Moving water at Sydney Uni

Last week, Floris and I wrote a commentary in the newspaper, building on some of the research Floris is doing and related to the to Cubbie or not to Cubbie question. Anyway, you can read it here. But, while writing this article, I was reminded of another question that I have not yet solved: whether Australia is better off growing annual cops under irrigation or perennial crops. I will explain.

The ETS was defeated in the Senate. Australian politicians aren’t even able to take a modest step towards a lower carbon economy. Maybe it is no surprise if people like Senator Fielding get elected to parliament. We are a long way behind the rest of the world people, we better get used to being regarded as the backwater, the slow ones, the ignorant bunch.

The Liverpool plains is one of the best (and maybe the best) agricultural regions of Australia with deep fertile black clay soils and sufficient rainfall and sunshine for production of durum wheat, sorghum and many other crops. It is also a region which has regularly been in the news. First it was related to the over allocation of groundwater to the local irrigators, but more recently because the area is underlain by a rich coal seam. The NSW government would like to sell the mining rights, and, understandably, the local community is none too pleased. All this is understandable, I would not be happy with mining in my backyard either. So basically we have a trade-off between mining and agriculture. But the real question that arises is what the best solution is for Australia and the Australian society in terms of sustainability, resilience and future prosperity. I will try to answer this question from a philosophical point of view rather than going into the specific details of the case. I have commented on this earlier