.
"There seems to be a lot of red tape, the shire is ready to go and they can't do anything because they're scared they're not going to get some of the funding,'' he said.
"I just hope that something gets done because at the moment we're winding our way in with fertiliser trucks and technically some of the roads - even though ours is open to a bus - it's pretty dangerous to take a truck along it.
"We've sort of got no choice, we've got to get the fertiliser in, so I'm not sure how that's going to play out across the State but there's going to be a lot of closed roads where people would want to get fertiliser in for seeding."
The Ravensthorpe farmer said the community was apprehensive about what the consequences of another wet winter could be, with lake systems in the region already at capacity.
"Some of those closed lake systems could take an estimated four to five months for the levels to drop," he said.
"No-one really wants to think about that, but there's not much we can do about it."
