“COVID-19 on the back of a drought has brought into sharp focus everything that is wrong with water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin.”
These are the words of Leeton Shire Council
Mayor who is very concerned about the precarious position the rice industry
finds itself in next year as a result of the systematic erosion of general
water security entitlements through poor policy and obscenely inflated
temporary water prices, topped off by recent panic buying due the pandemic
which saw rice fly off the supermarket shelves.
In its Water Position Statement released in 2019, Leeton Shire Council confirmed its support for the intent of the Murray Darling Basin Plan - a healthy and sustainable river system – but raised its deep concern about the lack of strategic and integrated roll out of the Plan. This has led to a raft of submissions by Mayor Maytom to a wide range of enquiries, from the Productivity Commission’s 5-year assessment report on the Murray-Darling Plan to the Robbie Sefton Socioeconomic Review, the Mick Keelty Water Sharing Review and the ACCC’s inquiry into water markets.
At the heart of these submissions, Leeton Shire Council believes that water reform was never supposed to decimate thriving regional communities and all-important job-creating industries such as those in the MIA. Instead the Plan was supposed to foster smarter use of our precious water resource so that water could be returned to the environment with no or little impact on agricultural productivity, especially in our purpose-built irrigation areas.
Mayor Maytom is calling for the Federal Government to go back to first principles and honour their commitments when the 2004 National Water Initiative and 2007 Water Act were developed. At the time it was understood that General Security water entitlements would not be eroded; water entitlements would not be affected by others’ carryover, there would be increased certainty and reliability of water access for users and the government would bear the risks associated with reductions in water allocations arising from government policy.
“I can’t and won’t stand by and watch an industry like rice, which has been the backbone of the Riverina for more than 70 years, be compromised because of poor policy implementation,” said Mayor Maytom who believes governments are failing in their responsibilities by allowing permanent plantings that rely on temporary water markets, supported by foreign investors with deep pockets, to be developed downstream on cheap greenfield sites outside of traditional irrigation areas.
Mayor Maytom cautions strongly against solely chasing higher farm gate prices at the expense of maintaining fully functioning communities with important value adding industries that drive jobs and population growth, which in turn sustain schools, hospitals and shops. Instead, Leeton Shire Council promotes a sustainable, integrated and diverse mix of agricultural endeavours, both on farm and through manufacturing. Critically, Council wants to see diversity of product maintained in the region as diversity brings strength and resilience to local communities and the nation.
“Australia’s aim to develop a $100B agricultural sector cannot be realised through boom and bust policy settings. In our constrained water environment, we need a fully integrated and coordinated approach to land-use and water-use that drives genuine sustainability over time, including sustainable primary production, sustainable industry, sustainable jobs and sustainable communities.”
Mayor Maytom says the rice industry is a mature industry with a long-term commitment to the region and to the country and a significant cumulative investment in its development. Built entirely by Riverina farmers, it is a fully integrated business of which Australians can be truly proud.
“Our growers have been supported by years of R&D which now sees us the most efficient rice growing country in the world, using half the water of other rice growing nations. The water is used twice, with a second crop grown in the moist clay soils. The rice paddies teem with life – fish, frogs and birds (including the endangered bittern), wonderful examples of ephemeral wetlands that support biodiversity. Our rice processing plants employ close to 600 people across the Riverina and Murray and in a good year SunRice injects over $400M into our local economies. Better still, rice can be turned on in the wetter years and turned off in the drier years, complementing existing permanent plantings that, in the MIA, typically rely on high security water entitlements. Better still, excess paddy can be stored in the good years which means our value adding processing plants can operate year in and year out, regardless of the weather, giving jobs to many hundreds of people. Importantly, the demand for rice is growing across the world and markets love our Aussie grown rice so the industry really does have a very bright future.”
Mayor Maytom has been notified by SunRice that their stored rice paddy will be exhausted by Christmas 2020. This is the first time this has happened in 70 years and raises immediate concerns about Aussie families not having ready access to an affordable, Australian grown staple food, as well as concerns about further job layoffs if the Leeton mill and others in the Riverina were to stop operating.
“With drought and COVID-19, the cracks in our Basin Plan water policies are more evident than ever. Fixing them now is time critical or we risk losing vital industries and jobs. We must act quickly to ensure a rice crop is harvested by April 2021.”
Mayor Maytom has secured a meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister and will be advocating for three actions from government. Firstly, a one-off emergency water allocation for rice of around 200GL (similar to the Water for Fodder initiative) in order to address immediate food security and job security risks. Secondly, an improved allocation and greater certainty for general security water entitlement holders, as intended when the Water Initiative and the Water Act were developed. And finally, but very importantly, an integrated and coordinated agricultural strategy for the Murray-Darling Basin.
“An agricultural strategy for the Basin will support the most appropriate use of the land and our scarce water resource. It needs to be coordinated and integrated and should foster diversity so that we can become genuinely sustainable and resilient as farmers, manufacturers, businesses and communities.”
Mayor Maytom is hopeful that governments will listen and act.
“I will continue to remind our leaders that leaving our future to chance and market forces alone is irresponsible, even reckless. That will undo all the good that the Basin Plan has sought to deliver and will impede our ability to achieve our national agriculture targets. Instead we need to work together as governments and Basin communities to sensibly plan our future as the food bowl for Australia, committing to an integrated and coordinated approach that makes the best use of our land and our water, supported by thriving communities.”
