| Making dollars from saline land |
Wednesday, 22 November 2000
Ref 2000/309
A national project is under way to discover methods to make Australia's salinity-damaged lands
turn a profit.
Involving CSIRO, departments of agriculture in
Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South
Wales, and the University of Adelaide, it will develop innovative animal production systems for saline/waterlogged land.
Mr Michael Lloyd, a farmer from Lake Grace and Chair of the "Animal Production from Saline
Land Initiative", knows first-hand that saline, waterlogged land is a growing part of our landscape.
"On my property, about half of the land is saline," said Mr Lloyd.
"In Western Australia alone, about 30% of the fertile agricultural land, or 6 million hectares,
could become saline within the next 50 years. In the Murray/Darling basin, salinity is threatening
the use of some 2-4 million hectares.
"What are we doing about it? Most approaches currently focus on reducing the rate and extent
of the development of saline, waterlogged land with the emphasis on recuperation of the land
through engineering, forestry, fencing off, and pastures.
"But whatever the successes, it is obvious that farmers will still have a significant amount of saline land to manage.
"The question I and many other farmers ask ourselves is - can this land make a valued
contribution to the economic and environmental goals of agriculture, and in particular, is this
possible through pasture/animal systems?" said Michael Lloyd.
"We held a workshop in Perth earlier this year, and the various experts in plant breeding, salinity
and animal production concluded that substantial untapped potential exists in saline/waterlogged
land.
"We have now established a working group with representatives from SA, WA, Victoria and
NSW. We have developed five major projects which we are now implementing across southern
Australia.
"In early November we presented our case to industry organisations with national responsibilities, to engage them in our activities," says Mr Lloyd.
"I am delighted to say that all key bodies such as The Woolmark Company, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Murray Darling Basin Commission, and Land and Water Australia strongly support the approach we are taking, and will be contributing to the development of the program.
"In total, we hope that $2.5 million will be allocated to the work for each of the next 5 years.
From that, we conservatively estimate that the agricultural industry will return at least $50 million
— not a bad return on investment," he said.
"The time has now come to move from words to action. Work has begun in four states on a
total of 6 properties. We are working with plant breeders to identify new pasture plants that will
not only grow on saline land, but also provide valuable feed to sheep and cattle."
Dr Rob Kelly of CSIRO Livestock Industries says, "Our initial testing of over a 100 plants has
raised some interesting issues. Not only do some species appear to be highly productive on
saline land, but also a few contain compounds that can affect animals.
"You can imagine that a plant that has developed to survive in a saline environment has probably
got some fairly smart ways of deterring animals, insects and diseases, given that it already has a
tough environment in which to live.
"We are starting to identify significant differences between plants in digestibility, in salt content,
as well as level of phenolic compounds. Interestingly, some of these phenolic compounds could
be both beneficial as well as deleterious in their effects on animals."
"Clearly, we need to identify such issues early in the plant breeding program, and ensure that the
pasture plants produced are not only productive, but nutritious to the animal.
"Some of the plants I have examined are really promising, so there are opportunities out there if
we can get it right," said Dr Kelly.
"We will put our best effort into this program, so that these solutions can be identified and made
available to the farming industry as quickly as possible."
For more information, contact:
Michael Lloyd, 08 9871 2041
Rob Kelly, CSIRO, mobile 0408 919 469, 08 9333 6685
Pat Wilson, CSIRO, 02 9840 2741
CSIRO news release
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