- Title
- 'Not just drought' drought, rural change and more: perspectives from rural farming communities
- Creator
- Askew, Louise E.; Sherval, Meg; McGuirk, Pauline
- Relation
- Rural Change in Australia: Population, Economy, Environment p. 235-253
- Relation
- Perspectives on Rural Policy and Planning
- Relation
- http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409452041
- Publisher
- Ashgate
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- The 'Big Dry', a prolonged dry period in Australia from 1997 to 2009, seared much of the Murray-Darling Basin region and resulted in large agricultural losses, degraded river systems and increased uncertainty in rural communities although climate change in the form of drought is not new to rural Australia (Wei et al. 2012). For many years, generations of Australian farmers and farming communities have battled such climatic extremes. However, the most recent drought event competed with a myriad of changes to their lives and as such, the façade of stoicism has slowly begun to crack. This chapter examines the changes exacerbated by drought occuring in rural Victoria and considers the challenges facing both rural towns and farming families, whose economic future and social well-being are predominantly associated with agriculture. By drawing on locally situated knowledge from case studies of rural towns of Mildura and Donald, this chapter shows how issues such as reduced water supply, increasing agricultural costs, farm succession and cumulative uncertainty are affecting the ongoing viability of people living off the land in these drought-affected areas.
- Subject
- environmental changes; rural Australia; rural farming communities
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1064579
- Identifier
- uon:17598
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781409452041
- Language
- eng
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