$1000 per hectare loss
Wine grapes are one of the biggest industries in Griffith.
They underpin jobs, businesses and families right across the town. In fact, wine makes up 44 per cent of Griffith’s economy.
Right now, growers are losing around $1,000 per hectare just to keep vines in the ground.
It now costs roughly $4,500 to $5,000 per hectare to grow wine grapes. With prices collapsing to $200–$250 a tonne and average yields of about 15 tonnes per hectare, growers are bringing in less than it costs to produce. The maths simply does not work.
A major driver of these losses is the price of water.
Temporary water prices have surged to around $300 per megalitre, a jump of about 50 per cent in a single year. Many growers have already been forced to sell their permanent water entitlements just to survive, leaving them completely exposed to a volatile temporary market.
This is not a coincidence.
The ongoing “just add water” buybacks approach is stripping water out of productive regions like Griffith, shrinking supply and pushing prices higher for the farmers who actually grow food and wine.
If you apply a $1,000 per hectare loss across the Riverina’s vineyards, you are looking at tens of millions of dollars drained from the local economy in a single season, with even bigger flow-on impacts for main street businesses, tradies and local services.
That is why I am calling for a Royal Commission into water — to expose what has gone wrong, who benefits, and why productive communities are paying the price.
Read more and support the call here:
