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In Murray-Darling basin won't get water to plant in the next six mounths. They is praying for rain. Sydney- Australians should pray for rain as the worst drought on record has parched the nation's prime agricultural land and put domestic supplies at risk, Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday. Without heavy rains in the Murray-Darling basin in the next six weeks farmers won't get an allocation for irrigation so that townsfolk further down the river system can be assured of drinking water.
"It's a grim situation and there's no point in pretending to the Australian public otherwise," Howard told reporters in Canberra. "We must all hope and pray there is rain."
Householders in major cities are already on tight water restrictions and these are likely to be tightened further to cope with a changing climate where temperatures are higher and rainfall is lower.
Murray-Darling farmers account for a third of agricultural production and three-quarters of irrigated acreage like vineyards and orchards.
Howard refused to say whether farmers whose wells were dry would be forced out of business.
"It will be another blow if it doesn't rain, that's self-evident, but I don't want to start using these apocalyptic terms in a general fashion," Howard said. "We know already that the drought has taken up to three-quarters to 1 per cent off our growth - the longer it goes on the harder the impact."
New South Wales Irrigators Council chief executive Doug Miell said orchards of oranges, grapes, olives and almonds would not survive the hot summer without water pumped from the Murray-Darling.
"The quality of their produce, if there is any, will be a lot lower than it ever has been and I would suspect most of them would be struggling for income and struggling to survive," Miell said.
Grape-grower Bill Caddy predicted the cut in water supplies would force many farmers off the land. "If we don't get rain in the catchment areas we are going to be in diabolical trouble," he said.
His alarm was echoed by Winemakers Federation chief Stephen Strachan, who said the country's next wine vintage could be crippled because over half of it was produced in the Murray-Darling.
Opposition Labor Party deputy leader Julia Gillard blamed the Howard government for the water crisis, saying its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change was evidence of its indifference.
"Unless this country addresses the challenge of climate change, future water shortages and future droughts may go from bad to worse," Gillard said. "A mob of climate change sceptics can't fix climate change for this country."
I feel so sad about them because they don't have water to use to plant foods. We will have to think a way to help them.
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