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Chapter 4. In 2011, has the potential value of salt land been forgotten or is it all just too hard?

Chapter 4

Kevin Goss and others have identified the potential loss of 17 million hectares of agricultural land to salt encroachment within the lifetime of our grandchildren has become yesterday’s problem, when in reality it is very much with us, and growing by the hour.

In 2011 the Federal Government believes that climate change is taking place and what is more, they believe that it is man-made. They are firmly of the view that unless we reduce our emissions of carbon, which really is carbon dioxide, the climate will deteriorate.

The Federal Government, together with the Greens and the very powerful environmental lobby, want a carbon tax. They want to tax those who emit carbon dioxide.

The government’s chief adviser on climate change, Prof Garnaut, an economist, believes the ‘price’ of carbon (dioxide) should be between $20 and $30 a tonne. Although the political environment being what it is in Australia it is not possible to predict what the price will be. All we know is that if the ‘Carbon Tax’ legislation is passed, there will be a price on carbon.

Permits will be bought and sold at that price. So the emitters of carbon will be able to buy permits from those who store carbon.

The Opposition agrees that climate change is real and is man-made. They are of the view that a carbon tax is unnecessary and a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be achieved by other means. One of which is by planting more trees.

Unlike the world of politics where nobody agrees, science does agree that trees use carbon dioxide to grow and in the process of growing they store carbon both above and below the ground, they sequester it. They are what is called a carbon sink. In a new world of carbon trading that ‘sink’, those trees, will have a value other than as a source of timber.

Planted at the rate of 1000 trees per hectare it has been calculated that eucalypts will sequester an average 10 tonnes carbon per hectare per year.

If we do get a carbon tax, based on Garnaut’s price, River Red Gums (or any other salt tolerant tree) planted at a rate of 1000 trees per hectare would (eventually) have an annual value as a carbon sink of between $200 and $300 per hectare per year. That’s a lot better than growing cereals.

If a carbon tax does not come to pass and the current Federal Opposition gets it’s way and we go down the path of planting more trees, the farmers of Australia and in particular the farmers of Western Australia will be able to offer an almost unlimited supply of land on which to plant those trees.

It will be up to agriculture to value and present the salt affected land to those who want to plant trees. Land that is currently considered a liability will become an asset and more importantly, have a value—again.

And the trees that grow on that salt affected land will eventually have a value whether it be in ten or twenty years.

Plant nothing and the salt land and it will be there forever, it will grow in area, and remain as worthless as it is today.

So where do we go from here?

The biggest decision we have to make is whether as a community of all political and environmental persuasions, we are prepared to accept the hard-core scientific evidence presented by Goss and many others of the almost certain loss to salinity of 17 million hectares of farmland in Australia in the next forty years?

If we do, ipso facto, we accept that what we have done thus far, the millions of dollars we have spent to combat salinity, has just not been enough.

The decisions are difficult. Are we prepared to make a start at financing, planning and fashioning a truly national strategy to create a business plan, which will empower regional Australia start planting trees and in so doing, make our ever-increasing salt land productive again?

Or is the decision, or has the decision already been made, to do nothing, and in doing nothing accept the almost certain loss to salt of 17 million hectares of fertile farmland by 2050?

If the decision is to do nothing, it will mean both State and Federal governments reject the science. It will mean that all Australian governments expect farmers to produce more food, for more people, from less land and service their ever-increasing farm debt from a diminishing equity capital resource.

If the decision is to do nothing our legacy to future generations will be clear and obvious. Their judgement, quite rightly, will be that we knew — and did nothing. We faltered and then failed. We created the problem and left it to them to fix it.

Roger Crook

June 2011

Epilogue.

It is interesting to contemplate that if salt land were reclaimed with trees, would that alter the position Peter and others find themselves in being banned from clearing trees? If the banning was to enable Australia to meet (fudge?) its target for Kyoto then where would the reclamation of say 1 million hectares a years leave us? Could land then be cleared again?

I have noticed in another discussion that none other than the Wentworth Group have a view on land clearing by farmers, yet, as far as I am aware, they are unaware of the tens of thousands of hectares a year, which is being cleared by Mother Nature, by salinity.

On reflection I have not castigated and criticized the Greens, the WWF and all the other motley environmental crew enough, for their apparent ignorance on this matter of salinity if for no other reason than for the loss of biodiversity, flora and fauna extinction of which they seem blissfully unaware.

Over a month ago I did send this paper to the Shadow Minister for the Environment and told him I would not print until I had heard from him. I thought it might help in their formulation of an alternative to the Carbon Tax. I have not heard anything since I received a thank you.

Roger

Sept 11.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Colin J Ely on January 28, 2012 at 10:36pm

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/4/green-myths-about-...

Here is an interesting article I discovered on Quadrant about all you 'bad' farmers! ;-)

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on January 29, 2012 at 2:37pm

Thanks, Colin. Hadn't seen it. True about rainfall, Univ Coll Durham Farm, UK, in my time, average rainfall (in the 60s) 18 inches.

Good defence put by Smith, what he didn't say was that agricultural productivity has stagnated - ABARE reports that output over the past forty years has increased a mere 0.3 per cent a year (Alan Moran. Quadrant Jan Feb 2012)

What he also didn't say was that their is a direct correlation between reductions in research and reductions in productivity increases. Research dollars continue to decline.

Roger

Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on January 30, 2012 at 4:29pm

Roger

I have been avoiding the salinity topic because it is wide ranging and I don't think I have the time to do it justice.

Until relatively recently, it was possible to find state government sites which stated that salinity was not regarded as a problem in Queensland because it covered just .000?% of land. It is in scattered patches over the east coast with little to none in western areas.

However, as we know from the reef it does not seem to be politically correct to have non-problems.

Now the government sites say that we had 48,000ha in 2000 which had risen to 107,000ha by 2002 according to ABARE. I do not know how any of this was estimated.

It is however, a very long way from your 17m ha which is, I think based on the hazard map of the potential for salinity.

My personal opinion is that the red hazard map which was widely publicised did little for the farming community.

Most of it will never happen as it require a confluence of several circumstances which are relatively rare together to cause the salinity.

As for your non-criticism of the green groups for ignoring it, in Queensland, it is part of the "litany" which they recite ad finitum but with no understanding of what it all really means.

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on January 30, 2012 at 5:44pm

The response from 'agriculture' in Qld was 'interesting' I will not repeat it here. I will write if you accept the message I have just sent.

The other numbers from the other states were checked as best I could. A good instance was Vic where they thought the saline area may have decreased during the 10 year drought. That view is now being reviewed after the floods, same goes for NSW.

In WA I have the feeling that salinity is being swept under the carpet. Too hard? Don't know. Change of Minister probably.

I have just adopted another strategy of which I will also write.

What has surprised me is the response from JG, perhaps the demographics of those in agriculture have changed and the Queensland centric or northern focus on agriculture, salinity is just not an issue?

Roger

Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on January 31, 2012 at 5:09pm

Roger - we have enough real problems and salinity here in Qld definitely is the bottom of the list.

I hate to say it but we don't need a cure if we don't have a problem.

We have discussed this at length and and we agreed at a stretch that maybe 100000ha may appear to be scalded from something . Not much in the scale of things and I would guess that 95% of that would be from artesian water flood out from drains which tends to seal the surface and the trees die.

Also in my case I have bought that many hundreds of tonnes of Olssons Lick blocks over the years - that would be the only salt addition to my country here.. By co-incidence - my last comment was about bs salinity and the Csiro re MDBA.

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on January 31, 2012 at 7:35pm

I didn't raise the subject again. It was raised with me. I have excluded Queensland, or rather excused Queensland from my paper, as I have conflicting information from agencies in Queensland, the details of which must remain confidential, but generally they range from 'we don't really know' to 'we don't know' to 'there is some evidence of increases in irrigation areas' to 'we still don't know as substantial areas, compared to say Western Australia, have only been recently cleared'

I understand that there may have been (was?) a political imperative in the original numbers put up for the future impact of salinity in Queensland. I understand the desalination unit, which was the result, is in mothballs I understand. So much for Queensland governance.

For reasons only known to Queensland, Queensland is the only State where the numbers are ambiguous.

If Queensland is excluded from the national area of salinity it still means that by 2050 an area larger than Tasmania, nearly double the size, is predicted to be affected by salt.

So you can get off your Queensland 'high horse'. I am sure the value of your land will not be affected.

Just out of interest, virgin land which I chained and burned in the 1960s where there was no sign of salinity now has ever-increasing areas of salinity. They first appeared about 10 years ago. So that was forty years after clearing before salinity appeared.

I expected a reply from you. It's obviously still raining. Just forget it, Rob. Queensland is another country, I accept that. Everything that doesn't come out of Queensland is, to use your abbreviation, BS.

Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on February 1, 2012 at 10:13am

Roger,

Yes it is still raining and and we are over 12 inches since Sunday the 23rd. Managed to finish shearing yesterday morning ( by some miracles and some skill)

The salinity bs that I refered too came out of SA and the CSIRO. I simply have no faith in science - now that it has been politically corrupted. Sook all you like - I know what is happening on my patch!

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on February 1, 2012 at 10:53am

Sook all you like - I know what is happening on my patch!

Charming! Thank you Mr moderator.

Yes, I am sure you do. Having no faith in science I suppose allows you great freedom of thought. It means that whatever you don't want to believe in - you don't - it all becomes BS.

I suppose the same goes for your views on AGW and the science.

The only perfect science is hindsight.

Permalink Reply by Cate Stuart on February 1, 2012 at 11:06am

Oi you two lol Now, what i do know is that when i went to Perth to the Senate inquiry, Rachel Seiwert (grrrr) made a point of trying to goad me in a comment / question regarding salinity in WA compared to Qld/NSW and what "farmers" have done (implied here) making it worse - I wont go into detail, however, you can imagine my response :)

The point of this - apples and oranges people! :)

Permalink Reply by Rob Moore on February 1, 2012 at 11:30am

Charming! Thank you Mr moderator

Roger-

I post on here today- the same as I did on my very first attempt on the old agmates site of Steve Trumans. Have always used my full name and have never said anything that I would be ashamed of.

I don't post to get approval- you have got my views on science and AGW all in one. As for moderating -you should know that I am the last to interfere as I reckon that most time I have seen that intervening causes more trouble than if we just let it ride.

With a comment like that above - are you trying to get sympathy against the big bully owner?

Thats the only conclusion that I can draw.

Permalink Reply by Cate Stuart on February 1, 2012 at 11:33am

Hey, you two, give me a hand in here please - Rob and Roger and any other livestock owners this is one "debate" you wont want to miss out on ;)

http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/cattl...

Cheers Cate :)

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on February 1, 2012 at 12:03pm

Not at all. If I thought you had the capacity to bully, I would laugh at the very thought.

I just happen to have different views to you on some subjects. To dismiss others views as BS, without qualification, is BS.

Leave it there?

R

Rob Moore said:

Charming! Thank you Mr moderator

Roger-

          I post on here today- the same as I did on my very first attempt on the old agmates site of Steve Trumans. Have always used my full name and have never said anything that I would be ashamed of.

       I don't post to get approval- you have got my views on science and AGW all in one. As for moderating -you should know that I am the last to interfere as I reckon that most time I have seen that intervening causes more trouble than if we just let it ride.

       With a comment like that above - are you trying to get sympathy against the big bully owner?

Thats the only conclusion that I can draw.