Water crisis and the family Farm

By: "Farm Tender" News
US & World News
Sep 22, 2019
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This article is bought to you by Bruce Robertson Transport and Macarthur Stockfeed and Rural Supplies.

By Claire Booth - Lawyer, Farmer, Director

This week in Geurie has been a huge week. The penny is starting to drop that in some parts of New South Wales and other drought affected parts of Australia, that severe drought conditions are creating tensions.

I can only speak for ourselves, and our family business "Booth Agriculture". We are family farmers producing food. I come from a long line of vegetable growers in the Hunter Valley, with my great great grandpa growing potatoes, watermelons and other vegetables for the Newcastle and Sydney markets.

So growing food is part of my DNA. I was fortunate to meet my husband who shares this passion, and together with our son, we grow food over 400 hectares of irrigated river flats every year. We have designed our business to be so water efficient, that instead of watering 400 hectares a year, we grow food 2 times a year, on the same 400 hectares - that is, we grow 800 hectares each year of food.

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For our city cousins and friends, a hectare is a vague measurement of land. To put this into context - using one of our favourite crops - Sweet Corn - this means we can harvest 27 tonnes of sweet corn in each hectare. Given we can grow sweet corn from October to May each year, we can grow up to 800 hectares of sweet corn if required. Between June to September, we grow fodder for beef and lamb - to use up the water and corn stubble from the previous crop. It is a complete circle - nothing is wasted.

I'm a numbers girl - so here at the facts:

27 tonnes of sweet corn x 800 hectares = 21,600 tonnes of sweet corn harvested from the paddocks

21,600 tonnes = 21.6 million kilos of sweet corn.

From this, 10.8 million kilos of sweet corn kernel is converted into food products.

In turn, this becomes 54 million cans of sweet corn (if... all those kernels were put in a can).*

There are 250 people working in Bathurst who receive our sweet corn from our paddocks, and convert it into food within 4 hours of it arriving in the Bathurst factory. It is 2 hours from Geurie to Bathurst. The sweet corn captured into those cans or snap frozen vegetable parcels goes from the paddock to a secure can or bag within 6 hours!

Simplot - the family who own the Edgells and Birds Eye supermarket brands - in Bathurst, Tasmania and Victoria, have an incredibly efficient and world class manufacturing team and have invested in technology for years.

We are so proud of our this food, and love seeing it on supermarket shelves across Australia.

We - with our neighbouring farmers - have made the decision this year to reduce our production voluntarily, to ensure some of our water which we would have used for food production, is available to our local town, Geurie.

Geurie, our local town about 5km away, needs to know if the Macquarie River stops flowing in May 2020 (which is predicted unless we get significant rain into Burrendong Dam), that they have access to the groundwater bore we have.

On a Saturday afternoon, a few weekends ago, a group of Geurie farmers sat down and figured out what Geurie might need for their annual water needs.

Geurie at the moment uses 60 million litres of water each year (which is likely to reduce as water restrictions come in). Geurie has about 150 houses. 60 million litres = 60 Mega Litres. We have offered them double the water might need, being 120 Mega Litres.

If this big dry continues, they will need 120 Mega Litres each year until the river runs again.

We made this offer 2 weeks ago, quietly and by letter to our local Council. We had no intention to tell anyone, as we all figured it was the right thing to do.

However, earlier this week, there were radio programs and newspaper articles by our local Mayor which were very hurtful.

We have since met with the Mayor, and explained our situation, and we are back to being friends. It has been great to sit down with the Mayor and his Council to learn more about each other. They have a really big job ahead of them. We have offered our full support. It is great to hear they are investing in water efficiency projects which will come on line in May 2020 - just in time for the river to stop running. They will now recycle Dubbo's stormwater and wastewater. Dubbo per person is currently using 450litres PER PERSON PER DAY. Level 4 water restrictions need 200 litres per person per day. This change of water use needs to happen within 4 weeks. This is a huge target, but it is possible.

This week has taught me that we need to tell our story.

So this is our story - we grow food for Australia. Our food grown here in Geurie employs 1,000's in the local regional economy. I spoke with Roger Fletcher this week, a powerhouse of a man - his factory in Dubbo employs 670 people alone. He said to me "Claire, the work I did with the NSW government shows that, for every one person I employ, that job creates another 7 in the economy." So, using this example, Roger is responsible for 4690 jobs. If his factory closes - that is a huge hole in our local economy.

When we join together the employees working with Roger, our local dairy Little Big Dairy, the local groundwater irrigation community, Simplot in Bathurst and other wheat milling factories like Furney's in Dubbo and Manildra Mills... the jobs created from irrigated agriculture become tens of thousands.

Our story is not about jobs over water. How can that be? Water is our survival.

After this week, our story is - working with our local Council to ensure they are as water efficient as possible. Working together, will in fact create economic prosperity for generations to come and ensure that we have a sustainable natural resource for our environment.

We have a challenge - the immediate crisis (which is easily solved by working with irrigators to use their bores), and then the bigger challenge.

How does Australia, the second driest continent on earth - become the most water efficient country on the planet? I'm excited to see if Dubbo can lead the charge, and show the rest of the nation how we do it.

So, from the kitchen table in Geurie, I hope you have a great week.

*To put this into context - a can of Edgells sweet corn is 420 grams. There is approx 200 grams of corn kernels in each can (the other part being water) with the parts of the sweet corn harvest which doesn't make it into a can, or snap fresh frozen vegetable pack or frozen meals, sold for livestock food and goes to a local dairy at Bathurst. Nothing is wasted.