The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Bringing home some global lessons over water security
Water, water everywhere or not a drop to drink? With winter loath to retreat from Scotland’s shores, the months of cold, wet weather still scunnering us, it seemed somehow fitting – or maybe more ironic? – to be asked to produce a podcast on water security.
The episode – for BASF – is for a global audience and the facts about water were mesmerising: The wettest country in the world is Columbia which receives over 3,200ml of rain annually, and the driest nation, Egypt, gets just 18ml.
My research took my mind away from the seemingly never-ending rain on my own windowpanes.
Agriculture uses around 70% of the world’s freshwater and irrigated farmland is a crucial part of this water consumption, delivering on average double the production of rain-fed farming.
To highlight the contrast between too much and too little rainfall, I focused on opposite sides of the world – Australia and the UK.
Unpredictable weather is something that we are all going to have to adapt to. Tommy Pate from Angus told me this winter’s conveyor belt of rain is making him think about how he needs to adapt how he farms.
It was fascinating to discover that – on a much wider scale – the communities and policymakers in the Murray Darling catchment region of Australia are having similar conversations to Tommy.
The area grows 60% of the nation’s irrigated agriculture and is
Australia’s biggest export region. It is here that the boom-and-bust relationship with rainfall can be explored in greater detail.
The whole world needs to heed how the Aussies are approaching their water allocation.
The Murray Darling Basin is Australia’s most important water resource.
It flows through four states, which are part of one territory, running from Queensland through New South Wales to Victoria and over to South Australia, covering one million square kilometres and supporting 2.4 million people including one million Adelaide residents.
From 1997 to 2009, the so-called Millenium Drought saw the annual average rainfall in Australia fall by 12%.
This had drastic consequences, with the country becoming frighteningly close to having water levels less than the volume required for critical human needs.
It was at this point that water licences were introduced to allocate what was available.
Following this devastating experience, the federal government made AUS$10 billion available to develop the Murray Darling Basin Plan to ensure that, going forward, water was used in the most efficient way and allocated fairly and sustainably.
Every drop of water was negotiated as part of this plan, which is the most progressive scheme of its type anywhere in the world.
More than 8,400 farmers depend on the Murray Darling water for their crops and livestock, and they contribute around AUS$30 billion to the Australian economy.
But access to the water they need is competitive, dependent on availability and can be expensive.
Money talks, and for Martin Davies, who works for Nuveen Capital buying land for investors, access to water is central to the farmland he decides to invest in.
The business-like way he talks about his portfolio of 1.2 million hectares of investments in 11 countries – including 900,000 hectares of farmland producing 46 different crops – gives food for thought for all farmers, wherever they are in the world.
Back with Tommy Pate in Angus, his situation shines a light on what farmers all over the world are already doing to adapt to the fickle weather – futureproofing his farmland, spreading the risk with different crops and enterprises, investing in his soil and drainage.
In short, doing what generations of farming folk before him have done, adapting and learning new ways of making the land pay through using natural resources wisely and adapting to whatever the season throws at them. ≤ Jane Craigie hosts BASF’s Global podcast the Science Behind Your Salad. You can listen to it on any podcast platform.