Perhaps we need to consider other issues apart from water and power. This report from the ABC certainly needs attention as foreign investment in our farming sector increases.
Australia's Future Food needs
(2 posts) (2 voices)-
termite
MemberSaw that last night.
It's a particular worry in western Victoria as that is habitat for the endangered local red-tailed black cockatoo. Apparently, small farmers are sympathetic to habitat retention, but it is the big operators such as these who manage to wangle permission to cut down the few remaining mature buloke casuarina trees (slow-growing and food for the cockatoos) so they can use rotary irrigation arms.I don't know what can/will be done about Cubby Station - it should be bought by the government and its water allocation returned to environmental flows for dry rivers (they're good now, but it's a long-term issue). Cotton is one product I would be happy to import only.
Of course, farming in Australia is so often marginal. We know that, which is why Australians are not flocking to farming as an occupation. For foreign buyers, you would expect them to want to force productivity improvements, and not understand just how poor the soils generally are. And that is without the issue of control of the actual land and production. Is it bad form to hope that they go broke and sell it back?
Posted Tuesday 27 Jul 2010 @ 12:22:52 am from IP #