So steel, how are you affected by lack of water in the Aral sea? Or is this the best you could come up with, the consequences of a regime desperate for hard currency.

Australian irrigators most certainly do NOT take *all* the water, so take it from me the South Australian Basin will be OK. You really should inform yourself about water management in Australia and it's recent changes. Licences exist for water extraction, granted by the governments of the day. Having a licence does not guarantee supply, and water for irrigation us only allocated after town supply, stock and environmental requirements are met.
There has been nothing for irrigators to take so it's a fruitless argument. Literally.

So you believe "a certain amount of farmers overspray above health regulations and remain unpunished"
Are you making this up as you go along? Farmers are well aware of chemical testing in foods and specific withholding periods for same.
Putting aside that chemicals are costly, why would a farmer risk legal action from customers or disregard some of the most stringent laws regarding chemical application anywhere in the world.

"So steel, how are you affected by lack of water in the Aral sea? Or is this the best you could come up with, the consequences of a regime desperate for hard currency."
Aren't farmers desperate for hard currency? Doesn't Australia depend on agricultural exports? The Aral Sea example is about more than economics, though. It is an example of mismanagement. Why grow crops such as cotton, in a region with a water problem? Would you not use crops that make the best use of limited water resources?

"Having a licence does not guarantee supply, and water for irrigation us only allocated after town supply, stock and environmental requirements are met."
It would be interesting to look at how the requirements are measured, and if there is political pressure to craft them for a purpose.

"There has been nothing for irrigators to take so it's a fruitless argument. Literally."
I wasn't thinking of South Australia as the problem anyway. You can't argue with the fact that more farmers, equals a lot less water. Maybe Australia simply has too many? And inefficient crops and slack farming practices/laws, also mean a lot less water. There are many other sectors that waste water, so farmers are not alone by any means.

"Putting aside that chemicals are costly, why would a farmer risk legal action from customers or disregard some of the most stringent laws regarding chemical application anywhere in the world."
Any of the following possibilities. Customers are unable to test food. Monitoring and frequency is probably weak or nonexistant in some areas. It may be possible to hide by the stage of testing. It may be hard to prove. The farmer is of dishonourable character.

Shees guys, do we not look at polluters first? Who is standing up against fluoridating/chlorinating our drinking water? It's our own government who replies to emails with a standardized letter "it's for your healthy teeth".(yeah sure!) I should have taken a picture whilst visiting Carrum at the beach,where last year millions of young dead shrimps covered the water line.Let's not forget the dead eels in the Yarra last year also. Does anybody love a coke? Besides that it is bad for you, the coke co is draining our groundwater at millions of liters a day, and what about the other softdrink makers? A drop in groundwater means the top couple of feet will dry out which becomes unusable for farming, so when a farmer talks about a drought he means that the top layer of moister has dropped below a planting level.Cappice?So write to your representative about putting pressure on the health department to clean up their act and doing some studies on the disastrous effect those previous mentioned poisons have on our health and environment.

"The farmer is of dishonourable character."

ROFL Steel, your attempts at being a comedian arn't very
good.

I'll tell you something. I've done business with farmers
and done business in cities and overseas. I've never had
a farmer not pay his bill or have his cheque bounce.
When it comes to the sleezy, slippery, connoving characters
that live in the rat race, they seem to think that things
like payment are optional. Rat race is surely is!

So don't talk about dishonourable farmers lol, for in the
honesty stakes, farmers show you city slickers up for what
alot of you are, basically a bunch of rats.

steel, Australia has a tradeable currency, that of course farmers pursue. You miss the point that the USSR govt was after hard currency and valued money more than the environment. Farm workers made no decisions under the communist regime, and were simply servants to the govt.
No, Aust doesn't depend on on ag exports as long as other areas of the economy are doing ok.

Why grow cotton? for the very reason of "the best use of limited water resources" often related to the reliability of water, as opposed to volume. In Aust it is risky to grow permanent plantings with general security licences, perhaps even with high security. Crops such as cotton, corn and rice can be grown when water is available in response to seasonal conditions, unlike tree crops that need water every year to survive.

I wonder what political pressure there could be, 20 000 irrigators vs 1 000 000 green votes. (yes i'm guessing)

"You can't argue with the fact that more farmers, equals a lot less water" actually pretty easily. There are fewer and fewer farmers every year as properties amalgamate for economies of scale, but no extra water. What did you plan to use the extra water for?

"Customers are unable to test food".
Why not? there are plenty of laboratories in Australia. Or is it that they don't feel the need to because our farmers ARE trustworthy.

"Monitoring and frequency is probably weak or nonexistant in some areas".
So you really have no idea then.

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/monitoringandsurveillance/foodsurveillance.cfm

"The farmer is of dishonourable character". As opposed to you? I don't see much merit in deliberate unjustified malevolence, although in fairness you're probably just ignorant, which is no excuse.

Cotton is one of those crops pulled out of the hat like the proverbial rabbit everytime there is an arguement about water and farming.

For the record: Cotton is a desert plant. It needs a certain number of heat units to grow to productive capacity. Areas where those heat units can be accessed are usually quite dry (remember, desert plant). It also needs a reasonable amount of water to be commercially productive. Where rainfall is high, the cotton bolls (which hold the developing cotton) are prone to rot and therefore are unproductive (a major problem in South American cotton-growing countries)). The most productive cotton is grown under irrigation. The trick is to make that irrigation as effective as possible so that the least amount of water produces the most amount of cotton. The industry works very hard at improving water efficiency with constant scientific trials. Water is a very big expense to all irrigators, and like most business-people, irrigators seek to keep that expense as low as they can, seeking to find the best balance between cost and production.