The Oil Drum

Jamie Walker at The Weekend Australian has an interesting article on the movement to the south of "Goyders Line" - the line that defines the limits of practical farming in South Australia.

See the link for an accompanying video. The ABC did a documentary on the history of Goyder's line last year as well.

An inch still means everything out here on Goyder’s Line. It can make a man or break him, realise his dreams or turn them to dust. An extra inch in the rain gauge will fill a paddock knee-high with wheat, washing away the bitter seasons and piled-up debt. That inch – 25mm – is what Kym Fromm lives for.

Yet when this third-generation farmer looks out of his home’s dirt-streaked windows, beyond the sunburnt sheep and crop stubble he’s turned them loose on, towards a horizon that shimmers in the heat, he wonders what’s going on with the line. It was the one thing people thought they could count on in an unpredictable land. It was supposed to be immovable, a fixture among the dancing whirlwinds and blown hopes of the early settlers, whose ruined homesteads dot the countryside. Fromm’s not so sure: inch by inch, year by year, the line seems to be closing in.

Map from South Australian Archives