Murray-Darling Basin Commission Chief Executive Wendy Craik told the ABARE OUTLOOK conference today that the drought continues to have a serious impact on the river system and on rural communities and industries, with irrigators in the Basin receiving their lowest allocations on record.

"It will take several years for these storages to recover, with regional communities, irrigators and the environment continuing to be affected for some time yet," she said.

Dr Craik also noted that climate change posed a significant threat to future water availability.

Victorian dairy farmer and chairman of industry body Irrigation Limited, Stephen Mills, said many producers are changing their practices to adapt to the drier times.

"We, like most dairy farmers, made the decision to sell our water at prices above $1,100 per megalitre, which enabled us to purchase three tonnes of dry matter per megalitre of water sold," he told the conference.

"In the future we will not return to wall to wall perennial pastures that require irrigating throughout the summer. Instead, we will grow more annual crops and store the harvested silage and hay for use later in the year and in future years."

Mr Mills also highlighted the adoption of new water saving technologies across a range of irrigated agriculture, including tomatoes, perennial horticulture, rice and cotton, and emphasised the importance of research and development.

"While there is a lot of research into irrigation and water use, more needs to be done to ensure the efficient use of our scarce water resources," he said.
 
Irrigator Sally Jones said other drivers of change in the future will include climate change and governments" response to it, community attitudes to food and farmers, and biotechnology.