Word: australian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...last year, the bush storyteller Murray Hartin penned a 14-stanza poem in three hours flat. Rain From Nowhere is about a farmer on the brink of ruin who receives an empathetic letter from his father. A celebration of resilience and hope, it is as moving a piece of Australian verse as has been published in decades. It's also pertinent. The driest continent on earth is in the grip of the worst drought in its recorded history. Beginning in 2002 and spanning, at times, the breadth of the country, the dry spell has pushed farmers to the limits...
...long that problem's likely to last, scientific opinion is divided. One school of thought is that there's no evidence global warming is causing this drought or will ever cause anything like a permanent one; there's even a theory that higher temperatures could help boost Australian agricultural production by bringing more rain to some parts of the country. On the other hand, modeling studies by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation suggest temperatures will rise by 1-6°C over the next 60 years, increasing evaporation and water scarcity in future droughts...
...Even in normal times, the Murray-Darling Basin, which covers parts of four states and the Australian Capital Territory, isn't water rich. On average, it receives a modest 250-300 mm of rain a year, and much of the terrain is semi-arid. Its farmers have mostly thrived until now because over 70% of the country's irrigation resources are concentrated there. But with the drought dragging on, the allocation of surface water to farmers last Southern spring - planting time for rice farmers - was zero...
...This year's meager Australian rice harvest has sent shockwaves through the local industry and beyond. With almost nothing to process, the grower-owned company SunRice announced late last year that it was mothballing its Deniliquin rice mill, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as its Coleambally mill, making 180 jobs redundant. Though no Australian farming family relies purely on rice for its income, many have laid off workers, sold machinery and increased their debt in response to recent shortfalls...
...raised the profile of the coach by demanding he receive the same salary as his highest-paid player, and by insisting on the American tradition that the coach - who lives and dies on results - should select his own staff and teams. Former coaching colleague Roy Masters called him the Australian Vince Lombardi...