AUSTRALIA'S food self-sufficiency will take a further hit if David and Dawn Peake are forced to walk away from their Blanchetown pistachio farm because of a shortage of irrigation water.
Their troubles stem from the drying-up of Portee Creek, a small tributary of the River Murray, from which they draw water in a good season.
While the River Murray is full of water at Blanchetown above Lock one, they cannot get even their 15 per cent allocation from Portee Creek.
AdelaideNow reports the Peakes' pistachio trees are shutting down because of the lack of water and are unlikely to produce a pistachio crop this year.
It will lift Australia's need for imported pistachios even higher.
The Peake's 10ha pistachio farm is among the 10 largest producers in the nation and one of only 30 farms Australia-wide.
Its potential income in a good year would be $100,000-plus from harvesting about 45 tonnes ofpistachios.
Mr Peake said demand for pistachio's was greater than supply in Australia and more nuts had to be imported each year.
The Peakes told AdelaideNow they were optimistic about the future when they bought their pistachio farm in 2002, but are facing the unpalatable possibility of walking away and finding a job.
Ironically, despite a range of government programs to help irrigators, they cannot find one to help them stay on the land or to leave.
An attempt to gain Federal Government funding for a pipeline to draw water from the River Murray was unsuccessful because it would cross a neighbour's land, which is against regulations.
"Even though the Federal Government announces all these schemes, it is virtually impossible to get any help from them," he said
The federal regulation preventing funding of pipelines across neighbour's land also means they cannot get a Critical Water Allocation from the State Government to help keep the trees alive.
