Yes, a win for community opposition to the government policy of the day, but what has the community actually achieved? What are some of the implications of farming community opposition to renewable energy?
All farming requires inputs that are built on energy. Cropping doesn’t happen without energy and fertiliser, yet neither of these are produced locally. Given international events, they are also becoming increasingly unreliable and costly.
Equally so, farming requires viable markets for the commodities produced. Grains, oil-seeds, pulses, animal products and horticulture commodities are worthless if they cannot be transported, industrially processed, refrigerated, stored and distributed to domestic consumers and export markets.
The single, unifying thing that links all the steps of our food chain is grid electricity!
The other fundamental input to farming, rainfall, is the most unreliable part of the farming equation. With the warming of our planet due to Co2 and methane loading of the atmosphere, who wants to bet that rainfall is going to be more reliable in the future?
Anti-renewables opposition to renewable electricity generation closes opportunities for Australia’s agricultural system to manage risk.
New technologies, cheaper electricity and changing economics could enable new enterprises to set up in farming regions to make such essential farming inputs like nitrogen fertilisers and liquid fuels.
Given the amount of canola grown in Victoria, far better to process it to make biodiesel and displace expensive imported diesel.
Community opposition to renewable energy and grid connections sends a clear message that grid electricity (to which the farming sector is intrinsically tied) is not an acceptable use of farmland due to peer pressure.
For farms struggling under increasing costs of energy inputs, poor commodity prices, uncertain rainfall and rising costs, community opposition to renewable energy dictates that landholders can only continue cropping to provide a single source of income.
The most misleading aspect of anti-renewable energy rhetoric is the suggestion that too much productive farmland will be swallowed up by solar farms and wind generators.
Victoria's typical grid electricity demand is up to 6000 megawatts during weekdays. 12,000 hectares of solar farms could supply that amount of electricity.
That area is only 2.4 per cent of the half-million hectares of the Shepparton irrigation region alone, and only 0.05 per cent of Victoria's 227 million hectares.
To put that in perspective, there is over 60,000 ha of almond plantations in Victoria. A solar farm or two scattered across different parts of the state is hardly a threat to productive farmland.
Who knows what November's state election will deliver in regard to ongoing support or abandonment of renewable energy across the state, but this ongoing ideological objection to harvesting sunlight and wind as a legitimate activity on a small percentage of farmland is ultimately much more destructive to future productive agricultural land than the tiny percentage needed for renewable energy developments.
Dr Bruce Gill,
Tatura
6°C