Geoff Leslie (a friend who is a rural pastor) wrote:

Many will be wondering how the drought is affecting rural areas at this time. It’s been an interesting season. Irrigation in the Murray Valley has been dramatically cut this year even worse than last year, and there is always the nagging doubt that we need to get used to this, climate change, government change, policy change, – irrigators may never again be granted the same free use of Murray River water they have enjoyed in the past. In our district, we are seeing many farmers deciding enough is enough. In a road with 11 dairy farms, only 3 are still milking – the others have sold their herds, if not their farms, if not their water rights. In the Wakool district where 30 dairies used to milk, only 3 or 4 are hanging on. That is the first industry to see massive changes. Rice growers are sitting out another year with no crop and no income, beef and sheep have de-stocked drastically but are hanging on, other crops mostly failed this year. But here’s an interesting thing. The dairy farms that are still going have been able to buy large amounts of cereal hay – the wheat and barley that didn’t produce enough grain to be harvested for grain was turned into hay – this is what has enabled the dairy farms to survive – $300,000 spent on cereal hay will get them through to the hoped-for Autumn rains. Those still milking are relatively optimistic, though heavily in debt. We got a letter this week asking for help for the non-farmers in the region – the farmers are getting a Centrelink drought payment, the businesses that depend on farmers are suffering equally but without the level of support. The letter said many of the non-farming families could not pay their pre-school fees or afford school excursions. Several of these type of families have also left the district (and migrated to SE Qld). But the issue that concerns me greatly is, what happens to the farms and the farmers that go broke/ leave the industry? Who will buy the land? What will they grow? Who will be left in our community? What is a good use for farmland that is more sustainable for families? The high-input, high-volume, low-return farming we have been living on in these irrigation districts has passed the point where now the input costs exceed returns. I have a vision for food-growing and direct selling and more coops and farmers ’ markets that bypass the heartless, strangling, extortionist supermarket system. I want to see ‘every man under his own vine and fig tree’ but it’s not practical and immediate enough. And how will the families uprooted from the land cope – are they at special risk? Any ideas for vacant farmland?

O, and one other part of the community that is showing dramatic signs of struggle is the trees. Across the district, red gums are losing their leaves, drought-stressed, spiralling toward death. It is an appalling tragedy that humans are not responsible for. Only a timely flood event will save them. I recently got mentioned in the Age in an article about saving one magnificent old red gum in our district with a donated megalitre of water.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/climate-watch/treedom-fighter-goes-for-his-gum -to-save-its-life/2007/11/25/1195975868027.html

Geoff Leslie

I responded:

Geoff, I’m not a farming person, nor the son of one, but when I was a teenanger (now there’s an interesting typo) I had a passing interest in growing enough on a small enough plot of land to feed a family…

there’s enough water and good enough soil/compost you can live on 40 acres and be self-sustainable: feeding a family of about four people. Presumably there would have to be an all-year every-year creek, etc.

In ‘my wild erratic fancies’ I’ve often dreamed of getting out of the rat-race and doing something like that. The rest of the multi-hectared farm could be available as a meditation place or something (even something for bird-watchers, if enough birds survive climate change).

Probably not useful or even practicable where you are, but often off-the-wall creative ideas can produce something…

Talking about that: I once did a one-day seminar on creativity with navy personnel and spent part of it brainstorming on how to take out a large city without killing the humans who live in it… Try that as an exercise with your leaders…

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Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

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