Alfred et al. My primary aim here is to attract some global recognition of the sheer scale of this issue. Putting one human being in 5 out of their work and their home is not trivial. I believe there are solutions, and that they need not involve replacing the free market system with something else. Indeed, most farmers like it. What we need is a system that assist them to produce efficiently while looking after increasingly scarce production resources, which rewards their efforts to care for the world's land, water, atmosphere and wildlife - as they now do, unrewarded. Which rewards healthy food production rather than industrial rubbish. Which recycles its wastes. We can usefully debate how that would work.

Julian could do with a history lesson..

Australia once had elaborate system of protecting farmers labelled agrisocialism, which included things like a reserve price for wool and dairy and egg marketing boards.. this has mostly been swept away (the wool reserve price scheme collapsed of its own accord)for the very good reason that it took money out of the pockets of consumers to subsidise the living of farmers who were not being given any incentive to become more efficient.

No-one now wants to return to that old system, may be not even the farmers (not now at any rate), except Julian and perhaps a couple of the posters. The rest of us have to live with changes in the markets and technology, why should farmers be shielded from reality?

Julian may have convinced himself that there will a shortage of food some time in the future (a piece of advice Julian, don't set any firm dates on your forecasts), but why having fewer, smaller farms would help these shortages is beyond me..

Curmudgeon
I think Julian is more interested in the welfare of a sizeable proportion of the population (farmers) than propping up some tired ideology, in other words, he is acting out of altruism and compassion. In the background we have the looming threat of food insecurity aka hunger and starvation, so if we are to feed people we have to look after farmers to some extent just so they will keep on producing. If that smacks of socialism, tough. We may be able to produce fruit and vegetables through urban agriculture but we need farmers in the countryside to produce meat and the grain that supplies most of our calories. I have no desire to be hungry, nor do I want my children and grandchildren to be either, nor their respective generations.

We now have much more productive land than when lots of small farmers were literally eking out a living. Subsistence farming as in Africa means occasional or regular famines.
I am sure small scale farming is a lovely life style but needs must! Mate, the price of food will stay affordable only with big efficient farms.
Don Ruthven said that the change to efficient agriculture reduced prices and allowed people to be properly employed in Australia.
What do you suggest? Loads of subsidies and high prices for food.
Great if you are rich or some cosseted public servant with the rest of us paying your pension, I am not that lucky.

It's a looming problem that will sooner, rather than latter, hit home in a big way.

It's a simply case of risk V returns, whereby the risks are simply too high now for the hope of a good return.

I was talking to a farmer recently, in the Gatton area, he told me he grew mainly potatoes and sold most of his crop to Wollies.

He said they turn up, mid crop, and say, we are going on special next month and we are paying you X instead of the usual Y. X being about 9c per kilo and Y being about 50c per kilo.

Now of cause he can say no, but then there is no one there to buy his crop as the big two have all but drowned out the competition.

It's our secsesive governments that are most to blame, as they have sat back and not only allowed this domination, but supported it with the likes of extended trading hours.

Of cause, we the tax payer will no doubt have to one day bail out the farmers as well.

I do not share the gloom of Julian. However I agree there is cause for concern.
I consider that the future lies in what some term the 'corporate family farm' - that is an agricultural eneterprise that is owned an operated by an extended family. This outfit is often large and in some cases intensive, with in many cases more than one principal commodity being produced. This is in my opinion the best model for land stewardship and also overall efficiency.
Large corporations do not have the committment or the built in efficiency to operate large agricultural enterprises. Furthermore the shareholders want an annual dividend on their shares (try that in a drought!). Directors and others want to be recompensed, and all employees paid for overtime or extra hours worked. This is often not possible in agriculture.
We have had corporate agriculture before (Dalgetys, AMP etc. etc.) which have come and gone. My guess is that some of our current corporates will go the same way.
There are plenty of these 'corporate family farms' in the Australian agricultural scene, who are doing very well right now, and have done so for generations. However they are right at the forefront of modern farming technology, and this is often a reason for their success.