Loading Rice in Rverina

You are wrong with the salt levels bit, lowering the water table means the salt will either come out of solution near the surface as well as increasing the salt concentration of any water the research shows this. The weirs were mainly for river travel, not irrigation. the idiotic Bradford scheme was the ramblings of someone who had no idea what they were talking about. It was shown to be financially irresponsible and nearly impossible to implement but when it was suggested in the 40’s. He seemed to not understand that even with the tunnels he proposed, water doesn’t flow uphill

grumpy gumpy wrote:

You are wrong with the salt levels bit, lowering the water table means the salt will either come out of solution near the surface as well as increasing the salt concentration of any water the research shows this. The weirs were mainly for river travel, not irrigation. 

this why we should stick to talking about trucks

Pumping does lower the water table and the salt level

I don't know where your getting your information from but irrigation boards have huge, maybe 100's of acres of evaporation bays that saline ground water is pumped into to lower the water table 
this isn't done because they want to bring salt to the surface, this is done for exact opposite reason and works well doing it

The weirs were built for navigation originally and from memory there was meant to be 26 built, we ended up with 12 

Those 12 weirs lift the river level maybe only 6 feet or so and control the level, this allows water to flow by gravity out of the river further upstream for irrigation 
The dams were built for irrigation and flood mitigation, nothing else 
water for towns was a bonus

So just for a moment stop and think about what a difference this has made to Australia 

We don't grow the amount of rice or produce the amount of milk we once did[/color]

We do produce huge amounts of high volume horticulture and cotton and irrigated summer crops like corns and sorghum 
we grow a huge amount of export hay 
Irrigated winter crops 
The list goes on and on
All of this off less and less water 
The environment gets a huge amount of water that most people in the basin believes is just wasted
cities like Melbourne, Adelaide, Broken Hill now and Geelong get water out of the basin 

The demands are great from lots of different directions and everyone thinks there reason is the most important

Its a mess with a increasing demand with no new water storages been built

Paul

Lang wrote:

It would appear that Australian rice production is as strong or stronger than ever. It has always been a heavily fluctuating crop.

Fluctuations are heavily dependant on water allocations which is only proper. You can grow strawberries in the Sahara with enough water so if you are going to grow crops such as rice and cotton in areas not naturally self sustaining for those crops by taking ground or surface water, over and above rainfall, from natural sources it has to be controlled. Still they are doing OK on average.

This is from the Rice Board charts. The imports are for long-grain rice which we do not grow here and the exports are for our medium and short grain rice. Australia has the highest yield of rice per acre showing how efficient Australian ag scientists and farmers are. This only shows exports of Australian rice not the vast amount Australians scoffed on the domestic market from our Riverina farms on top of the export figures.

 

That chart is from 3 years ago but the latest figures from NSW Rice below (Where 90% of Australian rice is grown) says we produced so much last year along with everyone else that there was a mini-glut and prices fell.

 

 

I have been mulling this thread over for sometime now

Lang something to consider is that all agricultural crops need processing of sone type
If Australia wants businesses to invest in processing plants then businesses need a constant supply

Now water used to be very reliable, especially on the Murray, it was the most reliable irrigation system in Australia, only the Burdekin in North QLD was like it
so before the water market was made into a tradable commodity a huge quantity of water was left almost every season in the dams for next year
Then the greens wanted their cut, the greens flood forests whether it's a wet or dry year 
Then the big business and super funds wanted their cut and of the pie for almonds, olives, cotton etc
with each time the pie was getting cut up finer and finer until all of a sudden, one dry year and we're in a mess 
Then we have rice mills with no rice, so the rice mills get shut
Butter factories with no milk so they get shut 
Fruit canning companies with no fruit 

Anyway you get the picture 

Something very similar happened in California early last century and the man made droughts started and it was only after 20 years or so that big business was found out and proven to be making man made droughts
whats the answer ?
I'm not real sure but I  do if I'm driving down a road amd turn left at a Tee intersection instead of  right, the longer I keep driving the wrong direction with my head up my bum thinking I'm right the further I have to travel back before I start heafing the right direction again
The old irrigation system wasn't perfect but it worked a heck of a lot better 25 years ago than it does today 
We have a lot less farmers supplying a lot less factories producing a lot less in the grand scheme of things 
The government and big business has made a big mess out of this 

And yes it does dag me just a bit when people who are not in the business and never have been in the business of irrigation start telling people that are in the business of irrigation what they should be doing 

Paul

Paul

I don't want this to become another solar battlefield but I will just say

The water does not belong to the farmers, miners, ecologists, greenies or bureaucrats, it belongs to all of us particularly the towns that need it, the forests that need it, the eco system that needs it. As you say it is a limited resource that has demands upon it from all angles reaching the limit of what is available. There are hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year on people who have spent years at university but more importantly, in the field,  becoming genuine scientific experts on the whole subject whose collected knowledge and vast records and evidence is gathered in various farmers groups, industry boards, advisory bodies and government departments.

These people have to battle squawking voices from all sides from those wanting to feed at the trough in the interests of the nation as a whole including the economy, employment, avoidance of killing one section in favour of others.The requests for water have grown exponentially from the good old days you refer to. I don't think anybody is trying to tell farmers how to run their show but the volume of requirements from modern industrial farming growth, river flows and salt levels and population growth has resulted in them being regulated far in excess of only comparatively recent times.

We, the people, have an obligation to keep the government accountable for their actions and it is our responsibility to use all those reports, boards, experts and departments being funded at our expense to be informed. This subject goes much wider than farm irrigation, which is a focused area in which you are an acknowledged expert. Once outside the farm gate it becomes a subject open to equal research and acquired knowledge regardless of your personal experience in just one section of the big picture and everyone willing to gather information can have their say.

Like you say, got any photos of rice trucks or harvesting shots?

Lang wrote:

Paul

The water does not belong to the farmers, miners, ecologists, greenies or bureaucrats, it belongs to all of us particularly the towns that need it, the forests that need it, the eco system that needs it.

I think this is where the big misunderstanding is, before water trading the water didn't belong to anyone, it belonged to everyone and was allocated by the government's as they saw fit to fulfill the requirements of all the things you mentioned 

Today the water is sold to the highest bidder 

Like you say, got any photos of rice trucks or harvesting shots?

I'll have a look about for some piccies 

Paul 


 

I think we are on the path to achieving the aim to make the water do the maximum it can do across the board keeping up with annual natural supply and demand fluctuations - which can be very large. Our river and ground-water systems have bounced back amazingly, the salt problem is being tackled in a job that will take many years to reverse (everybody wants their pet problem to be fixed now).

The trading of water does not affect the aim or result in more use. You are in the position of the local hardware bloke or corner shop when Bunnings or Woolworths comes to town. It could quite easily be argued that this big-boy trading results in larger, more efficient use of the water at the expense of individual operators. Thousands of small businesses have been sent to the wall by these huge monopolies.

People forget that a farm is just another small business providing an income often for one family and maybe a couple of workers. All the peripheral stuff of transport, mills, export sales etc giving secondary benefits do not disappear if a small farm is swallowed up, in fact most times they improve including providing many more families with income. Hundreds of local small truck owners might fold in favour of a huge Linfox contract which arguably will give more employment to families than the individual operators.

It is a changing world. I know many, many people who rage at small businesses being killed by the great conglomerates but if they want a new shovel they will drive right past a Mitre 10 store to reach Bunnings. If Woolworths has a kilo of multi-national company or more likely imported rice for $4.00 they will sell 10 times as much as the bag on the shelf beside that saying "Australian Owned and Grown" for $4.50.

I don't know, but maybe water trading has resulted in much more efficient use of our water on a large scale at the expense of the traditional small business farmer. I would not like to be a small businessman-farmer  being pressured by Coby Coby or bookseller being pressured by Amazon. Despite all their talk 75% do not care about anything past their own front door. If we were at war with China the blackmarket in IPhones being smuggled in would be huge if they could save $50. As somebody once said "You will never lose in the end if you bet on self-interest every time"

Paul you are not on your own .  Here are some articles from "The Land" 1946 making many of your arguments 80 years ago. Also demonstrating how even back then the government was trying to create order out of chaos even though it stepped on somebody's toes.

Very interesting is the article about farming rabbits for gain reinforces my point that even some farmers don't give a f...... about anybody but themselves of they can make a dollar. Country being destroyed but the bastards are breeding them to sell. Just had a look further and see they are stocking harvested warrens with new breeding pairs absolutely regardless of the fact half the new babies wander off onto the property next door to start their own colonies.

Australian rice farming photos in the 30's and 40's.

 

 

 

 

 

Had to smile about the Dorrigo Hydro. It was put in as a supply of cheap locally sourced power originally in about 1930. Nobody had heard of or cared about climate change as a factor. Pleased to see the old hydro-carbon diesel is on standby when even a genuine 24 hour a day natural renewable source fails. Nearly 100 years later and we are little further on regarding the need for a reliable back-up except now we need it every day instead of for a few weeks every 5 years during a drought. Please start a new thread to mobilise your forces, I will not be partaking.. 



 

Very interesting article from some Sri Lankan rice scientist on Australian rice.

I nearly fell over when I see it takes the world's most efficient rice farms (Australia) "only" 1,200 litres of water to produce 1kg of rice. My comments about growing strawberries in the Sahara with enough water comes back to me. Would love to see the cotton water figures. I think we should go back to wearing wool and eating steak and 3 veg.

www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/austr...sson-or-two-from-it/

I recall from my dairy farming days in drought years a efficient irrigation farmer needed 20 litres of irrigation water to produce 1 litre of milk
It was also mentioned back in the day that it takes 200 litres of irrigation water to produce 1 litre of almond milk/juice

I'm sure there are types of figures and they were probably presented to Australian dairy farmers to look favorable

Paul

The Dorrigo Hydro was producing 150HP or 68.2KW.  Shared by 60 farmers.

They must have taken turns to use the power as each could only use 1KW and they would be out of power.

Not much happens on 1KW!