WEST WYALONG, Australia — Farmer John Ridley won't be harvesting so much as a bag of wheat this season from fields that stretch to the horizon as Australia's worst drought in 100 years takes its toll on the country's grain belt.
Beneath a cloudless sky, 60-year-old Mr. Ridley, a descendant of one of Australia's pioneering farming families, pulled a clump of brittle stubble from the dusty earth.