Ross McKay wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:42:16 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

[...] So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling
than is actually available except in flood years.

Agreed for cotton given the overproduction of it and its thirst
comparable to other fibre plants (e.g. hemp). Rice (and maize grown in
the same general area) is a little different, I reckon. Or at least,
it has the potential to be so, given an assumption of a fair price for
irrigation water. This is because it can be planted opportunistically,
e.g. when there's good flows in the rivers, and just not planted when
there isn't.

Contrast that with all the MIS-backed plantations of fruit and nut
trees, and grape vines, along the Murray-Darling system -- trees that
require water to keep them going and thus demand water even when there
is a drought. That was one of the big issues during the latest
drought, with lots of water bought up by (tax avoiding) MIS
plantations and little remaining for anyone else, leading to lots of
fruit trees being grubbed out or bulldozed.

Malcolm Turnbull (yes, him!) covered this quite well (for a mainstream
politician) on Insiders some time back:

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/conte...7/s1856319.htm

[...]
BARRIE CASSIDY: Does the plan adequately address the obvious issue
that Australian farmers are growing crops in the wrong places?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that's not actually true, Barrie. In fact,
that statement is obviously wrong. Let me explain. Everybody says
that the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't grow rice in
Australia, you shouldn't grow cotton. Now, there are areas where
there is over- allocation and there are areas where cotton is grown
and rice is grown that there are -- it's no doubt over-allocation.
But if everybody grew fruit trees, or almonds or olives, grew
permanent crops, which obviously have a higher yield per megalitre of
water, we would be in a terrible jam because the key thing to
understand about our rivers is that the flows are very volatile. And
so if all of your plantings are permanent plantings how do you
sustain them during the dry years? You need to have a mix of crops
and you need to have annual crops so that when there's water around
you plant them, and when there isn't you don't plant.

You see, the problem we face in the basin at the moment is not with
rice and cotton because it's not being planted because there isn't
any water. The problem we face is keeping alive the permanent
plantings, the horticulture which need to get a drink whether it's a
dry year or a wet year.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But isn't the problem that rice and cotton is grown in
areas where there are water shortages, quite regularly?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But that's well, OK, I'll start again. Because our
water is volatile, because some years you get a lot of water and some
years you don't get any, it's important to have annual crops that you
can plant opportunistically when there is water, but you don't have to
plant, you don't need to plant when there isn't any water. If all of
our crops were horticulture, were permanent plantings, then in dry
years we would have an even bigger problem than we do now.

So you see, if you go to Deniliquin where they grow a lot of rice,
there is very little rice being plant this had year, virtually none.
Why is that? Because there isn't any water. You go down to Mildura
where it's mostly horticulture. The same trees and vines are there,
Barrie, in this very dry year as would be in a wet year and they will
be struggling, if this coming season is as bad as the last one, to
get enough water to keep those trees and vines alive. So annual crops
are a very important part of the mix.

You see, you've got to recognise that the key, sort of, feature of our
river system is its variability. The range of the ratio between high
flows and low flows on the Murray, over since records began, 100 odd
years ago is 30 1. So you could get, in one year, 30 times more
inflows than you got the year before. And that means you have to have
an agricultural mix that meets that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well, at the risk of having you to start again, when
Senator Bill Heffernan says that cotton and rice is better suited to
the north where it does rain then he's on the wrong track?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Bill is right
if I mean, I know - Bill Heffernan's a very good friend of mine, and I
talk about water all the time. The point that Bill is making is there
is a great deal of water availability in northern Australia and there
are a number of crops, water intensive crops, that can be grown up
there that where -- in circumstances or in situations where there
isn't a lot of agriculture at the moment. Certainly we will have more
agriculture in the north as time goes on because there's more water
available there, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any annual
crops in the Murray Darling Basin. Because if I get back to that
fundamental point if -- you'd really need to have a mix of crops and
it's not for the government to tell farmers what crops to plant. I
can tell you, farmers have enough trouble making the right decisions
with all of their experience and insight. The idea that you'd have
some central crop selection committee sitting in Canberra telling
people what to grow is just too ludicrous for words.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Yeah, I suppose not a question of forcing them but to
encourage them.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Barrie, the world, the market encourages them.
Farmers change their crop decisions all the time. They react to
markets. You know, the do you really think that a group of
politicians and bureaucrats are better able to determine what to grow
than farmers, people who've spent their whole lives working on it,
who've got access to all of the science and meteorological
information? I mean, come on, really, this is a it's a crazy idea.

You've got to let farmers make their decisions, let water trade, let
the market sort it ought, and have a mix of crops that reflects the
variability of our weather.

We live in Australia, we don't live you know, we live in Australia, we
are the lands of droughts and flooding rains. We get bad droughts,
then we get floods and you've got to have water management practices
and agricultural practices that reflect that and if you don't you'll
get into a great deal more trouble than even the problems we have at
the moment, believe me.

[... continued]

The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.
[...]

That, and removing the silly tax subsidies affored to MIS, which
greatly distort the agriculture scene by encouraging corporations to
establish land, water and nutrient hungry plantations that have
little to no chance of turning a profit in their own right and exist
simply as tax scams for the filthy rich (and those who'd like to be).

Hey Ross

Nice of you to come and help with the heavy lifting sometimes.

As I said when I started this: water in this country is a complex subject, I
didn't cover more than one quarter and that was superficial. If they can
stay out of the local political issues those who read Turnbull's extract
here may get some more of an idea of the complexities. El Nino (La Nina)
can twist your life any way you didn't want it twisted if you live in
eastern Oz.

Turnbull (who is OUT incidentally) has a brain and uses it unlike most of
the current crop from both sides of the parliament.

David