A TWO per cent minimum opening allocation announcement appears to paint a bleak picture for South Australian River Murray irrigators.
Growers were told last week in an online State Government information session to expect an unfavourable number, based on current Murray-Darling storage levels that are lower than this time last year.
However some reassurance can be taken from 2019, when – in the first year of the State Government’s new method of announcing allocations – a minimum predicted opening of 14 per cent was relatively alarming for the irrigation community.
It may have been a nervous climb upwards from there, but with regular updates from the Department of Environment and Water, allocations reached 100 per cent before the end of November.
Undoubtedly, low allocation numbers will once again spark questions regarding the temporary water market and many will be worrying that the two per cent announcement could see prices spike to the levels above $1000 per megalitre experienced in 2019.
The State Government’s early message of optimism is to expect higher than average rainfall this year, but waiting for it to arrive leaves irrigators gambling between the temporary market and a hope of eventually reaching 100 per cent.
Some solace can be found in changes made to the private carryover policy – aimed at avoiding the scenarios seen in 2019-20 when irrigators unfortunately lost portions of their entitlement – which now allow water to be carried over across multiple low-rainfall years and will come into effect this year.
The State Government is still ironing out the kinks and adapting these allocation policies, making continued engagement with the irrigation community crucial during times when export markets for nuts, wine and citrus will be impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Although this two per cent figure does represent the worst possible outcome, the starting point could hardly get any worse for Riverland irrigators and growers.