"When we over exploit what is available to make ever increasing profits (a fundamental basis of capitalism)"

Actually alot of the drought problem is because market capitalism
is not working, the major problem then being soil degradation
etc.

Fact is that Govts can't legislate for rainfall and science
can't accurately predict it yet either. This year, good rainfall
was predicted, it did not happen in many areas.

When farmers then try to unload stock, market prices collapse
because of too much supply and not enough killing space.
Meatworks could easily double shifts, if they had the labour,
but of course that is not available. So farmers sit on livestock,
go broke trying to feed them, the stock cause the soil to blow
away.

A market win-win solution would be to fly in teams of slaughtermen
from say China, every sheep processed doesent need feeding, won't
cause the soil to blow away. Seasonal guest workers make perfect
sense in this kind of situation, but politics, unions etc, won't
let him happen. So taxpayers will have to cough up, given its
city based politics that is preventing the market from functioning
as it should.

Country Gal - thank you!

I am NOT a person who bashes anyone, rather I am someone who would like to understand and is dissatisfied with the spin that is provided by both government and various lobby groups. Tell me the facts!

That said I am delighted to learn that cotton is a "desert crop" that needs water at its root system as this is something I was not aware of. However if you would be kind enough to further my education just a little bit more then please explain WHY open irrigation is the way to go? I seem to recall quite a lot of work used to happen (probably still does) in places like Israel where they pipe the water directly to the root systems of their various plants in the Negev desert as a way of alleviating evaporation and of course conserving what little water they have. Is this an option in Australia? If not help me to understand why not?

As for rice farming I can recall with considerable clarity the rice paddies of south east Asia and indeed even places like Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia. If the tropical climate there, filled as it is with monsoonal rains is an advantage to them then I would dearly love to know WHY we farm rice in the south of the country and not in the tropical north of Australia where I would suspect the climatic conditions are similar.

I look forward to my continuing education in this matter

Garpet 1;
Didn't the Ord River scheme try rice but the Magpie geese
cleaned them out before harvesting and the project failed.
I have a recollection about that happening.

One of the problems with subterranian irrigation is cost per hectare for its initial installation. The crop above the ground needs to return substantial profit to make it worthwhile.

Assume such irrigation costs $10,000 p/h to install then 2,000 hectare on the average farm equals $20,000,000 to install. How many farmers have that type of capitol? How many years to pay it off from the return on the crop? Assume two major droughts every 15 years without water and no return and there is need of a major upgrade of the system another $2,000,000 plus accruing interest on the loan.

I feel it is better to give grants to assist farmers during droughts than have them flow into the cities looking for employment, and large capitol debts they will never be able to pay.

Bazz if Philo is right and each farmer would like to plant 20.000 hectares with rice then there had to have been a hell of a lot of magpie geese up there on the Ord River System.

As for 'capitol' - no wonder the farmers can't get it - I can't even find it in a dictionary!

garpet, some cotton is grown on sub-surface drip with varying results. The capital expense of installation and running costs(filtering and pressurising) outweighs the small efficiency gain over in-furrow irrigation on the predominately clay soils, with little deep drainage, found in cotton growing areas.
Cotton is a large plant which forms a dense canopy entirely shading the soil. Most of cotton's production(and water use) occurs during the closed canopy period limiting the advantage drip systems have in more open settings like vines and orchards.
The real clincher is water reliability. To pay off the infrastructure takes lots of good seasons so on a risk management basis only a portion of a irrigation farm using general(low) security water could be converted.