CLIMATE change is so inexact a science that debate over how much, if at all, it is responsible for the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin will produce little but hot air. While politically inept to open up the debate, Brendan Nelson is correct that water management is one problem we can address immediately. Regardless of whether manmade greenhouse emissions are exacerbating the problem by warming the basin and increasing evaporation, drought has been part of the Australian landscape for centuries. The fact that current conditions, according to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, are the worst since records began in 1892 should be a spur to instigate better management. In making good its election promise to end the "blame-game", there is no better issue on which the Rudd Government can act than redressing underpricing and overallocations by state governments as part of a national approach.
As a starting point, authorities should look to nations and regions that manage arid climates well. Israel is a standout example. Occupying an area one-third the size of Tasmania, only 20per cent of Israel's land is arable. And half the arable land needs irrigation. By international standards, Israel's main waterway, the Jordan, is small and narrow. Apart from grain, Israel produces most of its own food for seven million people and exports $1.3 billion in agricultural products a year. Forced to innovate, farmers have found that salt water produces sweeter than usual tomatoes and melons, for which Europeans pay a premium.
Heavily dependent on recycling and transportation of water, Israel has adapted technology to suit its climate, pioneering modern drip irrigation 35 years ago to minimise waste and target crops more precisely than the more wasteful flood or furrow irrigation. These are still widely used in Australia, with up to 70 per cent of farms in the Sunraysia district around Mildura using furrow irrigation. Dryer conditions have prompted a rush towards the more expensive drip irrigation, however, and the best systems in Australia are computer-controlled and highly scientific. In Israel, systems have been refined to the point where ultra-low-rate irrigation methods apply water at rates of less than one millimetre an hour. Israeli technology has also developed greenhouses to suit hot climates, as well as crops, fertilisers and pesticides appropriate for local conditions. Farm animals, too, are bred and husbanded for maximum return in a dry climate.
Australian farmers also adapted to local conditions after the nation's original settlers established farming methods better suited to the British Isles. In hindsight, furrow irrigation, like many cotton and rice crops, extracted too high a price from the main river system. Paddy fields do not belong to Australia's landscape. A shift away from water-intensive farming would require compensation, but the issue can no longer be avoided.
As long ago as August 2003, The Australian noted that a proper, national mechanism for water pricing was long overdue: "We all spend water - like water ... our water consumption is unsustainable." Australians need to start paying the real price of water, including the costs of sustaining our river systems. Unpopular as it would be, it would mean farmers passing on the higher costs of scarcer water in higher food prices.
Up to 20 years ago, water licences were granted by state governments to curry favour with different regional groups, be it Queensland cotton growers or rice growers around Griffith and Deniliquin in NSW. Such an approach, however, has seen too much water extracted in southwest Queensland, northwest NSW and northern Victoria. Evaporation exacerbates the problem. Even without extractions, as little as 20 per cent of water from the system's northern basin makes it to the lower lakes.
So far as it goes, the Rudd Government's buyback is a step in the right direction. Ridiculously, the 4 per cent cap negotiated by Victoria means that some districts will have more water to sell back to the system than they will be allowed to sell. The cap should go.
Beyond the buybacks, the Government must stamp its authority, as it is doing with education, and harness the Council of Australian Governments to take a rational, long-term approach. This is essential to protect the river systems, our most important food-growing areas and an industry that accounts for 20 per cent of export income. Encouraging innovative farming that minimises water use and maximises returns from an arid climate is vital. Such reforms tend to be forgotten in good seasons, but they would serve the national interest for the rest of the century.