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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23979404-2702,00.html
Welcome to a drought-stricken future
Asa Wahlquist and Christian Kerr | July 07, 2008
AUSTRALIA’S agricultural regions face a hotter, drier, more drought-stricken future as a result of climate change, with major implications for both the price and supply of food.
The prediction has been delivered in a major report by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, described yesterday by Kevin Rudd as “very disturbing” and “a serious revision of the impact of climate change on drought”. Agriculture Minister Tony Burke warned the cycle of drought would be “more regular and deeper than ever”. He described the higher-level projections in the assessment as “more like a disaster novel than a scientific report”. He said the report found extreme temperatures that used to occur once every 20 to 25 years “are now likely to occur one in every one to two years as we move towards the year 2030″. The area experiencing exceptionally low rainfall is forecast to double, as is the likelihood of drought. The findings may have major implications for the cost of food and food security.
“Food prices will probably go up,” Australian Dairy Farmers president Allan Burgess warned. “Food pricing is already on a new plane and the sorts of things in the report add to that.
“We’re already talking about food shortages around the world. The kinds of impacts people are talking about in terms of carbon emissions and climate change are probably going to exacerbate that.”
The report was commissioned as part of a review of current drought policy.
Mr Burke has also commissioned a review of the social impact of drought, along with an economic assessment from the Productivity Commission.
Farmer Tony Morrison said farmers had been trying to adapt to climate change, and thought it right that drought policy was adapted also.
Mr Morrison farms at Breadalbane, in the Goulburn region southwest of Sydney, which has been eligible for federal drought support since October 2003.
“Since the year 2000, we have only had our average rainfall twice, and then it was only just,” he said. “We haven’t had above-average rainfall since 94-95. It has been pretty droughty for 10 years or more.”
Opposition agriculture spokesman Nigel Scullion said food prices were already under pressure. “We’ve got increased inputs, particularly in any of those areas association with hydrocarbons, fuel and fertiliser and chemicals.” Senator Scullion said ensuring food security was essential.
“When we’re talking climate change, we’ve got to ensure that the issue of food security is up there as an equal partner with all the other aspects of the debate.”
The report says that most of eastern and southwestern Australia has become drier. It finds recent years have been unusually dry, with recent droughts accompanied by higher temperatures.
But NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald says conditions in his state may not be due to climate change.
Almost two-thirds of NSW is now drought-declared, with 20.9 per cent of the state considered marginal and only 14 per cent, largely in coastal areas, satisfactory.
“I don’t link this drought to climate change,” Mr Macdonald said yesterday. “In the southeast of Australia we’ve had some major droughts … the federation drought at the turn of the 20th century went on for 14 years. I think drought is a very natural cycle in the climate characteristics of Australia.”
At first, Mr Morrison treated the drought “like any other”. But with the realisation he was dealing with climate change, he switched from merino sheep to the tougher Dohne sheep.
Currently, areas become eligible for drought support, or exceptional circumstances, if they are experiencing a rare or severe event, defined as occurring once every 20 or 25 years.
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Additional reporting: AAP
