Could Australian Water Trading Approach Fit In California?
May 18, 2015 Ten years of drought isn’t a good thing. It doesn’t help the bottom line of farmers or the health of a river system. It does, however, get a lot of minds focused on how to intelligently manage water – the world’s most precious commodity, writes Jack Baldwin for The Lead South Australia.
Irrigators in Australia receive a yearly allocation of water that they can use for cropping or production. It’s measured in megalitres, isn’t tied to their property, and can be traded to other farmers on a per year basis, or as a permanent right.
This is basically a bank account – a water account – says Alister Walsh, the CEO of the uniquely Australian water brokerage Waterfind.
“If you buy water in, you get credited with volume”, he says. “If you sell, it gets debited.”
Of course, the water being traded isn’t physically shifted down a river for a trade – it’s a clever accounting system that ensures water use goes through proper checks and balances and the river system is maintained at a healthy level, without over-appropriation or environmental degradation. It also gives value to the precious commodity so farmers are more inclined to invest in saving water because they have the option of selling their surplus.
The water market has existed in South Australia since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until Tom Rooney founded Waterfind in 2002 that an easy online mechanism existed to trade the resource.
Waterfind’s online water trading market was launched two years in to the Millennium Drought, Australia’s worst in recorded history. It operates in much the same way as any other commodity market – allowing farmers to make trades online or via SMS at any time of day, following all the rules and regulations so users don’t have to.
“Farmers, though it might not always seem it, they’re actually very early adopters of technology, particularly mobile technology. That’s because they’re not in their office. They’re out and about and on the tractor doing their banking and responding to emails,” Walsh explains.
Check out the full story on www.theleadsouthaustralia.com.au.
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