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NFF still optimistic about northern agriculture

Story Added : 08th February 2010
Updated: 2 minutes ago

The National Farmers Federation says there's huge potential for agriculture in northern Australia, despite a Federal Government report finding that the north can't be the nation's food bowl.

Years of drought have crippled production in the Murray Darling Basin, leading governments and researchers to look to northern Australia where there's an abundance of rain.

NFF president David Crombie says expansion in the north was never going to be as easy as transferring agriculture in the south to the north.

"I think the opportunities that are there (include) good areas of underground water and good soils adjacent to them," he says.

"These areas could be suitable for a range of crops, horticulture, field crops, and of course, fooder production for livestock.

"We've got a very easonal livestock production system in the north."

The Northern Australia taskforce based its conclusions about water for irrigation on a report done by the CSIRO.

Dr Peter Stone, deputy chief of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, said the study found just a small amount of groundwater would be potentially available for agriculture.

He says it could supply up to 60,000 hectares over the entire north of Australia, an equivalent to just 2 per cent of the Murray Darling irrigation area.

"Of the million gigalitres falling as rain, 15 per cent goes into groundwater, but only some could be extracted," he says.

"Quite a bit of that groundwater actually supplies base flow for rivers, so when the rain stops, that groundwater actually keeps the river flowing, and a small subset of that, about 600 gigalitres, falls into renewable aquifers, which we've identified as potentially available for alternative uses, and irrigation is one of those."

Story Added by ABC.
Date Added : 08th February 2010

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