Murray Darling Basin Plan, Your Thoughts?

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MintR33

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After attending a rally today held in my hometown of Griffith NSW aimed at informing locals about the governments plan to acquire up to 45% of water from Irrigators, I was interested to hear what some of the peoples views are on this forum.

Do you agree that it should go ahead? if so where would you like our food to come from? do you think the planned $9bn is going to be wisely spent or should it be spent improving infrastructure, building more catchments etc. How should the government deal with the likelyhood of thousands of regional Job losses?

So what are your thoughts? / comments?
 
This government doesn't have a clue so I'm on your side.

It's about time the farmers in this country stopped getting shafted.
 
Living at the other end of the murry I find that coment a bit bewildering.
The river has dropped several feet below sea level over the last few years and is only just this season flowing out to sea again. Seriously, I've seen homes and farms abandoned because the waterline had receded to far from the pumps. In Goolwa, Barmera etc the lakes had all but dried up. In South Australia, growers have had their irrigation quotas decimated for years and recently after a good winter it has been restored to 30%.
That's right RESTORED to 30%.

.
All this while farmers were growing cotton and rice in the east for a mostly export market.
COTTON AND RICE!!!!

This unbalance cant go on and it's about time it was addressed..
 
not all farmers should keep their allocation. what about the cotton and rice farmers in Queensland. some of them take so much from the river that when they turn on their irrigation pumps the river flows backwards. surely we could import rice and cotton at a reduced price. those that farm it here (in Aus) will recover.

the Murray Mouth needs to flow on its own for their to be any long term survival of the river.

I'd be happy to show anyone around the lower lakes to see for themselves what the state is down here.

i took my boat to the Mundoo Channel a few weeks ago. I ran aground in the dredge area! not a good state of affairs for the locals there.

my 2c.
 
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Since when did the Government start working on the land?? Just because it looks good to them on paper, doesn't mean it's good for the farmers that already have the arse out of their pants and are struggling as is now. Why do all pollies walk around with blinkers on and heads stuck in the sand (up their arse)thinking that it will all be alright to tighten the screws even further. They don't give a shit, their food is handed to them on a plate, they don't ask the farmers what they want, they tell them...:rant: Ooops, just had a rant..... Mick.
 
I don't know anything about it so really can't comment. I would hate to be someone in goverment trying to decide who should have the water and who shouldn't though. We finally have all our dams full up here now and our biggest has all 5 flood gates open dumping water out because there is too much. Wouldn't it be nice to see that flow down to where it's needed!
 
DVR said:
All this while farmers were growing cotton and rice in the east for a mostly export market.
COTTON AND RICE!!!!

This unbalance cant go on and it's about time it was addressed..
Click to expand...

Let me first say that this is one of the biggest farces and myths of rice growing. It is not possible to grow rice when there is no water, for the past 10 or so years ricegrowing in this area has been practically non existant. As an annual crop when there is no water, rice is not grown.
 
# Traditionally, Australian farmers produced around 1.2 million tonnes of rice each year. Over the past few years, production levels have severely plummeted due to drought and water restrictions. Lack of water saw the total area planted fall sharply in 2007/08 - down 90% on historical lows of 2006/07 to 2,000 hectares. - Australian Bureau of Statistics, Agricultural Commodities 2008."


Production may be down but they are still growing it.
 
Australia's food basins should be a priority for irrigation quotas.
When you realise that the Murray-Darling Basin starts in Southern Queensland and encompasses the rest of South Eastern Australia west of the Great Divide you are talking a big catchment area.
Irrigation is regulated by quotas now, however there are those growing crops like rice and cotton, which require alot of water.Some of these producers are water harvesting outside their quotas from rivers in Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales. The deterant for this is a fine which amounts to a very small percentage of what these companies actually make from the sale of the produce grown from this water.
The Government needs to limit the production of non essential produce which requires high water rates before even thinking about tighening the noose on our food producers.
DVR, Bosshog and Will, I frequently visit the Goolwa area and am saddened to see the state of such a beautiful area. When there was talk of opening the sea levies to raise the lake I empathised with the farmers on the banks of Lake Alexandrina who rely on the fresh water system for water for their dairy herds.
The people of Griffith should continue their fight, enlist the rest of the farmers in the whole Murray -Darling basin and be heard by the Government. If Griffith loses this battle the Government will take the momentum and rip off the next farming region.
As my old union organiser used to say United we stand divided we fall.
This affects every consumer in Australia and a resolution to support the irrigators as well as sustain the Murray flow can and must be negotiated by all parties, not just jackbooted by the Government.
 
Exactly DVR, Down as much as 90%... I should know; my parents are rice farmers, and I have worked and obtained my trade at Ricegrowers, aka SunRice...

I will also add that due to the lack of water farmers have turned to other methods of irrigation to continue their livelihoods such as using bore water from the ground to continue growing crops such as rice.
 
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MintR33 said:
It is not possible to grow rice when there is no water, for the past 10 or so years ricegrowing in this area has been practically non existant. As an annual crop when there is no water, rice is not grown.
Click to expand...

MintR33 said:
Exactly DVR, Down as much as 90%... I should know; my parents are rice farmers, and I have worked and obtained my trade at Ricegrowers, aka SunRice...
Click to expand...
Make up your mind. Is it down by 90% or not grown?



MintR33 said:
I will also add that due to the lack of water farmers have turned to other methods of irrigation to continue their livelihoods such as using bore water from the ground to continue growing crops such as rice.
Click to expand...
Yeah they did that here to for years now there so much salt everything is STUFFED and now your telling us they are doing it there? For RICE?. Idiotic behavior. Sheer lunacy.
We should not be growing Rice in Australia!! Especially for EXPORT.
 
Build more Dams, improve irrigation efficiency by piping water rather than using channels. As an example, diverting 1 mega litre of water to South Australia currently takes 12 mega litres by the time it arrives through parasitic loss.

Let me put it in these terms to the people who have never set foot in the lives of a farmer, how would you react to someone walking in and threatening to take away 45% of your assets and income?

And just one final point on the Rice Farming topic, please refer to this website for some facts Growing Rice in Australia
 
an interesting quote from that page MINT

"SunRice exports 70% of production as branded packages of Australian rice to over 60 countries around the world."
and this
"Rice exports are worth $400 million per annum"

It's all about MONEY!! And the enviroment and people down stream are the ones coughing it up.
 
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DVR said:
Make up your mind. Is it down by 90% or not grown?
Click to expand...
You obviously come from a city background and this is an issue you are not well informed of. The country is a big place, and rice is grown in many different Irrigation areas some of these areas receive different allocations for water and within these allocation there are different watering licences: High Security water and General Security water. High Security is given priority over General. Talk to any Irrigation farmer on a general security licence and they will tell you that in recent years they have had ZERO WATER ALLOCATION.
 
MintR33 said:
You obviously come from a city background and this is an issue you are not well informed of.
Click to expand...
Watch it mate. be careful You opened this can of worm by ASKING for our thoughts and opinions.
Well your getting them.
MintR33 said:
Talk to any Irrigation farmer on a general security licence and they will tell you that in recent years they have had ZERO WATER ALLOCATION.
Click to expand...

MintR33 said:
I will also add that due to the lack of water farmers have turned to other methods of irrigation to continue their livelihoods such as using bore water from the ground to continue growing crops such as rice.
Click to expand...
Again, Make up your mind. wether it gets pulled out of the ground or a river its all the same.
 
looking at this PDF, http://www.sunrice.com.au/uploads//documents/education/Rice_and_Water.pdf it takes over 3000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of rice. if that is "efficient" compared to other countries (like vietnam& indonesia that are efficient rice growers) it still sounds like a seriously large amount of a vital resource to pump into an export that makes $400million per year.

more stats - world rice production = 600Million tons per year, aust production = 0.2% world production = 12,000,000 tons x 3,000l water = 36 billion litres of water per year to produce rice in Australia.

That is crazy to me when we have a DEAD river that does not flow to sea without assistance.
 
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