Dealing with salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys - Department of Water

Frost and Burnside
GOOD TIMES AT LAST – 1950 TO 1970
A combination of improving economic conditions
in the World's trading nations, the fruits of the
investment in science and technology, the removal
of rabbits and a long run of generally favourable
seasons gave the wheatbelt valleys probably their
most untroubled, uncomplicated and confident
two decades – the 1950s and 1960s. By that time
agriculture in the Wheatbelt was breaking free
from the wheatbelt valleys – with the move from
the ‘first class land’ that had been the basis of the
farming system to the ‘second’ and ‘third class’
land that had been rejected as unsuitable in the
1910s and 1920s. As Table 5 shows, the area
cleared for farming and sown for grain more than
doubled over the next two decades. It was during
these two decades and into the early 1970s that
most of the remaining second class land and
virtually all of the available third class land was
cleared for agricultural development.
Table 5: Trends in wheatbelt production 1950 to
1968 (Source: Burvill 1979b)
Year
Area
Cleared
for
farming
(m Ha)
Area
sown
for
grain
(m Ha)
Wheat
Production
(tonnes)
1950 6.8 1.29 1.36
1955 8.7 1.17 1.45
1960 10.4 1.63 1.74
1968 13.7 2.95 3.06
The value of science and technology
Australian agriculture dramatically expanded
production based on new management skills, and
new technologies, mainly derived from public
investments in research and development.
Between 1950 and 1990, a reduced number of
farmers increased farm output by 250% (Goss et
al. 1995). In this time, the number of farm
establishments in Australia declined by about 25%
(Barr & Cary 1992).
In WA, the focus of expansion shifted from the
wheatbelt valleys to an intense and very rewarding
period of research and development in learning
how to farm the once ignored second and third
class lands ‘outside’ the broad wheatbelt valleys.
The demand for land for the settling of returned
servicemen and surplus off-spring from wheatbelt
valley farms was met through Government land
– 6 –
development programs not dissimilar to that
operating in the 1910s and 1920s, supported by
publicly funded research in plant breeding, crop
development, plant nutrition and farming systems
development. The work was fostered by active
Pasture Improvement Groups, Farm Management
Groups and a large presence by research and
extension officers from the Department of
Agriculture (Burvill 1979c). The contribution
made by Department of Agriculture officers to
light-land development was commemorated in a
plaque recording their work erected in
Gnowangerup in 1963 (Underwood 1979).
This expansion in scale and productivity was
hugely successful and a source of pride to farmers,
political leaders and the general community. In all
this, the wheatbelt valleys had ceased to be the
only focus of attention - they were now just part
of a much larger and more complete wheatbelt
agriculture.
Agriculture and fossil fuels
The development of the wheatbelt farming
systems coincided with the development of the
fossil fuel-based economy (Halse 1979).
Availability of cheap fuel, rapidly improving
machinery development (largely stimulated by the
needs of wartime production) and the relatively
high labour costs in Australia directed Australian
farmers into dryland farming systems that were
reliant on high levels of technology, a high degree
of mechanisation, and minimal labour inputs.
Thus, as shown in Table 3, decreased population
occurred as farmers focused on maximising
productivity per unit of labour.
After the boom – the Wheatbelt in 1970
In summary, only when the good times came, in
the 1950s and 1960s did the initial decision to
settle the wheatbelt valleys reward sufficiently its
proponents, financiers and landholders. By then,
however, the State’s economy was moving on –
into a second period of dependence on mineral
and hydrocarbon extraction and export that
continues to this day. While the initial justification
for settlement of the wheatbelt valleys was
overtaken by these events, agriculture continued
to grow in both production and productivity, albeit
with a continuing decline in the number of farming
establishments. The confidence developed in
those years has resulted in some people holding a
view of wheatbelt life in those years as being the
desired ‘normal state’, when one could equally