This fine article by the Financial Times narrates the fight for water between residents and rice farmers. Howard has a tenuous grip on the farm vote as the consequences of the drought for Australia's farmers are dire. Also, those who have come to rely on Australian agricultural exports in Africa and Asia are also being affected:
Spot the odd one out. Asia has billions of cheap workers, so exports manufactures. Europe has millions of graduates, so exports banking. Africa has steamy tropical regions, so exports fruit. America has Hollywood, so exports movies. And Australia is the second-driest continent on earth after Antarctica, so it exports water.
It is a paradox on display in the rural town of Griffith, Australia, where fields of rice destined for export sit under water for five months of the year. But Griffith's farmers see no contradiction. Rob Houghton, a local farmer, says: "We have a global responsibility to grow rice the way we do. This is a business and we are among the best at it."
In the wake of the worst drought in living memory in Australia, a battle over the use of water is raging between farmers, urban consumers and environmentalists. Australia in effect sends abroad billions of cubic metres of water a year by using it to grow A$25bn-worth of exported farm goods, both "dryland" (rain-fed) produce such as wheat, beef, wool and dairy, and irrigated crops such as rice and fruit.
Spot the odd one out. Asia has billions of cheap workers, so exports manufactures. Europe has millions of graduates, so exports banking. Africa has steamy tropical regions, so exports fruit. America has Hollywood, so exports movies. And Australia is the second-driest continent on earth after Antarctica, so it exports water.
It is a paradox on display in the rural town of Griffith, Australia, where fields of rice destined for export sit under water for five months of the year. But Griffith's farmers see no contradiction. Rob Houghton, a local farmer, says: "We have a global responsibility to grow rice the way we do. This is a business and we are among the best at it."
In the wake of the worst drought in living memory in Australia, a battle over the use of water is raging between farmers, urban consumers and environmentalists. Australia in effect sends abroad billions of cubic metres of water a year by using it to grow A$25bn-worth of exported farm goods, both "dryland" (rain-fed) produce such as wheat, beef, wool and dairy, and irrigated crops such as rice and fruit.
Global rice prices, too, have risen rapidly. And a shortage of skimmed milk powder, a key ingredient in food processing, has forced up costs. Australia and New Zealand between them supply a third of world milk exports. "It would be very damaging if Australia and New Zealand stopped exporting dairy," Peter Favila, the Philippines' trade and industry secretary, told the FT recently. Other producers could come in to fill the gap, but not as cheaply...
But despite a historical Australian reverence for farming and rural life, the use of water in agriculture has now come under intense scrutiny. Trade should enable dry countries to import water by buyingwater-intensive food and fibre. Egypt, for example, now imports half its wheat,the traditional staple food. Parched Australia, however, is the world's largest net exporter of the "virtual water" embedded in farm produce.
Critics charge this means the country is in effect sucking itself dry to subsidise foreign consumers, and that it should expand other exports instead. Environmentalists say both irrigation and dryland farming deplete water stocks and cause rivers and the country's already naturally salty earth to become dangerously saline.
Griffith is at the frontline of Australia's water wars, the "Murray-Darling basin" - a river system named after its two main watercourses that covers parts of tropical Queensland and much of temperate New South Wales and Victoria, emptying into the sea by the South Australian city of Adelaide. Even farmers admit that the patchwork of state jurisdictions has handed out water rights haphazardly. In January John Howard, prime minister, announced a plan to centralise power over water in the federal government. Water has shot up the political agenda ahead of an election this year in which Mr Howard will be seeking a fifth term.
Irrigated farming is under particular scrutiny. Just 0.5 per cent of Australian farmland is artificially watered, but it produces 23 per cent of agricultural output. So much is financially and psychologically invested in irrigation in towns such as Griffith that to end it will be an enormous upheaval...
Mr Andreazza farms annual crops, usually rice in the summer and wheat in the winter. But the past year was, he says, "just a disaster". Each of his farms has a theoretical annual allocation of water but can only receive a percentage of that based on how much water is available. Because of the desperately low rainfall, the state government cut his allocation to 10 per cent of the maximum. His entire rice crop, which needs to sit under water between October and March, was lost. He was not alone: the national rice harvest - usually around 1.2m tonnes, 85 per cent of which is sold overseas - came in at just 100,000 tonnes...
Mr Howard's government is anxious not to hurt farmers, not least because they traditionally support its junior coalition partner, the National Party. The water issue pits two of the more glamorous characters of Australian politics against each other. The newly-appointed environment and water minister in Mr Howard's government is Malcolm Turnbull, a self-assured and hyperactive MP from Sydney, widely believed to have his own prime ministerial ambitions, while his opposite number in the Labor Party is Peter Garrett, long-time environmental activist and former singer with the socially conscious rock band Midnight Oil.
Mr Turnbull is a largely unknown quality down in Griffith, but antipathy to Mr Garrett is widespread. Though the Labor Party insists it is not anti-farmer, its electoral base is mainly urban and industrial. One Griffith winery owner says: "If Garrett becomes minister we can all walk off the farm the next day. He should stick to singing. Labor will keep all the water for Adelaide and the industries down there".
Peter Garrett is the lead singer for the Aussie band Midnight Oil, best known for their hit song (yes, more eighties stuff from me, sorry) "Beds Are Burning" about compensating Australia's aborigines. Fantastic song, pretty good video. I don't known about beds burning, but it seems that parts of Australia are definitely scorching. The time has come...
