Irrigation communities fear being sucked dry by urban water providers, which are increasingly turning to rural water markets to shore up their future supplies, intensifying competition for the resource that remains scarce in the southern Murray-Darling basin.
The Australian Financial Review reports that cities that have bought or are looking to buy water from farmers include Adelaide, Bendigo, Ballarat and Canberra, while Federal and state agencies are also making their presence felt in water trading, spending millions of dollars buying water for the environment.
These trends are transforming the role of water markets, which were previously largely a vehicle for farmers to buy and sell water but are now often facilitating the transfer of water away from farming.
The growing interest in water markets is alarming some irrigation communities, which fear the loss of jobs and services that will result from a rapid exit of water.
But Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said transferring water from rural to urban areas could result in an increase in wealth as there was a bigger value-add on town-based industries than on agriculture.
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