The Northern Australia Land & Water Taskforce - growing pineapples in Antarctica?

Research area of the Northern Australia Land & Water Taskforce

“During the decade 1950-60, a great deal of research work was carried out in tropical Australia. It has been claimed in many quarters that this research has solved the problem of agricultural development north of the tropic…Yet it is easy to demonstrate that intensive farming in tropical Australia would only be possible if it was heavily subsidized by the Australian people.

…

In spite of the published evidence available the Australian public have been left with the impression that agriculture would be profitable in the Australian tropics. A large proportion of the population think that large-scale irrigation schemes in north-western Australia and intensive cattle fattening in the Northern Territory could be carried without subsidies. This book shows that most forms of agricultural development north of the tropic would be uneconomic. Only minor changes in the existing cattle industry…might be profitable.

What is in fact a myth has become the truth to a large section of the Australian people. The real truth differs little from what was observed by Xavier Herbert a quarter of a century ago. Any agricultural product which can be produced north of the tropic can be produced far more cheaply south of it. It is also difficult to find any non-economic reason for attempting to establish intensive farms in tropical Australia.

Politicians, with the support of the press, have taken advantage of the peculiar fascination northern development has for the Australian public to advocate northern development simply because scientists have demonstrated that crops and animals can be produced in the north, but neither the politicians nor the scientists have examined the cost of this development. Any crop can be grown in any region at any cost. It is technically possible to produce pineapples in Antarctica.

This book is an attempt to point out to the Australian people that the agricultural techniques which have been developed in tropical Australia are uneconomic and that development there could only proceed at tremendous cost to the nation. Resources which would be wasted in the north could be profitably used for many forms of development in the south of the continent.

These words come from the preface to Bruce Davidson’s 1965 book, The Northern Myth, from which I’ve pinched the title, and more broadly, some of the themes, for this blog.

I think that with just a change of decade in the first line of this quote Davidson’s words would be just as relevant to the current debate on northern development as they were over forty years ago.

Just a year ago Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, then chair of the Northern Australia Land & Water Taskforce, described his “grand vision” to the Sydney Morning Herald:

This is about Australia in 80, 100 years time. This is about the nation’s long-term survival…I’ve been banging on about this since my maiden speech in 1996…Two-thirds of Australia’s freshwater flows down the northern rivers, compared with less than 5 per cent for our sadly-depleted southern waterways. Because of the way the country was settled they have never been properly tapped.

…go north young man, go north, I tell ‘em.”

The tide of electoral history has swept away Senator Heffernan and his politician-stacked Taskforce to be replaced by a body with broad scientific, pastoral and agricultural expertise and including representatives of indigenous land managers and custodians. How well the newly reformed Taskforce does its job over the next couple of years will be a matter I’ll turn my mind to from time to time on this blog.

I’m not an economist or agronomist and would appreciate your comments and suggestions about Davidson’s work - particularly if you think, as I do, that there are lessons still to be learnt from it.

I’d also welcome your thoughts relating to “northern development” - however narrowly or broadly you want to construe it, how we manage water in the north or the work of the Taskforce - or any other matter that touches on The Northern Myth - the book or the blog!

Finally, for now at least, the last words go to a short quote from Capricornia, that great novel of the north by Xavier Herbert - whose words Bruce Davidson used as his first in The Northern Myth:

“‘But what’s goin’ to happen to the place if we don’t do something with it?’ asked Norman.

It’ll look after itself, Sonny, till it’s really needed. It’s been here a hundred million years or so without evaporatin’ for the want of bein’ cleared and fenced.’”