SALT BUSH GIVES WAY TO PASTURE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 10

SALT BUSH GIVES WAY TO PASTURE

Aided by many new scientific discoveries, and modern farm and earthmoving machinery, Australia’s primary producers each year are opening immense tracts of previously unproductive land to agriculture and grazing.

For various reasons—location, climate, accessibility to markets, water, or lack of it, and poor quality soils—much of Australia will continue to lie dormant to economic production. But today vast acreages of semi-arid country, swamp and jungle-like growth are being reclaimed for farming and grazing. Areas that sprouted only stunted salt bush are inches deep in pastures including specially developed legumes for the tropical north.

For a nation of less than 12 million, Australia’s primary production figures are impressive. Sheep flocks exceed 170 million, with an annual killing of 35 million for meat production, and the world's highest output of wool. Australia cannot match the cattle figures of the United States and several other countries, but herds of 19 million, with a killing of 7 million contribute significantly to dinner tables throughout the world.

Gross annual pastoral production runs to sAuslsoo million with SAusllOO million of the total coming from the three eastern States of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Primary production is concentrated along the east coast in the south-eastern “corner” where reliable rivers flow to the sea from the watershed of the Great Dividing Range, the river valleys round Adelaide, and the south-west corner of West Australia. Water The Murray-Darling river system, Australia’s largest source of water, has long been harnessed to the needs of men. Strategically-placed dams and weirs make huge volumes of water available for primary industry and have led directly to the establishment of rice, fruit and vegetable growing industries, as well as adding to production of wool, fat lambs and dairy produce.

The River Murray catchment covers 400,000 square miles, draining an area of almost one-seventh of the continent.

In the far inland, thorough development of the world’s largest artesian basin is essential to growth. Covering an area of 700,000 square miles over four States, this huge reservoir of underground water has been tapped by 18,000 artesian bores and 200,000 subartesian bores.

Of the 350 million gallons daily flow, 90 per cent is lost by evaporation and seepage. Yet with these resources, Australian primary production is still at the mercy of prolonged droughts. The situation has been partly offset by the development of aerial rain-making services which contributed to maintaining output in the dry years of 1965 and 1966.

Chowilia Dam Latest development in the harnessing of scarce water supplies is the projected Chowilla Dam, on the lowei reaches of the Murray. Planned to hold five million acrefeet, this dam is expected to cost sAus7o million and to enable the development of whole new areas of agriculture and crazing land.

Two thousand miles to the ndrth-west, away on the opposite corner of the continent, government authorities have sponsored the imaginative Ord River Project, where a system of small dams and channels has enabled the development of 175,000 acres of new country for beef and rice production. Grain plays an important part in the overall scene of Australia’s primary production. Annual wheat output runs to 400 million bushels with oats 70 million bushels, barley 50 million bushels and small quantities of other grains. It is in this field of grain production that both government authorities and private interests have found some of their greatest challenges. Australian wheat yields average

21 bushels to the acre. This compares favourably with Asia’s 13 bushels but not so well with Europe’s 31 bushels and South America’s 26 bushels. Development There are various answers. Uncertain rainfall in wheatgrowing areas is one factor and there is little to be done in this direction. But two other factors—better fertilisers and better grains—are receiving attention. New factories are being built to produce superphosphate and nitrogenous fertilisers, while bulk facilities and the development of aerial spreading gives promise of low cost operation of these essential soil-building operations. The development of better grains has received as much attention. Each State has a well-developed Department of Agriculture and the Commonwealth Scientific and Indus- i trial Research Organisation (C.5.1.R.0.) has added its i sophisticated facilities, to the task. Beef Exports It is in the northern tropical areas of the island continent that most of the nation’s domestic and export beef is produced. Huge cattle stations, many totalling millions of acres, have seen enormous investment in recent years. As scientific methods of beef production are applied to the cattle industry, tropical Santa Gertrudis and Brahman

strains are being introduced into the predominantly Shorthorn herds, with a dramatic uplift in quality. Average carase weights are rising yearly, as is the ability of the new breeds to resist tropical pests and diseases. As the cattle have improved, so have methods of handling them. In earlier years, the traditional method of marketing was by droving—walking the cattle in huge herds to railway centres in Queensland, often 1000 miles away, with most animals losing up to 801 b in weight on the way. Today the scene has changed. Federal and State governments have spent huge sums on a far-flung net work of “beef roads.” Over these, triple-unit articulated diesel road trains shift 130 cattle each in journeys which now take as many hours as they formerly took weeks. In 1963, a note of high courage and enterprise, a complete modern meatworks was established as Katherine, 200 miles south of Darwin, in the Northern Territory. From an output of 12,000 carcases in that first year, the works has raised production to a figure of 30,000. Export meat produced at the new works is transported to the sea-board in refrigerated semi-trailers, where it is transhipped direct from van to ship’s hold by means of standard conveyor equipment Cartons average 701 b each of boned meat, packed in polythene film and frozen in the carton.