Drought forces Australian farmers to consider a northern exposure

Australian farmers are enduring the worst drought in a century in key farming areas in Queensland and New South Wales, and many of them are now at least considering a move to the more tropical areas in the northern part of the country.

Two-thirds of the nation's fresh water flows through the rivers of northern Australia, compared to less than 5% in the drought-exhausted rivers in the farming valleys to the south.

As a result of climate change, scientists predict a 15% decline in rainfall in the south over the coming decades. The same projections show the north actually getting wetter due to increase monsoon activity.

A couple of our Australian readers have mentioned this potential migration recently, and we just ran across a report on the subject, "Farmers look to Australia's wild, wet north," which appeared in the March 14 issue of The Christian Science Monitor (CSM). The article, written by correspondent Nick Squires, notes some of the drawbacks to agricultural expansion in the north.

The region's soils tend to be poorer than those in the south. And while it rains more in the north, rainfall patterns are highly seasonal - way too much or way too little.

There also are potential pest problems in the north that farmers in other parts of Australia rarely, if ever, run up against. A large government-supported program to produce rice in one tropical area in the 1950s was unsuccessful because, in part, wild magpie geese flocked to the seed and feral water buffaloes destroyed levees.

All manner of legal and political questions also must be addressed since aboriginal tribal lands encompass a good deal of the potential farmland.

But, as Squires notes, the northern lands lie relatively close to expanding markets in Asia, and that could influence expansion potential in northern Australia.

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