Political machinations to one side for a moment , it’s worth considering whether Xenophon’s proposed amendment is a good idea. While it’s clear we’re collectively not doing enough to protect the Murray-Darling basin, that obviously doesn’t make any random throwing of cash at it in the name of a “stimulus package” a great idea. You can read the text of Xenophon’s amendment here. There appear to be several issues with it.
For a start, I was under the impression that there’s essentially bugger-all physical water available on the market to buy back at the moment, so bringing forward the buyback of water entitlements doesn’t actually accelerate the return of water to the environment.
Second, payments to irrigators through the buyback and structural adjustment schemes, during a drought, doesn’t seem like it’s a good way to encourage consumption and investments. Most of the money will be used to pay off debt, rather than invested (if you were an irrigator, would you invest a dollar in your business at the moment?) or consumed. Paying off debt might be good for the farmers but wouldn’t seem to achieve the kind of “multiplier effect” that is the holy grail of all these schemes.
As far as bringing forward infrastructure spending, in principle that seems to be in line with what the experts are recommending, but it’s very different to the kind of small-scale projects that are being provided for with this bill. It seems, instead, to be the kind of large-scale, elaborate infrastructure that is being dealt with (hopefully) more systematically by the Infrastructure Australia process. As others have noted, this smells like an American-style earmark.
The Murray-Darling needs help, and it seems that economic stimulus is a good idea. But, on first glance, it doesn’t seem like a particularly sensible way of doing either.
A very astute analysis, Robert.
I suppose the Government has already worked most of this out. One can’t assume, on the basis of his present performance that Xenophon is the slightest bit interested in the greater national interest. I mean, he got on the 7.30 Report, everybody in Australia now knows who he is, assuming they aren’t over-pre-occupied with the bushfires in Victoria – he’s an important man. Now we all realise it – an important and powerful man. Yes, Nick, we now all know who you are. A shameless self-promoting little git.
And, oh, yes, some of this stimulus package is prioritised to Victorian bushfire victims – but they’re not South Australians so Xenephon couldn’t care less. What a disgrace this man is!
The technicalities of water resource management go over the heads of most people, including me. But I know enough to suspect the problem requires much more than a sack of cash and that Xenophon, an otherwise unrepresentative nobody, is holding the economy to ransom for his own political aggrandisement.
To follow Furious Balancing from the first post, I think Nick Xenophon has called a reality check on Rudd that business as usual w.r.t the MDB gives it a certain priority over a big-picture-big-package $42b scenario. Anyone who follows the news cycle would have to reflect on the public’s perception of each new weekly crisis the more so since the GFC burst on the scene in 2008. The MDB has been in the public eye most of this decade but only recently got rid of the four state management farce in favour of the new Authority. So let’s give it some priority, and get the states off their arses by appointing their reps (so far it is a one man band) and give it some serious money to do what it has to do.
I’n caught betwixt and between here, pulled in several directions.
This may be more than averagely disjointed.
I don’t like X.
A populist grandstander.
However…
I thought he presented his case well on 7.30 tonight and brushed aside Kerry’s points that a whole bunch of money is being thrown at the Murray anyway.
Because its not really.
Its being frittered away in nebulous infrastructure efficiency schemes which sound wonderful but achieve SFA.
The whole guts of the problem, as I boringly repeat, is that we take too much water out of the Murray by overhuge irrigation allocations. massive amounts of water.
Its that simple.
All else, infrastructure, stormwater, desal for cities, you name it, is largely irrelevant unless irrigators rapidly dramatically decrease their subsidised free water usage of the Murray.
And that has nothing to do with some nebulous thing called a market.
I’ve got a multi meg water licence and its not on the market and never will be, even after I die.
Until all irrigation licences along the basin are decreased by the stroke of government pens, say 10% this year and again for a few more years, the basin will be in deep [?] strife.
That requires compensation and employment schemes to protect communities.
How much will that cost?
Dunno, probably not much more than the $2 billion desal plant planned for SA which is essentially a waste of money.
What has this got to do with X and the stimulus package?
Not a lot probably. Which is why I probably disagree with X.
I’m desperate to see the Murray demise reversed but this stimulus package, saving the river and X’s suggestions aren’t really really related.
Separate issues.
I’d hate to see his idea of desirable policy enacted just to get the package through [which is actually what I'm tipping will happen] because despite his assurances that he has good advice I’m not sure he has.
He wants water for the almond growers before their trees die for example [I think that is what he said]. Sorry Nick wrong crop in the wrong place, part of the problem not the answer.
I’m afraid on balance I can’t go along with Nick.
There is a need for a recovery program for the Murray.
The current one is a joke.
Nick’s doesn’t apear to be much better.
Neither relate to the stimulus package.
Interesting Robert.
I agree with you that the SR multiplier effects of this are likely to be quite low (though the LR social multiplier from more efficient use of water might not be). A general principle with infrastructure is that if it is a good idea (it would pass a social cost benefit test) then it should be done regardless of where you are in the business cycle. The water intiatives should be considered on their own merits, rather than being caught up in the debate about stimulus.
That said, Xenophon is looking at the bigger picture (from his standpoint) – he knows he has leverage in this situation and is using it to deliver on a long-term objective. Its a political act.
But is it important that there be water physically available to make buybacks useful? It might be that you would want to organise buybacks of entitlements now, so that when (if) water becomes more plentiful, it doesn’t once again excessively flow to irrigation uses. If you wait for the water to be available phsyically, you might be too late to prevent its sub-optimal use.
Interesting analysis hd.
Am I correct in surmising that most irrigation entitlements aren’t actually being delivered at the moment, and thus accelerating the buyback is not going to help nearly as much as we might think?
Labor Outsider: perhaps. There’s also the question of how much water is on the market, physical or notional. As I understand it, the quantities being traded are relatively small, and a massive buyback would push the price up to absurd levels.
If the rate of water buyback is to be accelerated, it might well have to be compulsory. Let the bunfight begin…
It has to be compulsory. These rights were simply massively overallocated and underpriced by dumb state governments. If the government relies on voluntary buy-backs, it will all happen too slowly. Ultimately, it will all end up in the courts, because irrigators (and their coalition boosters) will demand excessive compensation, or refuse to consent. I’m not a lawyer so I have no idea how that will work out, but I presume the government will have received the appropriate advice. I doubt Rudd has the political stomach for such a fight though.
From a recent press release from ACF, re the water market:
“The Federal Government must put its money where its mouth is and buy the water needed to keep all options open for the future of the Lower Lakes and Coorong.
“Politicians should not be giving up on South Australia’s Coorong and Lower Lakes or making out that flooding these wetlands with seawater is the only option,” said ACF healthy rivers campaigner, Dr Arlene Buchan.
“January water allocation data shows there is plenty of water for sale on the market at the very reasonable price of around $300 per megalitre.
“In fact, there is more water on the market at the moment than water brokers are able to sell – and the price is dropping. ” ”
read on: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=2138&c=12268
Infrastructure Australia is comprised of transport people who are focused on transport solutions. Murray-Darling hasn’t been a transport corridor since paddle steamers were phased out before World War I. If you place your faith in them to even mention the words “Murray” and “Darling” (unless these are also the names of highways), you’re kidding yourself.
There should be structural reform in the use of that basin, and this government has actually less of a record of achievement than Malcolm Turnbull (if only he’d realise it). If the bringing forward of the MDB initiatives helps do that, it’s money well spent. So there’s not enough water to reallocate right now – a spurious argument for inaction. I’ve said elsewhere that a full-scale initiative of the MDB by this government would be a massive wedge to the Coalition.
I condemned Howard for freezing all national debate in the name of terror, and if Rudd would do the same over the bushfires, FNQ floods or whatever else then I condemn that too.
From the letter to me received from the SA water minister last week.
[Dunno about other states, although I believe they are on normal allocations, much to the 'distress' of locals here.]
-I’m officially on 15% of allocation.
Regardless of what I use it for or how efficiently I use it.
-Add to that 15% the really lovely concept of “carry over water”.
That is any allocation that I did not use last year. I can apply to have 100% of that added to my quota. At no cost. They sent me the form. Nice of them.
-Further add to that any water I have temporarily acquired from a transfer from a water holding licence to a water taking licence.
-Further add to that water for stock and domestic purposes [ minimal].
-I can further add to that, this is not in this letter but is normal operating procedure, by buying more water licences from people who are not using that water and thus, by me using it, increase the total coming out of the river although that figure will not be reflected in water allocation calculations.
Thats where your water market comes in.
All it does is increase the amount of water used for irrigation at the expense of urban users and the river ecosystem. We need to dispense with that quick smart.
And then there are one or two other methods of increasing my water usage which I won’t go into for various reasons. But I know people who utilise these methods.
All of which is a bit of a joke cos for 3 years now I have used 0% of my allocation which they dutifully notify me regularly.
I believe Vic and NSW and those ‘orrible cotton types in Qld have virtually open slather at the moment.
Too much water being pissed onto a desert.
Not going into the river ecosystem [and if I read anywhere one more time that that water evaporates and is 'wasted' I'll .....shout loud nasty words.]
Causing billions to be wated on desal plants to replace a fraction of that used by irrigators.
Cut irrigation allocations now [its unsustainable].
More thoughtfully than X is suggesting.
hannah’s dad @ 4 – I’d agree with you that Xenophon is doing this as he sees it as one of his very few opportunities when he’ll have enough leverage to do so even if it has very little to do with stimulating the economy. The government has made it pretty clear that they’re not willing to spend too little too late.
As important as the MDB is, perhaps its not right to hold up the legislation for its survival. But then again is the government being too stubborn in not being willing to negotiate here? Would it hurt that much to bring forward these programs that are planned already?
“If the rate of water buyback is to be accelerated, it might well have to be compulsory. Let the bunfight begin…”
Absolutely.
Clearly HD doesn’t understand that the farmers do paid for the water they use, just indirectly. Water rights are purchased when the property is purchased. To stop the farmers access the right requires the right to be purchased off them. This is property like all other types of property in that the constitution states that any buy back would need to be on just terms.
For example my property on the Murray is worth $450000 with its water right or about $150000 without it (excluding the 10 arce with the house). We would be willing to sell for $600,000 for the land and water or $500000 for just the water. Without the water right the land is basically useless and with before we would need to find alternative employment.
Multiple my case by 100,000 and you see the problem. Not including the lask of food production as a result.
The whole issue sounds so insanely complex I just can’t see how it can be made better by tacking it onto a quick-fix stimulus bill.
What if some random senator were to demand, lets say, funding for nuclear power stations, as the price of his support? The issue is complex and can’t possibly be resolved in a week. So it should rightfully be left off the table.
Hannah’s Dad; “[and if I read anywhere one more time that that water evaporates and is ‘wasted’ I’ll …..shout loud nasty words.]”
I’ll join you!
BTW Hannah’s Dad, I agree with you that Xenophon is irritating, even infuriating, but I bet more people are thinking about these water issues today than they were yesterday! I find him quite unlikable, but there are less effective political representatives who are equally unlikeable, imo.
“The whole issue sounds so insanely complex I just can’t see how it can be made better by tacking it onto a quick-fix stimulus bill.”
You mean the GFC, right ?
BS, many of those farmers were on the land already when those water rights were handed out, or passed down through their families. Those water rights represented a windfall gain to those farmers/families. The point is that some of the food that is produced in Australia (and the distribution across crops) would change if water was priced to reflect its marginal cost in Australia. Policymakers have to take into account the social cost of excess water allocations in Australia, and they are quite significant. Compensation should be just, and there will be a wrangle about exactly what just means, but that shouldn’t stop governments from proceeding. And you don’t have to multiply by 100,000. The point is not that all farming in Australia in unproductive – it is simply that there should be less of it – with the size of the reduction determined by what remains profitable once the water is priced properly.
B.S.
You proabably have 2 licences.
One a domestic and stock licence of 500,000 litres per year that comes with the property, cannot be separated from it and costs zero.
The other would need to be a irrigation licence which you buy from a vendor and can sell to anyone willing to buy it at any time and that licence is not related to your property but gives you the right [actually its a privelige] to use water anywhere.
You can sell to someone in a different state if you wish and probably make a big profit.
I’ve been offered quadruple what I paid 15 years ago for mine.
The water that that licence allows you to access is free.
It costs you nothing.
Zero.
Not like urban users who pay about $1-2 per thousand litre IIRC. Or more if the govt. wants to build a desal plant.
Because so much water is being used by irrigators that the river and urban users are suffering.
Its a finite resource.
Yes without your saleable water licence you may be without employment.
Just as I am because my water source is dry because of over allocation of water for irrigation. [Its no big deal for me tho', it may be for you].
And just as I was forced out of my job 10 years ago because the government made a political decision to cut thousands of jobs.
Been there done that unemployment wise.
Now if you lost your water licence, not all of but some due to compulsory [part] buyback, you may have to prove efficient usage.
No channel or spray irrigation.
Appropriate crops.
And if that was uneconomic for you then you may have to do something else, like I and thousands of others were, and you would need to be compensated, retained offered local jobs and so on.
As you would deserve.
None of which I, or the other thousands got, but hey I reckon people should be compensated and looked after in such circumstances.
And I don’t know where you get your figure of 100,000 people from, thats just silly.
And no Australia does not the food from the river because most of it is low value and exported anyway.
The simple fact BS is that there is insufficient rainfall, insufficient water in the river system to continue to maintain the hugely inefficient and uneconomic and unsustainable levels of irrigation along the river.
Sorry.
If there were a few less cotton farms, how would this affect food production? Am I being unAustralian in suggesting that farmers who can’t survive without a subsidy should leave “their” farms?
Incidentally, as I understand it, there is already High Court litigation about water buybacks by a very wealthy individual who owns the Berri juice company. Unfortunately, the only place I’ve seen coverage of it is in the AFR.
I guess that one of the advantages of buying back allocations now is that farmers may well be more interested in selling those allocations when the water isn’t there, and maybe the market value of them will be somewhat less than if there was an over supply from one of those ‘flooding rains’ type years. (After, all, if you were a farmer looking at a bumper crop and a full river, why the heck would you sell at all)?
Next point, is that Kerry O tried to characterise X as being rather parochial and holding the whole nation to ransom for the interests of one state. Last time I looked, the Murray Darling basin was an important part of the economies of Qld, NSW, Vic AND SA. And heavens forfend, the environment of those states too!
Add to that, he was asking for stuff to be brought forward, so WTF?
My bet is that KR is looking for an excuse for an election (not a double dissolution – just a normal Reps + 1/2 Senate). If the polls hold his way, and with the righteous anger involved in keeping the economy going vs those nasty negative neocon nellies, Rudd should get back in the Reps easily, and even if he only picks up one seat in the Senate, he will be able to nix Xenophon in future. Obviously the icing on the cake would be to pick up three or four more senate seats.
I don’t think he would want a Double Dissolution since that would halve quotas and mean even more (shudder) minor party types in the Senate.
Just to complicate matters even further, there is another drain on the MDB by farmers that seldom gets mentioned, and although I have never seen figures on it, I suspect it is a bigger drain than irrigation. Farm dams are built in every depression in the entire landscape of the MDB amd are used to water stock. They are always shallow, seldom screened by trees or other vegetation and so are subject to evaporation rates rivalled only by the Lake Eyre Basin ephemeral lakes.
As a child I was brought up on a farm about 60 miles from the Lachlan River, and a (almost) permanent creek ran past our homestead. There were just 3 dams adjacent to the creek in the 7 or 8 kms that I was familiar with. These dams were designed to collect the overflow from the creek, and not to interfere with the normal flow. The farms in that area have for the most part moved out of the hands of smaller family holdings and are now “aggregations”, frequently owned by business people from the cities, and that creek now has in excess of 15 dams ACROSS the creek in the same stretch. The creek now almost never flows, even when the rainfall approaches normal levels.
This scenario is repeated in hundreds of thousands of creeks right across the MDB. It is a situation that needs to be looked at in conjunction with extraction levels by irrigators.
Hannah’s Dad,
I reckon you got it right in your first post. Having read Strange Sound’s amendment, it would not do much for the current state of affairs.
My main reason is that the Murray Darling Basin Commission is at present morphing into the Muuray Darling Basin Authority and are trying to figure out how they relate to the Water Act 2007 and its amendment 2008. This package would make no difference as to how the river is operated.
If Senator Xenophon was serious, he would prescribe the quantity of buyback for the Living Murray Program. That would actually require an amendment to the variouys water acts, not grandstanding with a stimulus package.
If the funds were brought forward, my view is that the admistering bodies are in no position to use them wisely.
The other issue is that the price of entitlements is tied to scarcity, research shows that the priced of entitlements is strongly liked to seasonal prices, in the same way that alpine properties go up during a good snow season. Why buy more water entitlements when there is no water?
The bloke’s a dill, or those giving him advice are worse.
Michael: you’re spot on. But try telling upland farmers that. Again, expect a massive bunfight.
Frankly, if I were a political cynic, it’s one I’d be happy for the ALP to take on. At least in Victoria and NSW, the places where farmers would go ape are approximately the same places that elect people like Sophie Mirabella by 20% margins.
I am wondering if a licence to take water is property in the sense envisaged by the Constitution. Particulalry if the licence was given freely in the first place. For example I have a right to apply for a licence to drive a truck. I have a licence to drive a truck. It earns me money. Is it property, in the Constitutional sense? If it is then can I claim compensation if my licence to drive a truck is taken away?
The Government has struck a deal with Xenophon. You’ll hear details in the chamber shortly. You heard it here first.
That’s funny Bismarck, i though i heard it here first:-)
Just a little filibustering to go while they draft the amendments. Sherry is drawing the thing to a close now.
Marks:
The earliest that the next half-senate election can be called is 7 August 2010. If the PM goes to an election before that, it must be House Of Reps only, or a double-dissolution (which requires a trigger).
“This scenario is repeated in hundreds of thousands of creeks right across the MDB. It is a situation that needs to be looked at in conjunction with extraction levels by irrigators.”
.
In NSW each farm is supposed to have a water harvesting right that is controlled by rules from the NSW government .
The farm can hold in it’s dams 10% of the water which falls on it’s property.
This is calculated by a formula which uses the area’s average precipitation and the size of the farm in hectares.The formula will establish the capacity of the dams you can have / build.
If you build a dam you need planning permission and inspections to certify it is sound and of a certain capacity.
In my area ( admittedly a wet coastal one )it is very rare for anyone to have harvested all the water they could.
I don’t have any knowledge of the system in Victoria but have heard complaints from NSW irrigators that they aren’t on the same restrictions as in NSW.
.
If you suspect that a farm has excess capacity you only need to report it to the local Catchment Management Authority. Whether that complaint results in any action I’ll leave to the contemplation of citizen bloggers.
.
One strange aberration in this water harvesting business is the “Natural Sequence Farming” promoted by one G. Harvey and business partners.
Put simply this is a technique where you push a load of logs and rocks into your streams and slow the flow by creating a series of ponds or pools along that stream.It isn’t a dam but it has a similar effect however the technique skirts any regulations as it allows an overflow.
.
A Water licence as I understand is considered a property right. This means you can pump to a set limit an amount of water.This water is valuable for enhancing production and as such retains a monetary value. The licence has no relationship to ability to pump water – any simple pump will do that.
.
One last discrepancy I’d like to clear up is with regard to what constitutes water infrastructure.It is NOT just water allocations or licences.
Each irrigation area has a mass of channels , pumps, gates ,switches and holding areas which are paid for and maintained collectively by the irrigators in that area.
In the Lachlan Valley the irrigators have been receiving regular bills charging them for the maintenance of these structures even when they receive zero water.
Of course any plans to invest in improving these facilities will be greeted with howls of derision by the irrigators as they can’t see much of a future in farming by irrigation. But it is this sort of investment that will make irrigation more efficient and less wasteful.
Plans to buy out water licences or allocations usually include a payment to reflect the part ownership of the water infrastructure.
The diminishing number of irrigators after each buyback will unfortunately lead to a smaller number of farms having to pay these set( and in future more expensive ) fees.
Akin to the issue of dams on properties (Michael @ 24 and Robert @ 26), I wonder whether anything has been done about the ‘turkey nest’ issue. It was the case that farmers threw up a circular bank which was exactly 4.95 metres high and then pumped water into it from run-off from storms etc. The reason for the height was that you didn’t need an planning approval for a bank less than 5m tall.
Farmers not only collected water from their own property but any that was flowing by, for example a drain on the side of a road or a railway line. Evaporation here in Brisbane is 1.8m pa so it would be more where this caper is practiced.
Farmers are pretty offended if it’s suggested that the rain that falls on their property does not automatically belong to them. but clearly a riparian system is a whole system and their patch is only part.
I believe there is no internationally accepted method of determing water rights. The three main ones are:
1. First in best dressed
2. Upstream users take what the want
3. Everyone in the riparian system has a stake which needs to be considered collectively (the so-called Helsinki system, which seems the most rational).
All three have fed into the history of the MD system, it seems to me, and all three are quite prevalent around the world.
There is a fourth. I may be downstream, but I’m bigger and tougher than you and if you don’t let the water come through I’ll come and sort you out (Egypt and the Nile?)
Adelaide’s problem is that it is doesn’t have the political clout you need if you’re downstream and it’s not actually party of the riparian system.
That’s why, contra hannah’s dad, I’d be going for desal if I were in their shoes. Things could get brutal going forward, especially with Melbourne throwing a siphon into the works.
Brian,the situations you outline show how things vary from state to state. It is illegal in NSW to harvest too much water in the ways you have described .
Taking storm water and dams with out planning permission – just not happening legally in NSW.
Brian, we are going Desal. But don’t you think there are similar issues for South Australia in regard to the national electricity market? Or doesn’t it matter because building it will create short-term employment outcomes, regardless of whether we can operate it during peak times, ie, mid-summer.
The MDB is the food bowl of this nation and it is collapsing in front of our eyes.
Emergency action is required, and Senator Xenaphon has decided to force the issue.
He is a courageous man…this is no cynical stunt!
The MDB is the food bowl of Australia, somewhat by default. Much of the coastal strip of SE Queensland and all NSW (excluding major towns, cities) was productive farming land taking advantage of the best soils in the states and the most reliable rainfall. Now it is taken up predominantly by hobby farms which seldom actually productively farm.
Maybe it would be better for the Australian environment, and for the economies of near neighbours with better climate/soil endowments if we imported much more in the way of foodstuffs from those neighbours and returned the MDB to mostly large scale grazing, and the most marginal land to nature reserves. This would stir up the mother and father of sh*tfights, not least in urban redneck territory, but in the long run it is probably going to happen anyway.
Dispossed farmers could be employed as tree planters, erosion controllers, feral pest controllers, fire fighters etc.
“Much of the coastal strip of SE Queensland and all NSW (excluding major towns, cities) was productive farming land taking advantage of the best soils in the states and the most reliable rainfall. Now it is taken up predominantly by hobby farms which seldom actually productively farm.”
Michael Cusak, I’m not sure that I’d entirely agree with that first sentence. Much of the best soils in both states lie to the west of the Great Dividing Range. Your second sentence is an assertion in need of substantiation – can you provide any evidence to support your claim?
murph @ 34, I had an idea that the law may have changed in Qld also, but I really don’t know. I was hoping that someone else did. Certainly practices should be uniform.
Furious, I assume you are referring to SA getting shuttled off the end of priorities when the Vics are using peak power. I’m not clever enough to solve that one. I do think that desal should be powered by renewables.
But desal as planned is surely only a supplement to existing reservoirs and the Murray. In the long run I’d hope that Adelaide could be independent of what comes down the river if I were living there. I know that is a big ask, but I suspect competition for that freshwater is going to test civil relationships everywhere in the future.
Michael and TFA, I think the picture is complex. Certainly we have urban spread and hobby farms in SEQ, but there is good soil in the Fassifern Valley to the SW of Brisbane and in the Lockyer Valley to the west. The Mary River Valley is good farming land and there is masses of good land in pockets up the coast (the cane farms of Bundaberg/Childers, Mackay and elsewhere come to mind). But Bob Katter will tell you that he has enough deep black soil around Cloncurry to feed 100 million people if only someone would turn the northern rivers inland. He’s bound to be right, but it won’t happen.
I think the point is probably that we could grow heaps of food even in a reduced Murray-Darling system if we gave away cotton, rice and other large scale commodity crops for export and concentrated on higher value crops, whatever they might be. Dairying is another that requires huge amounts of water to produce anything edible.
In any case, we export a huge proportion of our agricultural produce. Even if we cut back considerably, we’ll still be a net exporter.
My understanding is that the reason cotton and rice are grown in NSW and not Victoria is because of the difference between the allocation systems.
So in Vic you get (supposedly – it hasn’t worked the last few years) a guarantee of a certain amount of water and thus can plant permanent crops such as orchards.
In NSW you KNOW that the amount isn’t guaranteed so you farm opportunistically – if you’re going to get sufficient allocation, you grow cotton, if you’re not, you plant something else.
To my mind, that makes a lot of the ‘cotton vilification’ spurious. If cotton is only grown in years when there is adequate water, then surely it is better we grow it here than importing our cotton from somewhere else, whose farming methods might be far more dubious than ours. (ditto for rice, of course).
All of that aside, the MDB is only a ‘food basin’ because of irrigation. If that’s not sustainable – and a host of environmental problems, from die back of redgums to salinity, suggests it’s not – we may be better off spending the money getting farmers to move production elsewhere (there is elsewhere, it’s just elsewhere the land isn’t so cheap) or to radically change their farming practises.
I have a bumper crop of apples this year, and had last year as well, despite not giving them a drop of water and record low rainfalls. If irrigated orchards and other permanent crops were shifted back to areas such as this (higher in the valleys) then they would have a much better chance of survival.
We need to drastically rethink the way we farm and where we farm. This will mean good science driving really hard decisions, but in the long term will result in a more effective use of the resources we have.
mehitabel, you would be interested in an interview with Prof Mike Young on Bush Telegraph the other day. He’d just come back from a meeting of UN agencies in New York as part of the UN Environment Program reporting to a G20 meeting in April where the G20 countries were going to discuss the importance of a co-ordinated forward look for all the economic stimulus packages in terms of looking to the future and a sustainable approach on a changed planet.
It was broader than water, but he stressed that the past was irretrievable and we couldn’t patch it up. What was needed was an acceptance that a new climate regime was in prospect and to proactively make the best of it.
He was stunned by how similar countries in that particular latitude were experiencing the same problems. Californian irrigators had been told to expect 15% of their normal allocation. Spain was in similar trouble etc, etc.