Yesterday the PM announced that if no substatial rains fell in the Murray Darling catchement area within 5-6 weeks all irrigation would stop and every one would only allowed water for households to save water for the cities.
This is the dam behind the house. Normally it has some water in it and we pump into it but this year no pumping. we are not affected by the non irrigating as such but all prices of food will go up. we are a dryland dairy so with any luck, if we can find some hay, our milk may well be needed and at a higher price. But we will see, the dairy companies only really want profit, they dont help farmers to stay viable, which in the long term may be to their detriment.
Our springs have started to run, but for how long. To be quite honest I have never felt so frightened as I do now for the whole of southern Australia.
I feel black and white sketches are a way of saying how I feel, colour means nothing at the moment.
This is not a cry for help, more a cry for city people to realise what we are going through.
3 comments:
This is such a moving post. It seems like our first world politicians, can't or won't support local food suppliers and it is so short term. How will it be in an overheated world if the first world has to import all its food from the third world, because all the farmers have gone out of business?
I am so sorry for the situation you all face on your farms. The small farmer/rancher never had it easy and now it is even more difficult. On top of that, the drought. After living many years on a farm/ranch in the Texas Panhandle, and now on a small family farm in middle Texas, I know how frightening droughts-- and the fires that can come from them-- are. We just had some rain break our drought, and I hope that rain will come to you soon.
The cracks in so many dams and rivers tell a terrible tale - perhaps of misuse over the years, mistakes in methods of transporting water. priorities not right. The lovely Murray River is so degraded and awful now. Perhaps Penny, we can learn some things through these experiences - to feel how the other half live in the world - where there is no water close by, where there are huge difficulties in everyday life.
w.
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