Large-scale cropping on trial in the north

The prospects for a dramatic boost in agriculture in north Australia made the news recently. The large amounts of money and the landscape changes involved in these agricultural visions will affect many people across the tropical savannas. But as Dennis Schulz reports, while many of the natural perils that hindered cropping in the north seem to have been conquered, new problems loom.

Rich Pickings | Tougher cotton | Local concern | Indigenous issues |

Agriculture has always been a problematic proposition in the northern savannas. The prevailing attitude has been that the climate is too harsh, the predators too voracious and the water too scarce for agriculture to ever be considered an economically viable form of land use. But according to Stuart Kenny of the Northern Territory Irrigation, Grain and Fodder Association, that thinking is now obsolete because of technical advances including pest-resistant crops.

In his address to the Northern Territory’s Economic Summit in October, Mr Kenny predicted a big future for farmers in the north if Asian markets can be identified and Native Title issues settled. “Within five years, this industry has the ability to be five times the size it is today,” he said of the Territory’s $20 million agriculture industry.

Mr Kenny’s assessment coincides with the emergence of a number of huge agricultural development projects across the savannas. In the Territory, the sprawling Katherine/Daly Basin cropping project will accompany the extension of the Ord River Stage II from the Kimberley district of Western Australia. Western Agriculture Industry’s (WAI) Fitzroy River cotton project is also planned for the state while other large-scale cotton projects could begin operation in western Queensland’s Flinders River region in 2003 following current trials. A soon to be released report from the Australian Cotton CRC has identified more than a dozen sites in the north that may be suitable for cotton.

Rich pickings

When water is accessible, agriculture has been shown to produce results. Mr Kenny pointed out that irrigated agriculture only represents half of 1 per cent of Australia’s agricultural land area, but it returns 48 per cent of the total profits. The Ord Stage I development bears testament to that statistic, with just 14,000 hectares of irrigated land producing $68 million in returns from a wide array of crops last year.

That figure will rise if new international markets are secured. Mr Kenny’s growers’ organisation recently signed an export deal with companies in Japan for Katherine-grown sesame. The local crop has the potential to also replace $18 million of sesame imports into Australia.

“It hasn’t been a crop adapted to suit our region,” says Mr Kenny, “but we now have a variety that’s been developed here in the Territory. It has enormous promise.”

Many of the new developments will concentrate on sugarcane and cotton, both predominantly export crops requiring massive amounts of water. Sugarcane will be the major crop produced in Ord Stage II but cotton and other crops will be introduced to the 60,000-hectare development. A development consortium of Wesfarmers (80 per cent) and Japanese trading house Marubeni (20 per cent) will produce a feasibility study by December 31 that will indicate whether the project will go ahead—but the WA Government fully expects a green light. WAI’s Fitzroy River cotton project, south of Broome, is planned to be enormous, beginning with a 20,000 hectare development, expanding to 225,000 hectares to be irrigated with water from the river.

Tougher cotton

Cotton has had an infamous history in northern Australia. Once a valuable export commodity, it was the original crop planted at the Ord Stage I irrigation scheme in Kununurra in 1963. By 1974, even after growers had used enormous quantities of destructive pesticides, the crop had become decimated by pests resistant to the chemicals. But today Kununurra is the site of a new experiment trialling genetically engineered cotton strains, reportedly resistant to pests, that require less chemical spraying. The new Ingard cotton varieties are also being trailed in Richmond in Queensland, Katherine and Broome.

The new strains were developed by CSIRO under license from the United States’ corporation, Monsanto. They use a naturally occurring insecticide called Bt toxin that is synthesised into the cotton leaves, halting the digestion of the plant by insects. The strain developed in Australia contains two genes. “It becomes increasingly difficult for insects to become resistant to Ingard when there are two or more genes operating at once,” explains Geoff Strickland, Cotton Project Manager for the WA Department of Agriculture. “With a single gene operating resistance would develop in about six years, but if you’ve got two genes operating with different modes of action, then that gets expanded to 30 years.”

Mr Strickland was involved with the five-year Kununurra cotton trail where results have been impressive. “A quarter of the crops didn’t receive a single spray for any pests at all,” says Mr Strickland. “Over the past five years we’ve had an average of less than five sprays per crop compared to the last year of commercial production when there was 40 sprays.

“The question remains: can you effectively manage the development of resistance and in that way keep the product viable for a long time? We believe that we can.”

Local concern

These cotton projects have not only raised the hopes of many for a lucrative new source of income, they have raised concerns among local landholders. The WAI project spurred a cross-section of interested parties, including representatives of government, Aborigines and the community to meet in Broome on October 27 for the ‘Cotton on Trial’ public forum. There, a number of local speakers raised their concerns about broad acre cotton production and the existing Memorandum of Understanding between WAI and the WA Government. That MOU guarantees the company access to 95 per cent of the area’s groundwater reservoir for its initial cotton production.

In Queensland’s Gulf country, shires downstream of the potential cotton development in Richmond have also expressed concern. A community forum was held in May this year (see Savanna Links, Issue 18, April–June). Hosted by the Southern Gulf Catchments Inc. in conjunction with the Richmond Shire Council, the forum drew more than 100 stakeholders including conservation groups, shire councils, graziers, and commercial fishing groups. A Flinders River Catchment advisory panel was established through the forum and has now met three times since May.

According to Andrew Humpherys, the forum’s coordinator, the main concern was water allocation. Graziers downstream of the development were concerned over possible shortages of water for livestock. Commercial and recreational fishers in the Gulf were also concerned about changed river ecology that could impact on estuarine breeding grounds for prawns and fish. A dam has also been fielded for the O’Connell Creek, a tributary of the Flinders River. An initial feasibility study has been completed and is currently being examined by the Department of Natural Resources & Mines.

However, opposition to broad acre cotton projects goes beyond the use of water. Massive land clearing practices remain the greatest concern for environmentalists and Aborigines alike. Significant biodiversity damage can accompany clearing as well as salination and damage to sacred sites.

“We don’t have any the legislative framework to ensure that land clearing happens in the correct way,” states Mark Wakeham of the NT Environment Centre. “We’re potentially supporting developments that are not ecologically sustainable or economically viable.”

The cotton commodity price, says Mr Wakeham, is currently languishing at a 29-year low—though prices did rise slightly in December.

Environs Kimberley, a Broome-based environmental group, demands that the WAI cotton project be shelved. They question whether we can afford to cause widespread environmental disruption simply to profit from the production of an export commodity.

“We called for the WA Government to pull out of the MOU and instigate a community-based planning process so the community can decide what sustainable development can be undertaken,” says Environs Kimberley campaigner Jann Crase. “We need to ensure that the ecological and cultural integrity of the area is maintained.”

Indigenous issues

Widespread clearing and the alteration of the landscape for agriculture is also anathema to traditional Aboriginal people and these concerns have surfaced in the new cotton proposals.

Native Title issues are identified as major impediments for the WAI’s trans-genic cotton venture south of Broome. Traditional owners currently deny the developer access to the proposed site.

In the Ord Stage II proposal, the government’s negotiator, Mick Dodson, is currently discussing Native Title issues with local traditional owners and concerns regarding sites of cultural significance to Aboriginal people.

“Both the Kimberley Land Council and the Northern Land Council have said these issues are resolvable,” comments David Meehan, head of the WA Office of Major Projects.

However, the director of the Northern Land Council, Norman Fry, has serious concerns with the cotton proposals. “When it comes to land clearing, Aboriginal people are not going to be happy to help,” he says. “I’m not about to get the organisation I head to be advising the owners of almost 50 per cent of the Northern Territory to be entering into agricultural practices that are going to get us into trouble further down the track.”

Mr Fry believes future sustainable land use in the north will arrive in the form of new technologies involving products derived from plant species harvested on Aboriginal lands. He has recently met with representatives of international pharmaceutical companies that have expressed strong interest in the chemical properties of native plants.

“In the genetic prospecting area we have some of the most exciting prospects to look forward to,” says Mr Fry. “Genetic industries like that would keep the country pristine. We’d be mugs to allow the country to be stripped for an old industry like agriculture that would rob us of the industry of the future.”