Crop drop not unusual

Australian farmers typically grow and export a lot of wheat.  It's a winter crop that is grown without irrigation, dependent on soil moisture and some rain to get it through.

In June this year the forecast was for a great crop -- 22 million tonnes.  Then late winter and spring rains failed across southern Australia, and the wheat crop shrivelled.  The forecast now is for 9.5 million tonnes, down 62 per cent on last year's harvest.

Some are blaming the failed wheat crop on climate change.  Indeed, even Sir Nicholas Stern, in his new report, claims Australia is already suffering longer droughts and declining rainfall as a result of climate change.  But nowhere does the rainfall record show an abnormal decline.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has information on rainfall back to 1900.  If we look at the chart for the Murray Darling Basin, one of the hardest hit regions this year, it is evident that there have been periods of rainfall just as low in the past.

The 11-year rolling average, the trend line shown in the chart, indicates there has been no general increase or decrease in rainfall over the past 100 years.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased by about 30 per cent over this same period.

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be concerned about the elevated and rising levels of carbon dioxide, but to suggest that because the wheat crop failed this winter, we have climate change is indeed drawing a long bow.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and Labor's Kim Beazley have suggested that if Prime Minister John Howard signed Kyoto or made us reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by some 60-90 per cent, we could stop climate change and droughts.

But the reality is that Australia is a climate taker, not a climate maker.  We are just 20 million people at the bottom of the world, responsible for about 1.6 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.  There are more than 6 billion people in the rest of the world and growing.  Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide will continue to increase for a few more decades regardless of how many wind and sun farms we build in Australia.

So what is the future for Australian agriculture?

The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics has information on wheat production back to 1962.  Interestingly, while there has been much talk about this being the worst drought on record, Australia had a record wheat harvest just two seasons ago.  Indeed 26 million tonnes were harvested in Australia in 2004 with bumper crops in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.

I've observed that our farmers have a knack for crying "we'll all be rooned" when the rains fail, but say nothing when the harvest is good.

This year an unprecedented amount of drought aid is flowing their way.  Just last week the Prime Minister announced an additional $350 million.  Since 2001 the Government has given $1.2 billion in support.

Criteria were recently relaxed and record numbers of wheat farmers, cattlemen and for the first time even irrigators, are receiving relief payments equivalent to the dole and/ or interest rate subsidies.  In Queensland, farmers may also be eligible to receive freight subsidies.

Last week Howard toured regional NSW.  While many farmers are doing it tough, the visit included Finley near the Murray River, where the river is full of water.  The river ran dry in 1914, but that was before the dams and weirs were built.  While there is no water allocation this year for many NSW farmers who grow annual crops like rice, water is being sent from the Hume and Dartmouth dams in the shadow of the Snowy Mountains all the way to South Australia.

SA farmers grow perennial crops, including wine grapes, and have been receiving fully 80 per cent of their water allocation during this so-called worst ever drought.

Howard is expected to visit Queensland late this week.  If he and his entourage want to maintain the perception of an Australian-wide drought they'll need to restrict their visit to the southern and western part of the state.  Indeed, parts of central Queensland had a good wheat harvest and sugarcane farmers wish it would stop raining.

In contrast, southwestern Queensland hasn't had any good rain for a fair while.  Some graziers are really doing it tough.  Their plight is compounded by the new vegetation management laws which by banning broadscale tree clearing have made it near impossible to get permission to push mulga -- even though this practice has been endorsed as a sustainable method of feeding stock during drought.

So yes, parts of Australia are very dry, but nowhere does the rainfall record show a long-term decline, as claimed by Stern and other climate change doomsayers.

The Australian winter wheat crop has failed before, but this is the first time I've heard so many farmers, environmentalists, politicians and now economists, claiming climate change.

They all have a vested interest in climbing on this wagon.  I wonder whether it might end up bogged if we get good rains across southern Australia next winter.  I'm hoping.