Source: ENN

Drought in Australia’s main food growing region of the Murray-Darling river system has worsened, with water inflows over the past two years at an all-time low, the government’s top water official said on Tuesday.

The drought will hit irrigated crops such as rice, grapes and horticulture the hardest, but would have less impact on output of wheat, which depends largely on rainfall during specific periods and is on track to double after two years of shrunken crops.

The rainfall is sufficient to support hopes for a strong wheat harvest, but not enough to replenish ground water, which troubles those farmers who grow fruit rather than grain.

The record drought, which has gripped much of the country for close to a decade, was the worst in 117 years of record-keeping, with 80 percent of eucalyptus trees already dead or stressed in the region as large as France and Germany combined.

“It seems to me from what we’ve seen to date, there’s no indication that it’s going to end in the immediate future,” said Wendy Craik, chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission which controls water use and flows in the rivers.

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