Time present, time past: the context of cropping development under two administrations in the Northern Territory, 1911-86

Abstract

In 1980 the Northern Territory Government proposed a scheme for the development of broadscale farming in two stages spread over fifteen years. Success in the first, five-year phase, which would consist of a handful of project farms, would lead to expansion to 120 farms growing rainfed summer cereals and grain legumes in the Douglas-Daly district and 45 farms producing irrigated rice near Adelaide River township. As an indication of its commitment, the Government passed legislation to set up a new Agricultural Development and Marketing Authority with responsibility for farm settlement and the marketing of agricultural and horticultural commodities. This scheme follows a long line of intermittent attempts that have been made to establish a successful cropping sector since the time of the first permanent European settlement in the Northern Territory in 1869. The efforts made during the administration of the Commonwealth Government, 1911-78, form the medium-term backdrop for the announcement in 1980 and the events that followed to 1985-86, the last season covered by this study. Interesting contrasts in the role of scale feature prominently in the failure of the previous schemes. First, throughout the history of the Territory, a general perception has persisted of vast expanses of land and high totals of summer rainfall which should allow commensurately prodigious production of crops. Repeatedly, government and private interests have put forward plans to try to realise this perceived potential. On the other hand, each of the developments has experienced difficulty in achieving minimal levels of production, season after season, and in selling their produce. Those difficulties help to set the historical context. The dilemma of how to match performance with expectations also confronts the present scheme which is the central focus of this thesis. Spatial, temporal, operational and societal scales, and the constraints that operate at each scale, are used in a contextual analysis to explain and understand the historical events and the progress that has been made in the most recent scheme. By itself a contextual analysis cannot ensure success in the future. But its application to past and current events shows that it will strengthen policy formulation and the implementation of research and farm developmental projects