Wine grape farms in the Murray-Darling Basin

Wine grape farms in the Murray-Darling Basin presents key farm performance measures for irrigated wine grape farms in the Basin, including data on water trading and use of irrigation technologies and with an emphasis on results from 2012-13 to 2014-15.

ABARES has conducted surveys of irrigation farms in selected industries and regions in the Murray-Darling Basin since 2006-07. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) funded this latest survey.

This report focuses on wine grape farms in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, where most of the Basin's wine grapes are produced. Average farm cash incomes of wine grape farms rose from 2006-07 to 2011-12 before falling in 2012-13 in response to lower grape production. An increase in production contributed to slightly higher average farm cash incomes in 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Grape crops in many areas of the Basin require regular irrigation because of the warm and relatively dry climate. From 2006-07 to 2014-15 the average volume of water used on wine grape farms mostly increased with this increase mainly due to an increase in average farm size. The proportion of grape farms using drip/trickle irrigation technologies has increased.

The number of grape growers trading temporary water allocations varied from year to year. The years with the highest proportions of net buyers were 2007-08 and 2008-09.