A RENOWNED Riverland horticultural specialist says South Australian primary producers must adapt toward sustainable farming practices to combat growing water supply constraints.
Renmark-based Ian Tolley has consulted in horticultural regions around the world regarding the growing of citrus and other fruit varieties.
Mr Tolley said recent examples of drought in the northern hemisphere showed Australia’s water resource security would likely decrease.
“The Imperial Valley, which had been the food bowl for America, no longer exists,” Mr Tolley said.
“We have brought a European agriculture mentality to Australia in an arid landscape, and it’s beginning to fail.”
Mr Tolley expected Riverland primary producers would need to increase their water use efficiency as supply tightened.
“We know from history that any water remaining in this rapidly diminishing supply will go to the cities,” he said.
“They will be charged for it accordingly, but they will pay.
“Farmers won’t be able to compete.”
Mr Tolley said an increasing number of farmers and growers were adopting sustainable practices, however there were challenges the industry was still “nowhere near addressing in our heating world”..
“There are challenges the farming world is still nowhere near addressing,” he said.
“A few are very successfully practising sustainable farming, and doing their best, but it isn’t yet becoming widely adopted.
“There are little sparks of light, of sustainability, all around Australia. Landcare has shown examples. The reality of what they do all stacks up, but it has not been widely adopted yet.
“Charles Massy’s ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’ is a stunning account of what can be done..
“There are slowly more and more people in diverse crops and pastures introducing more sustainable practices in farming.
“These examples are spread throughout Australia but they have urgency to go faster.”
Mr Tolley said it was necessary to examine the sustainability of water resources with a long-term approach.
“There’s no question you’ve got to be able to make a profit,” he said.
“I’m hopeful the repetitive waves of profitability and disaster might trigger us to look at other crops and other ways of farming.
“The scale is in decades, or more. You might be in profitability now, but what of the future?
“We’ve got to develop a huge improvement in the sophistication we view water in, not as an unending supply, but as an asset that needs to be nurtured.
“What are we inputting to make a profitable contribution to the sustainability of the country?”
