GRAEME Turner stands with one foot on top of a strainer post and looks out over what used to be a belt of fertile cropping land between lakes Gnarpurt and Corangamite, north of Camperdown.
Beneath him lies 1.5 metres of salty sand - the result of seven years of relentless wind blowing silt from the dry bed of Lake Gnarpurt.
And beneath that lies 57 hectares of the property he bought from his uncle more than 30 years ago.
"The depth varies - some fences are completely covered, some half, some hardly at all, but it's all useless," he said.
He has appealed to the Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria but to no avail. "The only option left is to take legal action and I can't afford to do that."
He estimated the salty dunes have robbed him of $45,000 to $50,000 per year in production, plus the value of the land - $8650/ha, according to the DSE, before the dunes encroached.
"I would have sold to the DSE for little more than half of that, but they wouldn't have a bar of it."
Part of the largest natural inland salt lake system in the country, Lake Gnarpurt is listed as a wetland of international significance, yet no authority would take responsibility for the environmental challenges it presented, Mr Turner said.
"If I were doing something to damage their lake, I'd be prosecuted, but when salt from their lake downgrades my property, they don't want to hear about it."
DSE group manager Greg Leece said there was no easy solution to rectify the impact of lack of water in the lake.
