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Water and dust

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Water and dust

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Jul. 9th, 2009 at 10:32 AM

Apparently California is in the middle of a drought. Not as bad as the Australian one, apparently: we are increasingly unable to grow rice. This is a logical conclusion I hadn’t really considered. Unable to grow rice? What the.

Then again, perhaps we’ll be able to grow rice in the Arctic soon enough.

Water is one of those fascinating (frightening) aspects of climate change. I hadn’t thought to combine it before with the current literature trend in will-we-eat-ourselves-to-death books. Food shortages as the end of civilisation. It seems so logical.

In other news there is carpentry going on at casa deborahb now (yes, during my allotted writing time) & though the noise of it is distracting, the smell of fresh cut wood on a bitingly cold winter day is oddly cheering. Makes this little city grrl want to head out to a farm and sit in the barn all day.

… What is Australian for barn?

Mirrored from my website at deborahbiancotti.net. You can respond here or at the other deborahb blog.

( 19 comments — Leave a comment )

mikandra wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 12:37 am (UTC)

What is Australian for barn?

uhm - shed?

I know it's not the same, but the fact of the climate is that Australian farming doesn't need barns, barns being places to shelter livestock when it's cold.

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deborahb wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 12:55 am (UTC)

I was thinking shed, but then I was wondering what you call it if you have the kind of shed where you're turning trees into wooden flooring. Or, wait, is that done outdoors?

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mikandra wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:03 am (UTC)

I would think this would be done in what's called a sawmill, and as far as I know, sawmills have sheds. Shed is really a very handy word ;-). If it's REALLY big, and industrial, you can always call it a factory or a warehouse.

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deborahb wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:35 am (UTC)

Sawmill! Perfect!

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russellbfarr wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 12:55 am (UTC)

shed. Don't matter if it's a little 2x2 metre job or the size of a hangar, it's still a shed.

can be a tool shed, shearing shed, chook shed...

Edited at 2009-07-09 12:55 am (UTC)

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:06 am (UTC)

All Australian Boys and Girls need a shed.

I know I do.

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deborahb wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:35 am (UTC)

Shed it is. Horribly non-descriptive term, though.

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russellbfarr wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:41 am (UTC)

non descriptive, but a handy base word. You can have a wood shed, junk shed, cow shed, sheep shed, wool shed, party shed, hanging shed, tin shed, water shed...

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:41 am (UTC)

It needs to have a descriptive term placed in front of it, as Russ demonstrated, but it's always a Shed.

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:06 am (UTC)

Shed. On my great uncle's old property, the shed supports were made out of tree trunks a couple of metres wide. It was like a catherdral (but very dusty).

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deborahb wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:37 am (UTC)

What a wonderful image, a dusty tree-trunked cathedral.

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:38 am (UTC)

With half-feral cats.

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strangedave wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:20 am (UTC)

I hope this is actually the end of the Australian rice industry and they all go back to doing something else. Because NSW farmers drawing off water for rice seems to be one of the things that is draining the Murray-Darling, leading to catastrophic consequences for SA, especially the Coorong etc. It always seemed to me to be a ridiculous idea to grow rice in Australia, turned out it wasn't so much a ridiculous idea as a dangerous one.

dalmeny , of course, knows far more than I ever will about the problem.

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:28 am (UTC)

That and cotton. Really sensible, growing two heavily water dependant crops in arid areas. Thus resulting salinity and killing the natural systems.

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deborahb wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:36 am (UTC)

Holy crap. That's terrible!

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murasaki_1966 wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 01:40 am (UTC)

Yep. Been going on for years. Always plenty of water, mate. Until the Big Dry hits, and people start asking questions.

http://www.warwickhughes.com/cubbie/

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girliejones wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 02:11 am (UTC)

The most preprostrous thing ever is growing rice in Australia. Seriously, wheat is a bit ridiculous but rice?! But according to my Dad, with whom I have debated this at length for over a decade, it's important for country security to be self sufficient for their food supply.

I just opened a brand new packet of fair trade coffee, the flavour of which is called "Earth" and the description told me that the beans come from the most fertile soils on Earth. And I wondered about how some day, sooner than we think, the very idea of the Earth still having fertile soils is going to be strange and rare.

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exp_err wrote:

Jul. 9th, 2009 03:38 am (UTC)

This raises the question: what is the best environmentally sustainable staple starch for Australians to eat?

homonculus and I tend to rely mostly on rice at dinner and wheat in the form of bread for lunch. I wonder if potatoes would be better. Corn? Sorghum? Millet?

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December 2009