Dealing with salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys - Department of Water

APPRECIATING AND CREATING OUR HISTORY
Fionnuala Frost 1 and Don Burnside 2
ABSTRACT
Frost and Burnside
At this Conference, we will be reviewing and appreciating our history in the wheatbelt valleys. From that
appreciation we will create the story as a basis for moving forward in addressing the obvious challenges posed
by the new hydrology in these valleys.
In this paper, we argue that European settlement has always struggled to develop certainty from an uncertain
landscape. However, this struggle has occurred within an environment of optimism, with a belief that good
times are ahead. Over the last 170 years, in the wheatbelt valleys we have changed our land use from pastoral
grazing associated with timber harvesting to an annual farming system that many in the World have looked at
with envy. Three factors in this journey have been critical:
Government policy has driven most of our developments in the Wheatbelt, from the development of the
railways, the encouragement of settlement of the land after the decline of the Goldfields in the 1920s and for
soldier settlement after the First World War. After the shock of the Depression and WWII, the settlement
process recommenced with the release of conditional purchase land and the development for agriculture of
land previously considered infertile. Throughout this time, Government has continued to fund agricultural
research, development and extension to support the people in that landscape. Productivity growth,
particularly in the last 20 years, has been impressive.
This journey has been tough. Of the 10 decades since the land was first cleared, perhaps only two – the 1950s
and 1960s – have been times of untroubled prosperity for all. People have coped with the difficulties of first
settlements, the Depression, wartime shortages, rabbits, dry years and continually declining terms of trade.
Many left with property amalgamations, and depopulation of small settlements has been a fact of life for over
80 years. But many stayed, building a legacy of resilience and an ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
This leads to the third factor – that of a capacity for innovation. Adjustment, adaptation and evolution has
always featured in these environments as individuals worked to maximise production from scarce rainfall,
minimise the impact of pest and diseases and cope with changing circumstances.
Most of those responsible for creating agriculture in the wheatbelt valleys had come from non-agricultural
backgrounds and so had to make it up as they went along. The culture of innovation has been significant in the
development of the productive farming systems we see today.
These three factors – Government policy, a legacy of resilience and a culture of innovation – are the influences
we believe will continue to shape the wheatbelt valleys.
1 AgInsight, Post Office, BUREKUP WA 6227
2 URS Australia Limited, Level 3, The Hyatt Centre, 20 Terrace Road, EAST PERTH WA 6004
At the time of writing, Fionnuala Frost is a member of a Ministerial Task Force established to review salinity policy and
management in Western Australia. This paper expresses the personal views of Fionnuala Frost and her co-author, not those of
the Salinity Task Force.
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