Australia's Billion Dollar Water Project Failure: An Economic Breakdown

Northern Australia is Australia's last frontier and also its most vexing economic development puzzle.

People have long dreamed of turning its vastness into a bountiful bread basket. It might be possible. But there remain formidable challenges in the way.

For over thirty years starting in the 1960s, the Australian government built a series of dams to divert the waters of the 650 kilometer or 405 mile long Ord River for irrigation.

Over a billion dollars went into the project since 1950. And the water eventually did flow. But a (maybe) surprising thing happened: The farms would not make money.