5 March

The maverick Australian farmer Peter Andrews had what I think is a genius insight about the Australian landscape. That water in the Australian landscape has usually been stored in the soil, not above ground in dams or streams/rivers. And further, that Australian rivers have historically run *above* ground level, not below like most of the rivers and erosion gullies you see on properties today. By clearing most of the vegetation on the land, the water has nothing to slow it down to let it seep into the soil, for storage, so it forms big erosion gullies as it’s carried off the continent into the sea. The soil goes with it, or is blown away. You can see that everywhere you look in the Australian landscape, especially where farming has occurred, maybe the odd dam here or there, a parched wasteland of subsoil exposed to the sun, and deep erosion gullies. You don’t have to be a Greenie to think what we do here is stupid. It’s just stupid, period. There are a lot of smart farmers trying to turn this around now, but they’re still outnumbered by the rip it out and clear the land crowd.