The Apple Club Newsletter, Winter 2007, Page 2

In the spring newsletter I reported on a drought affecting the most important agricultural area in Australia, and how that might affect people in general and farmers in particular.
Now while it has been summer in Ireland, it was winter in Australia, and they had hoped for rain so that their reservoirs might be topped-up for the forthcoming summer.
Indeed, there was a strong signal that rain might arrive, because in El Nino* years, rainfall in this part of Australia is lowered, and in normal years, increased. And since El Nino is not occurring at the moment, it was predicted that winter rainfall might be above average.
Unfortunately, significant rains did not arrive, and a new report by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission reveals that current water availability is the lowest it has been in 116 years of modelling. The report also shows low rainfall and high temperatures for August and September have caused water levels to drop by 150 billion litres in one month.
Even more significantly, The Bureau of Meteorology reported that this is the first time in their records that an El Nino drought in the basin has not been followed by above-average rainfall. The Commission's chief executive, Wendy Craik, says the report shows climate change is transforming the river system, meanwhile reporting that the rainfall in September is the least they've got for the basin in their records since 1900.
In other words, global warming is causing the weather in SE Australia to be drier, even though, looking at normal El Nino cycles, it should be wetter. In actual fact, water inflows are currently only about 13 per cent of the long-term average.
The next report is due to be released in December, which is mid-summer in Australia.
However, everyone agrees that the latest report on the availability of water in the Murray-Darling Basin makes for grim reading and every Australian is concerned.
The current outlook is that even if the drought continues, cities are not expected to run out of water immediately. However it is very hard on the farmers in particular, who in a lot of cases have not been allocated any water. It is agreed that their situation is dire, and the government has announced financial aid to help their situations. However, the prospect of Australia needing to import food is now being aired, and the consequence of this will be increased prices in general.
Meanwhile, farmers with water allocations have tough decisions to make. Some people plan to water some of their best patches and say, 'well I'm going to try and survive getting half my crop through', according to Ian Zadow of the irrigators group. Others may say: 'I'll try and survive getting 25 per cent of my orchard through to produce a crop, and let the other 75% die'.
There are tough decisions which need to be made because of society’s dependence on fossil fuels, and not all of these decisions need to be made by Australia’s farmers. We all have a part to play.

* El Nino is a temperature cycle in the pacific ocean.

Newsletter Winter 2007		page 2 of 4

Update on the Australian drought