Drought-hit Australia May STOP Irrigating Farmland

Drought-hit Australia May STOP Irrigating Farmland

www.theglobeandmail.com

CANBERRA — Australia faced an “unprecedentedly dangerous” drought and unless rain falls within weeks irrigation will be cut to the nation's food bowl, Prime Minister John Howard said on Thursday.

A contingency plan prepared for the government said unless water catchments across the country received heavy and widespread rainfalls before mid-May, allocations for irrigators and environmental river flows would be stopped.

The country's worst drought in 100 years, which began in 2002, eased and then reappeared in 2006, and has already severely reduced production of major irrigated crops.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Just how bad is the AUS drought, I'd say pretty bad by the looks of it. This topic came up in one of my threads while back.

This is AUS worst drought in 100 years! Not good.

Mr. Howard said there would be enough water for basic human consumption in cities, as well as towns along the critical food bowl of the Murray-Darling River basin.

The basin covers an area the size of France and Spain and accounts for 41 per cent of Australia's agriculture.

“This is very much in the lap of the gods,” Mr. Howard said.

Australians could face major food price rises if no water is allocated to Murray-Darling Basin farmers, irrigators warned.

The country's worst drought in 100 years, which began in 2002, eased and then reappeared in 2006, and has already severely reduced production of major irrigated crops.

www.theglobeandmail.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


[edit on 20-4-2007 by greatlakes]
mod edit: removed "flag this thread" link

[edit on 4/20/2007 by Gools]