IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 44

2. uneasy harve st

n

austr alia

n

biofuels

T r e v o r H i l l s Ta n d s k n e e - d e e p
in water at the edge of his rice field. He
reaches down with a weathered hand,
plucks a green stalk, and carefully cuts
a slit along the stem. He coaxes out the
delicate strand of pale green rice kernels
and then holds it up to the sunlight. It's
still more than two months to harvest
time, but to his eye the crop looks good.
The rice fields on Hill's farm in New
South Wales, Australia, form an emerald expanse that stretches to the horizon-
until you turn around. Across the dirt
road, the land is brown and bare. In wetter
times, he'd plant rice on nearly a third of
his 412 hectares; this year he has enough
water to irrigate just 44. Like many local
44

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * juNE 2010

n

india

farmers, he's hired contractors to smooth
out even the slightest variations in his
fields' topography, and he uses satellite
imagery to diagnose the health of the soil,
measures designed both to reduce water
consumption and boost production.
After the harvest, he'll sell the rice
stubble to cattle farmers. On the water
that remains in the ground he'll sow a
crop of oats or barley. Throughout the
summer, his lambs will munch on weeds
and grass along the banks of the rice paddocks; eventually he'll auction them off for
about AU $130 a head. And after all that,
Hill will be lucky to break even this year.
His wife, Gerardine, grew up on this
farm, reachable by gravel road about

15 kilometers from Griffith, the agricultural heart of central New South Wales.
The couple has raised three children here.
Their yellow-brick ranch house is cheerful
and inviting, and a rose garden adorns the
foot of the sloping yard. There are animals
everywhere-chickens, ducks, two sheepdogs, and a chatty long-billed Australian
cockatoo named Charlie. But the Hills are
seriously thinking about moving on.
"I love this place, and I love farming,"
Gerardine says. "But I like what we
used to do, not what we're doing now."
These days, the state government sends
a mental-health worker to monthly meetings in town, a routine prompted by an
uptick in suicides in the past few years.
spectrum.ieee.org



http://spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2010

IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 1
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 2
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 3
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 4
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 5
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IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 33
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IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 64
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IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 67
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 68
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IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 70
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 71
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 72
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 73
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 74
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 75
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 76
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 77
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 78
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 79
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - 80
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum June, 2010 - Cover4
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