It is this contract-farming system that the family owners now fear as much as bankruptcy.
They have seen poultry, beef, and pig farming swallowed by the system.
The salmon just grows faster, a tremendous economic advantage to those farming the fish in a closed water system, and to consumers, who would be able to take advantage of greater supply and lower prices.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the Farming Minister David Heath acknowledged there were problems with the system.
He says mismanagement of the antiquated irrigation system has made efficient farming much more difficult.
The fact is that in a world of increasing scarcity of fossil fuels, organic farming provides the only environmentally, or economically, sustainable system for feeding the world.
It suggests that, even though much of the country is cut off from the food-distribution system, rural dwellers survive precariously through subsistence farming.
But the river system that covers two-thirds of Australia's irrigated farming land is also suffering from decades of overuse.
He has said he wants richer countries - particularly elsewhere in the European Union - to give up farming support in favour of a fair system of free trade.
If successful, the firm believes this type of system could form part of a new approach to sustainable farming, making use of urban greenbelts while helping to reduce the carbon footprint associated with food production -- which accounts for up to 30% of total emissions worldwide, according to a 2008 Greenpeace report.
But Megan Kintzer, director of development at the Rodale Institute, an organic farm and research center in Pennsylvania, says that organic farming is a more sustainable system.
CNN: Study: Organic yields 25% lower than conventional farming
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