vanna,
Why would the industry need life support if the prices for their products are so healthy?

*Why should the wool industry have been left to die, when the price of wool is currently at a 23 year high.*

Vanna, perhaps you should read Massy's book. Its taken 20 years,
countless farmers closing down and a reduction in the sheep
flock from 170 million to 70 million, for the industry to recover
to some degree from the disaster created by the manipulators.
Much of this pain could have been avoided, had they never interfered
in the first place.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216009

Yabby, good to see Mr Anti industry/jobs at it as usual.

Protectionism is employed by every nation on earth other than Australia. There is NO level playing field. So why should we attempt to play games that are clearly rigged against us?

You know very well that the RED/greens want to shut down live exports for the same reasons that the you & your GAYLP mates want to import diseases like fire blight. Namely weaken our economy in advance of a takeover by the international socialist/bankster UN NWO.

Why else would you want to close every industry other than quarrying?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216017

Curmudgeon, Mark, i hear what you are saying about "some" market interventions not working, but some have.

Should we import all known pests & diseases like foot & mouth, mad cow, fire blight, citrus canker, etc? No Aussie farmer will be on a level playing field until they are all here?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216023

Bugsy, by that logic we should have no industry at all other than quarrying, tourism, services, having our intellectual property stolen by industrial espionage, or given away by foriegn aid programs & funded with your taxes.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216041

Spot on Vanna, lets hear the loony left scream when Yarts or Social Talker funding gets slashed after the mining bust.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216043

diver dan, correct the communists have long memories & hold grudges.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12493#216044

Bugsy, if the industry had been closed down, years ago, then there would be nobody in the land of OZ to benefit from high prices now.

However having said all that & coming from a farming family background, nobody has mentioned the issue of "mono" agriculture. Any farmer who wants a future should really be having at least 2 different crops, preferably 3 or 4 or more if they want to survive long term.

Formersnag
"Any farmer who wants a future should really be having at least 2 different crops, preferably 3 or 4 or more if they want to survive long term."

Probably true, as this is not putting all eggs in one basket.

Wool was down, but now up.

"Wool has been the star performer in world commodity markets in recent months. While the wool market is in recess, wool prices prior to the recess were well above year earlier levels in both A$ and US$ terms. In contrast, world commodity prices have dipped as global economic uncertainty has gripped the market for a wide range of commodities, from metals and other industrial products through to food and non-food agricultural products."

http://www.whymerino.com.au/_blog/Blog/post/Wool_prices_diverge_away_from_broader_world_commodity_price_trends/

So if coal declines, there might be something else to fall back on.

What is freightening, are those that want as much industry killed off as possible.

Probably in the hope that China will then give us loans, to pay for all the "government spending", help out our ailing education and health systems, pay for the roads and infrastructure, pay the pensioners, pay the army, and pay off all the loans.

Mark Lawson here

Diver Dan - that stuff you mentioned is beyond the point I was making. Best you write your own article.

Formersnag - quite right, the points you mentioned are an intervention of sorts and have to be kept in place. Another area where intervention must occur is fisheries. All fisheries must be strictly controlled, otherwise they will collapse. But the wool scheme that collapsed was big-ticket, market intervention in the selling of output. A sure fire invitation to disaster.

Vanna and others have commented on mono/bi crop farms and so. Since the substantial deregulation of the agriculture industry in recent decades (much of the protection agri use to enjoy has been swept away), the trend has been to either get big, get specialised or get out.

There are still plenty of the farms where they will have both grain and sheep but change the area allocated to either depending on prices, however numbers may be shifting. I'm not sure of the story myself but a good place to start looking for details is the quarterly journal produced by ABARES http://www.abares.gov.au/ - it has more stuff on farmer incomes and crops versus flocks and herds than you can shake a stick at..

*Why else would you want to close every industry other than quarrying?*

Formersnag, I am afraid that conspiracy theories and strawman arguments, are not going to do it for you.

I simply remind you that one Australian's market rigging and tariff
protection lands up being another Australian's cost of living or
added cost of production. The wool industry is a classic example
of a disaster created by well meaning agripoliticians.

The Chinese have been trying to rig the wool market for years. They
also bought up most of the processing machinery. In the end,
as production kept dropping, they have had to accept that they would
have no wool left to process on their machinery, if they kept it up.
So today our wool industry has turned into a more profitable niche
industry, a shadow of its former self. Meantime our lamb exports
to places like the USA are booming, including wool free lambs.
Its booming because we have access to the US market and some others,
without tariffs.

The attempted rigging of the agricultural markets by both the US
and EU, has hardly been a huge hit. In fact it is one of the reasons
why their Govts are both now in crisis from overspending.

We don't need tariffs, we need get our economic fundamentals right.
It doesen't help our case, when our workers have to live in some
of the world's most expensive houses, due to poor Govt policy.