Saltpetre

no, you're missing the main point of most of our recent economic history. Farmers are a significant lobby group in their own right and until the mid-80s, their lobbying power resulted in extensive protection. That protection has been stripped away, as it has been for many other sectors.

Australia has largely abandonded its protectionist approach, and farmers are no different to any other sector. They have been left to the mercy of the free market system but that is a good thing. They will adapt and Australia will be the stronger for it, or find some other occupation. Hard if you're a farmer, of course, but if those who fail to adapt leave their farms and get jobs elsewhere then they will be better off.

To interfere with the market's decision in these matters is to ask for expensive trouble. Are you willing to pay to protect farmers? If so, how much?

No, Killarney does not have a valid point.

Viv, you need to understand your readership here on OLO includes people whose stupidity is so profound that they think food is made cheaper by restricting food production and subsidising loss-making food production. Yes, they really are that dumb, and vocal with it. But they never seem to volunteer to go without food themselves, do they? They just think it would be a wonderful idea for other people to (be forced to) do.

various species of kangaroo have done quite well and have held there own against species that have arrived more recently.
david f,
Yes because of the clearing of bush & the creation of fertile land by another introduced species

<< Viv perhaps you should remember that attempting to undertake traditional European farming practices in Australia was always going to be a difficult task. >>

Indeed, Geoff of Perth.

The methodology and the intensity of farming in southwestern WA, in an area with soils of low fertility and barely adequate rainfall to start with, was always going to produce enormous problems.

Trouble is; most of those problems have long lag times and have only fairly recently become realised, such as chronic salinity and reduced rainfall.

Of course as things get harder, there are more and more restrictions applied by law. Farmers no longer have free rein over what they can do on their properties, and rightly so.

Blaming environmentalists and bureaucrats is just so counter-intuitive.

What about the Landcare movement, where farmers have realised that a great deal of remedial work needs to be done and have worked hand in hand with greenies and government.

Here’s an interesting exercise.

Google ‘Bremer River, Western Australia', which is where Viv Forbes hails from.

Switch from ‘map’ to ‘satellite’ and have a look at the intensity of clearing and farming in this part of the world.

Apart from Fitzgerald River National Park, Stirling Range National Park and Lake Magenta Nature Reserve, the land is almost entirely cleared!

Scroll to the northwest and then north up through the wheatbelt and get a perspective of how massively this huge area has been 'de-ecologised' and almost totally humanised.

There was no thought of environmental balance when this land was cleared, only of 100% human utilisation.

So it is no wonder that salinity and various other problems have come home to roost.

Lots of environmentalists, public servants and academics are and have been trying very hard for years to deal with this. The last thing they need is blanket condemnation from the likes of Mr Forbes.

This sir is without doubt the BEST article I have ever seen on OLO. Well done and I hope you keep it up. It's unfortunate some focus on the minutiae and exclude the message, akin to those focusing on spelling mistakes and ignoring the poetry

"our farmers are increasingly under threat from the impacts of globalisation, free trade, level playing field and a host of vested-interest lobby groups"

That's the thinking of those not involved. They are under threat by those that think they know better, like some of those posting here and bureaucrats who employ more bureaucrats to write more reports to employ more of them. For example, an article yesterday in "The Land", 100 pages of documentation to move a piece of farm equipment from one farm to another.

The sheer number of bureaucrats and the Greens (who are in reality NIMBYs) eg Keep all the trees while they buy imported food, raped from a 3rd World country, more fishing marine parks, less fishing, increase fish imports from SE Asia etc etc

As to the poster about needing so much more "chemical inputs", of course they do ! Everything grown consumes nutrients, you want several crops from a field, the nutrients have to be replaced, it's simple math not an environmental disaster. Modern no till farming is wonderful. If you get rid of herbicides, you would decrease production enormously, leading to a need to increase clearing and much more expensive food and increased starvation levels.

In my area of Northern NSW, every farmer is an OAP. When they want to sell the farm, they need to sell it to a Chinese buyer, Aussies prefer living in the City, they don't want to buy into farming. More food imports ?