Blighty dairy farmer and water advocate concerned over COVID-19 food security

Lachlan Marshall said these industries had already been decimated by poor water policy and years of zero allocation in the 14 years since he moved from southern Queensland.

The fourth-generation dairy farmer had relocated to Blighty, near Finley, because of the water security the region offered.

"Where the world sits at the moment with COVID, it's my great fear that any impact on shipping or logistics will see things like food, fuel or fibre become hard to get a hold of," he said.

"I'm begging for common sense for the good of the nation and the security of the nation. If we're learning anything from our COVID response it's that we need to be secure and self sufficient.

"This is the very clear message from the grassroots, from the people that live and work in these areas day in and out."

The Australian Food and Grocery Council and politicians have reassured residents throughout the pandemic that the nation grows enough food to feed 75 million people.

That was within the context of a population of 25 million.

But that message has not quelled fears among water advocates pushing for policy change.

Former Deniliquin rice grower and Speak Up 4 Water campaigner Shelley Scoullar said she feared domestic rice supplies would run out by the end of the year. She said Australia also imported a significant amount of dairy.

Mrs Scoullar said while Australia was a food secure nation as a whole, there were many parts of the country that did not have access to high quality food.

"This is especially a problem in remote areas," she said.

"If we want to improve our food security we need to ensure it can be grown in Australia. As we work through coronavirus, and beyond, we must stop our increasing reliance on imported food."

Mr Marshall urged politicians reassuring the public about food security to go to their shelves and look at how much rice and pasta was grown in Australia, or how many home-grown dairy products were in the cooler.

He said two years without any water allocations had eroded all trust irrigators had in politicians or water policy, resulting in fewer crops being planted in the southern Riverina.

"Unless you have confidence in the way the system is run and efficiency in the system (returns) you can't gamble to put a crop in. You might get caught being exposed (with no water allocation) and high water prices.

"People come unstuck really quick."

In May, irrigators in the southern Riverina received a three per cent water allocation, their first allocation in two years.

This month they got another two per cent allocation.

While welcome, the allocations didn't do much to repair two years of damage in which Deniliquin and Finely farmers had zero allocation, Mr Marshall said.

"We need a lot more than two per cent to consider investing in any form of summer cropping," he said.

"Two per cent won't even meet operational requirements for running the dairy."

Mr Marshall said in the past he grew a lot of silage and lucerne for silage, but had to reduce that and his herd numbers due to the lack of water.

He said for irrigators to regain confidence and start investing in significant crops, water policy must be overhauled with greater transparency.

"I would be confident in saying until those two things happen farmers will be incredibly reluctant to invest in anything that requires irrigation."

Mrs Scoullar said farmers were experiencing a bumper season, but more allocation was needed for healthy crops come harvest time.

"Farmers are really feeling overjoyed with the good start we had to the season but at the back of their mind they know if it does stop raining and they won't have allocation they won't be able to bring it home and capitalise on great rain events," she said.

"With water allocations we can really, really drive the economy and create employment which will help us with COVID-19 recovery.

"It's a really easy thing to do but seeing how much water has been wasted over the last two years people are sceptical and fearful it will happen again.

"There still needs to be a monumental shift in water policy to give confidence back to farmers."