Amongst other occupations I have also been a farmer, but I have also moved to other jobs in far flung places. It seems to me that farmers who insist on staying on the land regardles of the profitability of their enterprise have an unrealist expectation of what the world owes them.
This drought may well go on for a lot longer, and many areas are going to be in the same situation as happened in the north of South Australia, many years ago. A gent by the name of Goyder, had drawn a line in the sand, north of which he declared that cropping was not viable, and it turned out that he was right and those farmers who were involved all had to move out. No one has drawn a similar line in the sand in the eastern states, but there are likewise many areas where cropping has become unviable and farmers are going to have to put pride and stubborness in their pockets and shift.
We should not be paying out millions of dollars yearly to help them to stay, we should be helping them to relocate or even retire. If they are young and still keen to farm, there are thousands of acres of undeveloped land in the Ord with plenty of un-allocated water available. We don't need to shift the water to the farms, we need to shift the farmers to the water and provide them and their families with all the infrastructure that goes with it.

Drought relief for farmers – many of them simply not viable – is good for them, but what about the country and the rest of us?

Eighty percent of our agriculture product is exported, so we are told (for those idiots who constantly call me and others they disagree with ‘ignorant’ and ‘uninformed’, believing I/we make things up).

So government/taxpayer welfare for farmers is purely a trade thing. This means we pay more so that poor managers and farmers on land, which should not be farmed at all, can continue muddling on. Half of Australian agricultural land is now drought stricken, and experts say that that much, and more, will have to go out of production permanently in the future.

Despite our ‘good’ economic growth of recent years, there is anecdotal evidence out here in the real world that Australia is going down hill – as far as the ordinary citizenry is concerned. High interest rates, high debt, high food prices, and the lowest housing affordability ever. Not to mention the lowering of wages resulting from imports of foreign workers. The next step toward Third World status is we ordinary Australians paying more and more so that exports can continue while we cannot afford the goods exported.

Think – cheap imports to Australia that the people of the exporting countries live at a subsistence level to provide for us. Think – how many times a week do we eat our own crayfish (rock lobster) because of the massive prices obtained from exporting them.

The really annoying and stupid thing, as the author points out, is all this featherbedding is for a sector responsible for only 3% of the national output!

And, with reference to the author’s mention of salinity and degradation of the land, who caused most of that – our ‘battling’ farmers, of course.

The current climatic conditions have really shown up politicians for the drongos they are. The only help they should be giving farmers is getting at least half of them of the land, and dropping the idea that we must feed the rest of the world.

VK3AU has a point - we are farming marginal land at best - We can no longer afford the luxury of Agrarian Socialism -

add to that the gigalitres of water that is being sucked up by specualtive projects like tree farms and vine plantings pandering to the retirement dreams of cashed up professionals or operating as efective tax breaks - we are wasting resources - I was at a retreat many years ago at a monastary - a student of Indian descent suggested way back then in the 70's that the next major world conflict might well be over access to fresh water - I think he might be right

It seems to me that we have governments who do a lot of talking about market forces and yet do very little about ensuring that the market works effectively when it might affect the agrarian socialist lobby.

Australians pay far too little for the water they consume, and that includes town dwellers. If we all paid a more realistic price for the water we consume we would soon all learn to trim our consumption to a sustainable level.

There might be some pain to begin with, and government assistance may be needed to "encourage" some to exit, but if large-scale irrigators were required to pay a realistic price for the water they use, and waste, they would soon trim their farming practices or end up with an unsaleable, over-priced product. It wouldn't matter how much cotton Cubbie Station or its ilk were able to produce, if they couldn't sell it they would either change their practices or be forced to abandon their business.

Good article and comments, but it's high time, when you mention river health and water, that you mention damage done to river systems by poorly regulated mining operations as a major and escalating problem. In the Southern Coalfield alone, the Cataract and Upper Georges Rivers and, to a lesser extent, the Bargo River, and dozens of their tributary creeks and streams have been cracked, depleted and polluted by mining - and more mine plans are seeking approval right now. In NSW, eight major river systems have been damaged and fourteen are under further threat. The process is escalating as the price of coal rises, and the approvals process is both secretive and unaccountable,taking no notice of public concern or environmental issues. Senior bureaucrats in NSW Dept. of Minerals are finding lucrative jobs with mining corporations and the revolving door syndrome may mean a blind eye is turned to the fact of damage to our rivers in NSW.

The problem I have with articles like this is that they seem to be written from a desk in a city and the writer has used too much pop information and loud voices for the genesis.

Yes, there are questions as to water useage along rivers but these seem to dominate the interest of the vocals so that when the words 'farming' and 'drought' get used inevitably in the next sentence 'rivers' (and irrigation) pop up. Dude, travel west (or south west, or north west) of Sydney and check out the numbers of farmers who don't use any river water what so ever. Go to (say) Junee, have an ale with Bill Heffernan, then travel for another half hour to reach the 'Bidgee. Observe the numbers of farmers who rely on god to send down the odd burst of water at his (or her) discretion.

Only parts of farming are humungous (sic) sponges and those industries need to be looked and their water useage examined. But differently are those who are farming in marginal land and the viability of their approach. Farming marginal land isn't necessarily unviable it might just mean that a different approach is needed. As an idea, perhaps instead of permanent farmers and communities in these places they should be only farmed when the probability of a good season is high: treating the land as a call option, not a long futures contract.

I take the point that we shouldn't be propping up farmers for some 'spiritual' reason and the time when most urban familties could point to a farming realative/history are long gone. The hairy chested, knee jerk reaction of Vaile and Howard to the suggestion of famers being assisted to leave their land was presumptious in the extreme. I'm darn sure that there would be many (mostly elderly) farmers who would be happy to leave the industry with some capital and dignity.