Natural Resources Research Articles
Constraints to farmers managing dryland salinity in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-20-2009
Journal Title
Land Degradation & Development (LDD)
ISSN
ISSN 1085-3278 eISSN 1099-145X
Keywords
Salinity, Economics, Social capacity, Farm management, Engineering, Plant-based solutions, Drainage, Adoption, Australia
Disciplines
Agribusiness | Agricultural Economics | Agricultural Science | Agronomy and Crop Sciences | Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment | Environmental Monitoring | Natural Resource Economics | Natural Resources and Conservation | Natural Resources Management and Policy
Abstract
There is an increasingly well-founded understanding of the chief drivers and constraints to widespread adoption by Australian landholders to practices to manage dryland salinity. However, each specific situation depends on a range of biophysical, social and economic factors. Such is the case in this study that examines farmers' salinity management in the Wallatin-O'Brien catchments in the low-medium rainfall zone of the Western Australian wheatbelt. The study involved interviews with landholders and economic modelling of representative farms and salinity management options to gain an understanding of the farmers' adoption behaviour regarding salinity management.
Most landholders interviewed saw dryland salinity as a second order farm management issue, due first to the relatively slow rate of expansion of saline land within the catchments and second, because the changes in land use required to prevent further loss of land to salinity were viewed as being uneconomic. The exception to this was the minority (<15 per cent) of farmers in the catchment that have most of the saline land and have experienced most of the recent increase, and for these farmers (primarily located in the valley floor) salinity is a pressing issue. The scale and pattern of isolated outbreaks on adjacent slopes means that salinity is merely a nuisance problem for farmers who only have this type of salinity. For all farmers, a disincentive to invest in salinity management was the landholders' lack of knowledge about the proper placement, needed scale of adoption and economic viability of salinity management options.
Saltland pastures, surface water management and lucerne were viewed positively, with several desirable characteristics such as ease of trialling and complementarity to existing farm practices. By contrast, engineering options such as deep drainage, where considerable investment is involved and disposal of groundwater is problematic, were rated less favourably. Bioeconomic modelling of these salinity management options generated results that largely confirmed the merits of what landholders in the catchments currently do. The findings showed that there was little economic merit in wide-scale adoption of these salinity management options in these catchments. However, the findings did highlight the need to match salinity management options to a farm's particular circumstance, if best use of the options is to be made by the different farms in the catchments.
Recommended Citation
Robertson, M.J., Kingwell, R., Measham, T.G., O'Connor, M. and Batchelor, G. (2009), Constraints to farmers managing dryland salinity in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia. Land Degrad. Dev., 20: 235-251. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.887
