 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Appendices |
|
|
|
|
|
||
| The Murray-Darling Basin is an important agricultural region in Australia, covering an area of around 1 million square kilometres and accounting for about 40 per cent of Australia’s total gross value of agricultural production (ABS 2008). While most agricultural land is used for dryland enterprises, the Basin also supports a large irrigation sector with around 18 000 square kilometres being irrigated in 2000-01 (Bryan and Marvanek 2004). Since around 2002, prolonged and severe drought throughout much of the Basin has reduced inflows into river systems to record lows and, subsequently, the volume of water held in many major water storages has also fallen to record lows. The long term outlook for water in the Murray-Darling Basin is likely to be one of increasing scarcity, with a study by CSIRO (Van Dijk et al. 2006) identifying climate change as the major risk to water availability. The current and likely future water situation in the Basin has focussed attention on a range of challenging and often interrelated water issues, including government administrative responsibility for water management, the environment, trade-offs between water uses and more efficient water use. To better understand the economic characteristics of irrigation industries at a farm level, ABARE was commissioned by the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to undertake a survey of 900 irrigators throughout the Basin. Additional funding for the survey was provided by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The objective of the survey was to collect a range of financial and physical data for the 2006-07 financial year from irrigation farms in selected regions and industries within the Murray-Darling Basin. As well as providing a point in time reference, the survey results will provide a baseline for monitoring future trends in industry performance. A summary of results from the survey are presented in this report, including detailed farm physical and financial estimates by region and industry. |
||
|