Southern Queensland is a mixed farming region where we all have a connection through business, family and social reasons to agriculture.
This all stimulates and keeps our country regions alive and moving forward. There is a miss conception between taking water out of a river system when a river is swollen and when a river and conditions are bone dry amid time of drought.
We, like all other bush communities around Australia, are dependent on seasonal rain and flood for our cropping and livestock operations. Water is a rich commodity, the more water you have the more you can grow.
The more you can grow the more staff you can employ to do business, with larger and a more economically efficient operation come further advancing in technology, infrastructure, machinery advancing in growing practices and updating of equipment and purchasing land.
This all stimulates and keeps our country regions alive and moving forward.
There is a miss conception between taking water out of a river system when a river is swollen and when a river and conditions are bone dry amid time of drought. During wet time when such amounts of mega litres are flowing passed in our rivers and waterways at incomprehensible amounts, all irrigators on these system pumping at one time would not have the ability to put a dint in the side of the ‘Environmental Flow’ that has been allocated for areas where the water will run out and dissipate across bare ground. Observed in our area on the Macintyre river at the Northern end of the Murray Darling Basin, excess water from floods and the government purchasing of water licenses at cost, have been taken of the ‘agricultural growing table’ we then see water running passed when the floods and seasonal flows from upstream come down and watch it pass.
Taking that water that day may be the difference in the size and quality of the crop next year. To capture these surplus flows of water is the ability to grow more within reason and pass its dollars’ worth through the communities.The Australian farmer loves his, and the neighbours land, we are not trying to pillage and flog the land like sometimes thought in more urban dwellings, but get the full worth out of it.
With more education and understanding about land, water and agriculture to both sides of the city and country divide, a positive outlook are ahead of us.