Bare paddocks taken out of production are a new feature of the northern Victorian landscape.
But they represent a significant problem for those who continue to farm.
Prolonged drought and more liberal water trading rules have brought new problems to the northern irrigation region where large areas of land have been stripped of their water and the land taken out agricultural production.
And as Kyabram dairy farmer Rob Reid explained, that has left the remaining farmers to cope with issues like weed seed invasion from nearby, unfarmed land.
Mr Reid said as much as 30pc or more of some areas now lay idle, compared with even recent times when most of the northern irrigation region was irrigated, permanent pasture.
“It needs a government education program to point out to these people that, rather than leave their land sitting there doing nothing, it could earn them some money by growing a winter cereal crop,” Mr Reid said.
But local industry specialists say the current position may just be a transient stage as some farm businesses adjust to the impact of climate, reduced water availability and their own financial position, with water trading now just another of their financial management tools.
Any long term retirement of farming land would most likely involve pockets of poorer soils that have proved more difficult to farm profitably.
Mr Reid said that with less water available for irrigation the logical option was to plant winter cereal crops.
In their own case he said they had bought extra land for dryland cropping, aiming to achieve some worthwhile benefit from whatever moisture was available.
With the changes that had to be made in their feed program dairy farmers in particular were looking to the experience in Europe where whole crop silage made from cereals had an enormous following.
That was a real option for crops grown close by existing dairy farms, while hay and grain could be economically bought in from further afield.
Goulburn Murray Water’s executive manager for strategy and stakeholder affairs, Garry Smith, said they were aware of the likely impact from the sale of permanent water, made possible by the decision to unbundle land and water titles.
But he cautioned not to read too much into current conditions where record low inflows into the main water storages meant water availability was less than one third of the long-term average.
“Large areas are not being irrigated even where there has been no sale of permanent water entitlement,” he said.
Even so, he said the new water trading rules meant huge volumes of water were now being traded on an annual basis, even though restrictions meant only four per cent could leave the area in any one year.
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