A 22 per cent rise in rural water prices could drown farmers in debt and strip many farms of the water needed to produce food and fibre, the state’s peak farm body has said.
According to official documents, WaterNSW has submitted a proposal to the state government to increase rural water prices by an average of 22 per cent each year from 2025 to 2030.
NSW Farmers Water Taskforce Chair Richard Bootle said a 22 per cent increase in rural water prices would be catastrophic for the state’s farming communities, who needed the water to feed and clothe the nation.
“Governments are buying up the water farmers need, and now, there’s a plan to push up the prices of what limited water’s left for them to use on farm,” Mr Bootle said.
“The cost of other key inputs such as fertiliser has already skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, and amidst these huge pressures, we get slugged with this bill.
“It’s not fair, it’s not feasible, and it’s certain to put a chokehold on farmers who rely on our precious natural water resources to grow the healthy plants and animals our consumers need.”
Capping rural water prices at more sustainable levels was essential, Mr Bootle said, as well as implementing smarter solutions to water recovery throughout the Murray Darling Basin, if farming communities were to survive.
“Buying up water, adding costly new regulations on water management and then charging farmers an arm and a leg for what’s left isn’t the way forward to managing our water,” Mr Bootle said.
“As we begin to understand the full detail of what’s being proposed, it remains critical that we consider smarter solutions for sharing and recovering water costs, or else farmers and regions will not be able to keep their head above water.
“If any other service increased their prices this much, you would take your business elsewhere – but farmers only have one option and one way to get the vital resource that is our precious water, so they must be able to afford it.”
-NSW Farmers