Salinity crisis destroying Australia's farmland, but farmers hope to stop it

Australia has a silent crisis on its hands and the threat is looming just beneath the ground of the country's most fertile food bowls.

David Thompson is harvesting native succulent pigface to sell to high-end chefs.

Dryland salinity, which occurs when vast underground salt deposits rise to the surface with groundwater tables, could leave the productive farm lands that inhabit more than half of the country desolate and barren.

Federal Government estimates from the turn of the century put a $130 million price tag on lost agricultural production due to dryland and irrigation salinity.

Read the ABC News story by Kit Monchan and Benjamin Gubana - “Salinity crisis destroying Australia's farmland, but farmers hope to stop it.”

(Story posted on Beneath the Wisteria by Robert McLean)