Australia Drought Has Impact on Farmers
Pastor Dale Morgan
Dec 5, 2:02 PM EST
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Australia Drought Has Impact on Farmers*
By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press Writer
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Grain farmer Eddie Valks hosted his
daughter's wedding on his 2,000 acre spread northwest of Sydney,
complete with bride and groom sailing off on a small lake. Four years
later the lake is gone, dried out by Australia's worst drought on record.
"If the wedding guests from the cities saw the place now, they'd be
shocked," said the 61-year-old Valks.
Drought and flood have been a familiar feature of Australia's vast
cattle and sheep ranches and shimmering grain fields ever since the
first Europeans settled here more than 200 years ago. But this "big dry"
is the worst and widest, officials say, and poses a massive economic
challenge.
It could bring lasting changes to the Earth's driest inhabited continent
and sharpen a debate about whether drought-hit farmers should simply
leave the Outback for rainier parts of the country.
It is also putting pressure on Prime Minister John Howard from those who
link the drought to global warming. These critics condemn his
center-right coalition for joining the United States in refusing to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Several cities and regions from the west to the east coast are
experiencing their driest year on record. Reservoirs were already low at
the outset of 2006 with some areas enduring below-average rainfall for
the past decade.
David Dreverman, a leading water conservation scientist, says such a
drought comes once in 1,000 years.
Dreverman, manager of the government commission that monitors water
flows in the Murray and Darling rivers, a system that sustains 40
percent of Australia's farming, has told state government leaders that
inflows this year were 54 percent below the last record low - by far the
biggest drop on record.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a
government commodities researcher, predicts harvests of wheat barley,
barley and canola will cut the nation's grain earnings by $4.7 billion,
or 35 percent, this fiscal year which began on July 1.
Australia is usually the world's largest wheat exporter after the United
States and Canada, but a lack of winter rain across the southeast means
only 10.5 million tons of wheat will be harvested, the smallest crop in
more than a decade. That's compared with 28 million tons in the previous
year.
The bureau also estimated the drought will shave 0.7 percentage points
from the government's economic growth forecast of 3.25 percent for the
year ending June 30, 2007.
At Gunnedah, 280 miles northwest of Sydney, grain crops have failed and
ranchers are selling livestock because they can't afford feed.
Andrew Higham, who raises cattle on 3,000 acres near Gunnedah, says
weather swings are unpredictable.
"It's certainly more extreme. When we do get rain, it seems to come down
altogether and when it's dried up, it stays dry for extended periods,"
he said. "It's definitely changed."
The government in October increased welfare and subsidies to 72,000
farmers - about half the nation's total.
"I don't know that we've seen this much of Australia's land mass covered
by drought in the past, and it requires a significant response," Deputy
Prime Minister Mark Vaile said.
Food prices are climbing, and the Central Bank has raised interest rates
eight times, a quarter point each time, since May 2002.
In the cities, lawns are going brown and gardens are wilting under water
use restrictions.
Australia is the world's biggest exporter of coal and its reliance on
the fossil fuel is the major reason the nation of 20 million ranks among
the world's biggest carbon polluters per capita.
But Prime Minister Howard maintains there is no evidence to back claims
that the present drought is the result of greenhouse gas emissions.
Sen. Bill Heffernan, a government legislator, has said the long-term
answer is for farmers to move to the rain-drenched north.
"There's no question that climate change is a reality and we have got to
take our farms where the water is," Heffernan told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Valks knows government aid and debates about global warming can't refill
his lake, and he's philosophical.
"It's just a fact of nature; the rivers have run dry before," he said.
"I'm just hoping that it will come good."