Drought in Australia food bowl continues

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Drought in Australia’s main food growing region of the Murray-Darling river system continues, with water stores near record lows despite recent rains, the head of the government’s oversight body for the system said on Wednesday.

The long-running drought has hit irrigated crops such as rice, grapes and horticulture hardest, but has had less impact on wheat with good falls of rainfall in grain-growing areas to the north of the Murray-Darling River basin.

The Murray-Darling basin, which is as large as France and Germany combined, accounts for 41 percent of Australia’s agriculture and provides A$21 billion ($13.54 billion) worth of farm exports to Asia and the Middle East. Around 70 percent of irrigated agriculture comes from the basin.

Reuters