CONSTRAINTS TO FARMERS MANAGING DRYLAND SALINITY IN THE CENTRAL WHEATBELT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

There is an increasingly well-founded understanding of the chief drivers and constraints to widespread adoption by Australianlandholders to practices to manage dryland salinity. However, each specific situation depends on a range of biophysical, socialand economic factors. Such is the case in this study that examines farmers’ salinity management in the Wallatin-O’Briencatchments in the low-medium rainfall zone of the Western Australian wheatbelt. The study involved interviews withlandholders and economic modelling of representative farms and salinity management options to gain an understanding ofthe farmers’ adoption behaviour regarding salinity management.Most landholders interviewed saw dryland salinity as a second order farm management issue, due first to the relatively slowrate of expansion of saline land within the catchments and second, because the changes in land use required to prevent furtherloss of land to salinity were viewed as being uneconomic. The exception to this was the minority (