How should we allocate water?
I am not having a go at any industry sector but in Australia we have been in a severe drought and some places absolutely still are.
However I saw some figures that really concerned me at a conference last week.
My question is “can we really justify using desperately needed water for the low return produce?” I understand the needs of those industries and that the farmers involved would need some support but when fruit, nut and grape trees and vines are at risk of dying from lack of water and they give good $value for the water provided, I think we really need to question whether annual crops and exotics like cotton and rice should be grown during a drought. Both of these two crops are grown in the Murray Darling system which is under terrible ecological threat at present.
I actually found the entire discussion of the price of water allocations and the trading of same extremely interesting. There are no easy answers but this is a fair question that we should all be asking when resources are scarce.
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