Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Drought

Murray River: Last Year Biggest Environmental Flow, This Year Water Crisis

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The Prime Minister, John Howard, has called a summit to discuss the water crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The meeting, being held as I write this blog, was apparently triggered by the NSW government decision to suspend water trading on the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers and the low state of the dams in New South Wales and Victoria.

According to Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the big dams on the river will be just about empty by Autumn if it doesn’t rain.

Leader of the Australian Greens Bob Brown is claiming there has been a problem for years, the government has done nothing, and “seventy per cent of the river red gums along the Murray are either dead or dying.”

There are a few dead red gums along the Murray. But anyone who lives along the river, regularly visits the river, or saw the recent ABC series ‘Two Men in a Tinnie’ would know most of the river red gums along both the Darling and Murray Rivers are very much alive. Another huge porkie from Mr Brown! Another piece of misleading, probably originally from the MDBC.

What seems to have been forgotten in all the recent hand wringing is that just last October the NSW and Victorian governments – the same governments who this year are complaining their dams are empty – made the world’s largest delivery of environmental water letting the equivalent of a Sydney Harbor of water flood the Barmah-Millewa red gum forest which straddles the Murray River upstream of Echuca.

According to a Victorian government report on water operations: “The joint release saw 513 gigalitres of water delivered to the forest and the inundation of over half of the forest floodplain, resulting in greatly improved condition for wetland vegetation and breeding activity for key wetland fauna. Wetland vegetation, including moira grass and the threatened wavy marshwort, responded with significantly improved condition and the flooding waters provided for new growth and canopy regeneration in stressed river red gums. The release also triggered large reproductive events in important native fish species such as golden perch and the threatened silver perch as well as in many water bird species, including the great egret, darters, spoonbills, grebes, ibis and cormorants, and the critically endangered intermediate egret.”

All this during one of the worst droughts on record!

Then there is the water being sucked up from regrowth following the January 2003 bushfires in the upper catchment, new plantations, groundwater licences being activated by farmers who can now trade that water, improved on-farm water use efficiency and recycling some of this in place because of a past fear of rising groundwater tables*, water being evaporated by the Murray Darling Basin Commission’s salt interception schemes and low rainfall …and it is not that surprising that the region has a chronic water shortage.

But rather than do a proper water audit and work out the relative contribution of these factors which have probably all contributed to the current problem, governments and many key commentators keep blaming climate change. Yet the rainfall record for the MDB doesn’t show an abnormal decline.**

BOM to 2005 rainfall.JPG
Rainfall record for the Murray Darling Basin from 1900 to the end of 2005.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann said he would use today’s summit to ensure water reached the bottom of the Murray-Darling basin. Yeah, many South Australians see the river as nothing more than an channel for getting water from the Hume and Dartmouth dams to Adelaide and their wine grape growers.

But sorry Mr Rann, noone can ensure that their will be water for South Australia if the dams run dry.

In advance of the summit, the National Farmers Federation Executive Director, Ben Fargher, put out a media release saying, “As a first priority, we need to ensure that towns which support regional communities have certainty over water supply. “There must also be a clear strategy to effectively manage core breeding stock, permanent plantings and other production issues in order to protect Australia’s agricultural base through this unprecedented drought.”

But that’s also impossible Mr Fargher if there is no water.

If the Murray runs dry next year it would be devastating for farmers and rural communities that draw their water from the river, but it would not be a disaster for the environment. Australian rivers run dry. Water levels in the Murray River have been artificially high so far this drought, because of the dams and weirs.

Dry Murray 1914 blog3.JPG
The Murray River at Riversdale in 1914.

Riversdale_P1000053 blog 2.JPG
The Murray River at Riversdale early this year.

Here’s some really ridiculous commentary from an article in last week’s The Age to illustrate the extent to which our politicians and environmentalists seem to not really care or understand the issue. They don’t seem to understand that if you don’t have any water, there will be none to save, and none for the environment. The article follows an announcement by Mr Turnbull inviting farmers and irrigators to participate in an “excess water scheme”.

“The scheme will provide an incentive for those with water entitlements in the southern Murray-Darling Basin to cut their water use.

Farmers could switch from flood-irrigating an orchard to using water drippers, for example, and sell the water they saved from their entitlements to the Federal Government.

… Peter Cosier, from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, slammed the tender, claiming it was “too complex” and “too bureaucratic”.

Mr Cosier said Australia was “way behind” its target to return 500 billion litres to the Murray River by 2009. “We don’t have time to muck around with inefficient grant schemes because they are not delivering water for the environment.”

… Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said that while Labor supported buying water, the Murray needed water now, not in 2009.

… Meanwhile, the Murray-Darling Water Crisis Management Council warned that the Hume Dam – a source of water to many towns and now at only 11 per cent capacity – would run dry in 24 weeks unless all environmental flows down the Murray were suspended.”

No Mr Albanese, the river doesn’t need water now, it’s all the industries that have grown up along the river that need water now. Without the dams and weirs built for these same industries the river would have already run dry.

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* I explain how past policies driven by a fear of rising groundwater and spreading salinity may have artificially dehydrated the landscape in a piece I recently wrote for OLO: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5076 .

** I have recently explained that blaming the current drought on climate change is indeed drawing a long bow in a piece for the Courier Mail: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20678328-27197,00.html

But Farmers Are Not Meant To Grow Crops During Drought

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According to M. Chalmers from Bundaberg, “It has taken a long time, many years in fact, but the Government has finally admitted that Australia is suffering from a severe drought.” So begins this letter to the editor in Queensland’s rural weekly The Queensland Country Life. The letter goes on to explain that “lack of rain and water for irrigation means we have no way of growing crops or raising livestock.” Well yes, that’s how it is in a drought.

In fact, perhaps the take away message from this letter and everything else in the three rural papers I read this morning, is that while the government is crying drought and farmers are happy to pick up the millions and millions of dollars being thrown their way as ‘drought assistance’, some farmers haven’t really thought through the consequence of drought. It actually means that you shouldn’t be growing crops and it might be worth destocking rather than bringing those heifers into calf again.

Along the Murray River rice growers know that if there’s no water allocation they can’t grow a crop … and most of them don’t expect to. But interestingly in places like South Australia, where irrigators have mostly planted perennial crops including wine grapes and almonds …well they need water every year.

I guess this is why there is so much anguish when allocations to South Australia are cut to just 70 percent because of the drought. That’s right, South Austraian irrigators are getting 70 percent of their water allocation during what many commentators are claiming to be the worst drought on record.

According to ABC Online, “SA Minister for the River Murray, Karlene Maywald, says the situation is rapidly deteriorating, and that she will announce the new [70 percent] allocation figure early next month [down from 80 percent], but for now irrigators need to understand the severity of the situation.”

So how severe is the situation, really?

I’ve made some comment on this, and also the idea that wind and sun farms will stop climate change, in a piece published today by On Line Opinion:http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5076 .

Growing Biodiesel In Northern Australia: Roger Kalla

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Outspoken liberal senator Bill Heffernan has suggested that Australia’s farmers move North to the tropical parts of Australia where there is more water.

In two recent blog posts at the GMO Pundit Website Roger Kalla asks: What would farmers grow in northern Australia?

In the first post he considers soybeans for biodiesel and animal feed: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/go-north-young-man-go-north-cropping.html .

And in the second cotton for biodiesel: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/another-biodiesel-crop-for-northern.html .

Charting a New Road from Coorain: On Drought in Australia

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The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has just announced a $350 million extension to the government’s drought relief measures and for the first time offering the same aid to Australian irrigators as well crop and dairy farmers.

Farmers become eligible if the drought is a one in 20 or 25-year event and results in a substantial downturn in earnings for more than 12 months.* The assistance, known as exceptional circumstance (EC) assistance, can come as a dole payment and/or interest rate subsidy. There are various criteria that must be met including that the farmer derives at least 50 percent of income from the farm.

Since 2001 the federal government has provided $1.2 billion to more than 53,000 farm families in EC assistance.

With the new announcment 18 of the 65 regions already drought declared will get an 18 month extension in interest rates subsidies and other direct relief from end of this year to the middle of 2008.*

There are those who argue that farmers should not receive drought aid. I received the following note from a reader:

“So why should we support a safety net for our rural producers. Businesses in the city just go broke and are not bailed out. Is agriculture about capitalising gains and socialising losses. Are these some of the reasons:

• the regional economic effect of drought can distroy whole rural towns and regional communities
• rural Australia is worth preserving because it is the only part of Australia that looks and feels Australian.
• food production so special security case
• national ethos identifies with the bush
• global markets aren’t level anyway (EU and US agricultural subsidies) so this helps even things up for the worst climate variability in the world
• drought assistance is not seen as a subsidy in world trade talks
• Australian farmers are still transitioning to self reliance model – need time to adjust
• tax system still not optimal for climate risk management – change June to December, more income equalisation ideas
• urbanites expecting unrealistic environmental dividends from the bush that add to costs
• animal welfare
• human welfare
• high interest rates need subsidy because high rate is due to mining and urban prosperity both of which force up rural wages
• resources in the bush are sticky – market reacts slowly, so subsidy can ease pain
• drought subsidies make the coal industry feel better or at least might stop farmers suing coal miners.
• the National party has to be seen to have a winner or you end up with more extreme parties emerging, for example One Nation.“

And I received the following note from another reader:

“What have lessons have Australians learnt from drought. And what new lessons await if we entering a new world of climate change or even experiencing for the first time natural variability unknown to Europeans. Do we need a new road to follow?

The Road from Coorain is an autobiographical story of Jill Ker Conway’s isolated childhood and youth in Australia. In 1930 Jill Ker Conway’s newly married parents bought the remote sheep station of Coorain. When Jill reached the age of eight, Coorain was struck by a devastating series of drought years in which most of the Kers’ sheep were lost.

Jill’s father died when she was at age 11 (suicide or fixing a pipe in a farm dam), and the grief-stricken family, overwhelmed by the series of disasters, left their beloved home and moved to the city of Sydney. A good call for Jill who became a famous academic and historian. But many families don’t move on.

Perhaps the stoicism of the Australian character is too well entrenched for the good of man and beast.

Drought feeding of livestock doesn’t pay for big droughts. It can lead to unmanageable equity losses, the property and the family.

Of course not all droughts are caused by lack of rainfall. Small property sizes, debt and over-expectations from good seasons can lead to overgrazing. Overgrazing can lead to environmental degradation of the land, soil loss, increase in woody weeds and unpalatable grasses and long-term loss of carrying capacity.

Man made “drought” occurs when stocking rate exceeds carrying capacity (i.e. drought is not only rainfall-induced)

According to one state government:

Humans control stocking rate.
Nature controls carrying capacity.
Success in drought is achieved in the same way as at other times (e.g. using sound business management principles).
Have a plan.
Move early !
Watch out for unmanageable equity losses.
Look on mistakes as learning opportunities.
Preserve the resource base for financial recovery and future generations.

All good sound stuff but not enough.

Over the last decade most state departments of agriculture have introduced climate risk programs with information about inherent climate variability and the use of seasonal climate forecasts (e.g. the SOI – Southern Oscillation Index which is a measure of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation). The Bureau of Meteorology and DAFF have facilitated that process further towards a theme of “self reliance”.

The idea is to give landholders an edge to see early warning signs and make decisions such as: sell livestock, plant less crop area, select different crop varieties or decide not to heavily invest in fertiliser and pesticide inputs.

But seasonal climate forecasting has at best 60-70% accuracy. Minority odds have to come up eventually and the forecast will be seen to be “wrong” in some years.

Lesson learned on Queensland’s Darling Downs include that out of 10 years – 4 break even, 3 lose money and 3 make a profit.

Some producers access income equalisation deposits to smooth out the tax stream but how much more is needed?

Should the tax year be moved from June to December. June is often not a good time to be pressured into decisions.

Protection of the resource base isn’t as simple as it seems either. South West Queensland graziers can protect the resource only to have it ‘finished off’ by kangaroos late in the drought. And the possibility of dry seasons can make graziers very hesitant to renovate pastures with fire which inevitably leads to woody weed buildup and/or woodland thickening.

Loss of productive pasture area then compounds with economic necessity to pressure the resource further. And how much green sympathy will you get?

So our future farmers have to get smarter – have farm business plans, use forecasts, more efficient agronomy, hedge on futures markets and develop a diversified income stream all while coping with a declining terms of trade and increasing environmental demands from an increasingly urban population.

Climate change may require a rethink on what a viable living area is, whether to install irrigation, and for long term industries – what variety of heat sensitive long-term orchard and vine crops to invest in. Some landholders can adapt by growing niche crops like Sandalwood but obviously not all.

But big multi-year droughts are in the end tediously dry. No amount of technology can compensate for zero water. And you don’t need a forecast to tell you you’re in a drought.

But it’s lack of money that finishes off farming dynasties. So the real answer is to have off-farm non-agricultural diversified income or one of the family working in town or on other properties elsewhere.

Today’s newspapers are suggesting farmers move north to where the water resources and rainfall are still abundant. A new environmental battle ground? Fleeing from Australia Felix?

Do we now have the technology to beat the heat, the insects, the isolation, the cost of shipped inputs and distance to market which comes with agriculture in northern Australia. If farmers are to move north do we need new infrastructure including a great port to Asia at Wyndham or the rail line extended from Katherine to Kununurra?

Sir Sidney Kidman had a view of drought proofing his operation by owning properties all the way from Victoria to the Kimberley. But El Nino can potentially take out all that country. Perhaps in the 21st century we can realise that dream for agriculture and pastoralism but only by doing a global Kidman and having on/off operations in Australia and Argentina thereby oscillating in harmony with El Nino. Then perhaps we can truly be Kings in Grass Castles.“

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* Some states, for example Queensland and NSW also have their own schemes ontop of the federal goverrnment’s EC. Queensland uses a drought 1 in every 10 years as basis for assistance declaration so farmers could be picking up EC assistance almost 25 percent of the time? so that state could be providing assistance 22% of the time when you factor in what rainfall it takes to revoke a drought declaration.

* Here’s the latest map with EC boundaries.
EC Boundaries Oct 06.JPG