Rich crops will follow the devastating drought in Australia, hitting hard at barley and many other crops, next season. That is the optimistic forecast by Agrecon, a rural modeling and forecasting company, which says that every major drought has been followed by a year with good rain and a corresponding surge in production, Australian news media report. Barley production, for instance, has on average increased by 54 per cent the year after a serious drought during the last 100 years.

That is, however, providing that the global climate changes do not alter the drought cycles considerably.

05 March, 2003