Up here in the Burnett catchment of southeastern Queensland they...

Up here in the Burnett catchment of southeastern Queensland they have just come out of a drought period. The dams were always holding good levels of water. Why?

Because the cost of electricity to pump the water has doubled in a decade, so the farmers couldn't afford to utilise their available water entitlement. In this drought year and the previous two years the farmers did not utilise half of the water available to them.

I don't keep tabs of farmland prices so I couldn't say if they have dropped or risen in price. But at under $1,000/acre with water rights on sandy/loam soil suitable for small crops and near enough to town to bus the kids to high school, seems cheap?