The Economic Value of Fencing and Improving Saline Land

Product Information

The Economics Theme of the Sustainable Grazing on Saline Land Program completed comprehensive analyses to examine the influence of a range of key production and economic variables on the profitability of pasture improvement on saline land. There were four study regions as part of this project, based in the local of research sites of the SGSL Program. These were South West Victoria, Upper South East of South Australia, the Central Wheatbelt of Western Australia and the Central West Slopes of NSW. The economic analyses for each region examined the benefits of introducing improved pasture species and applying different management treatments to saltland. The effect of changing production assumptions and commodity prices on the profitability of saltland pasture were assessed. Estimates of production and pasture quality were based on experiments conducted on 6 sites in 4 States, which compared production from sown pastures to a control. The control was assumed to be saltland that was fenced and left to regenerate with volunteer species.

Whilst improving pasture on salt affected land was found to be profitable across a broad range of scenarios, an important finding of the analysis was that the increase in profit was generally achieved by increasing the intensity of production. This has potential implications for adoption of improved saltland pastures and consequently for extension.

In addition, the NSW analysis showed that better managing volunteer pasture by fencing led to greater a net benefit compared to improving pasture through cultivation and sowing. This was an important finding given the differences in cost and the the potential for establishment failure after sowing.

This supplementary analysis was commissioned to estimate the net benefit of fencing saltland to better manage volunteer pasture compared to doing nothing, for the three study regions for which this comparison was not undertaken.