Yes, and not only does the Farmer buy at retail prices, sell at wholesale prices, but with the introduction of the metric system, they made his farm smaller and put it further from town!
And the gas tank bigger and much more expensive to fill.
We live in a wide brown land, that's marked by drought and flooding rain!
The only way to ameliorate this is with the creation of upland, myriad small dams, which force water into the landscape, vastly improve fertility, force the salt table lower, and allow some water to still flow, 2 or more years into a drought!
Farmers must also adapt, climate change can only ever get worse!
Some farmers may continue to prosper by planting and harvesting earlier.
Earlier planting may be assisted by biodegradable clear film, trapping heat and critical moisture?
Others may survive, with fodder factories, and feed lots or trial things like, salt, frost and drought resistant native wisteria, which provides both bio-diesel, ex crush high protein meal for the feed lot fish or fowl farm, and much greater productivity!
Traditional farming ought not be conducted in the Murray/Darling Basin, which nonetheless, would quite massively prosper, if the only crop grown, was oil rich algae, some of which are up to 60% oil.
Algae only require 1-2% of the water of traditional irrigation!
Algae absorb 2.5 times their body-weight in atmospheric carbon, and under optimized conditions, quite literally double that growth, absorption capacity, oil content, every 24 hours!
Extracting the ready to use bio fuel, is as simple as filtering out some of the product, sun drying it and crushing it! It's not rocket science!
The ex crush material may be suitable for fodder, or ethanol production.
The only thing missing here, is a govt replete with visionary leaders, willing to reroute welfare for the rich, (around 26 billion per) to where it is genuinely needed!
Mainly as dams and practical assistance to reconfigure production paradigms, essential infrastructure; and brand new farmers co-ops!
Rhrosty.

Is it possible for Online Opinion to detail the Federal and States governments' long term plans for "Food" for the common good of Australians (and as part of our contribution to needy people in other countries), rather than for commercial profit, and compare this to the "Peoples' Food Plan" promoted by the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance? http://www.australianfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/peoples-food-plan/

Maybe there are journalists who have done work on this.

Bob Simpson
The Australian Media Engagement Project (AMEP)

Agriculture is a business like any other. It would be an even better business if those people who think the taxpayers should "support" them were to leave it. Those remaining (about two-thirds) would thrive.

There might be a drought in Qld right now but there isn't in Victoria or Tasmania. And next time there's a drought in Victoria, Qld will be fine. It's always been that way. Get over it.

I find it a bit strange, in that it is my understanding that agriculture in places like America, the UK, Ireland, receive larger amounts of government help than the farmers here in Australia.

Wolly
you are right, most countries subsidise and protect their farm sectors more than Australia. That doesn't make it right, though.

Davidl,
<<Agriculture is a business like any other. >>

How wrong you are.
Agriculture is outdoors and subject to all weather.
How can that be like a business in an air conditioned office not impacted by weather?

JF Aus
Of all the arguments for giving handouts to farmers, the fact they work outdoors is perhaps the strangest. Should we also give subsidies to gardeners, building workers, and foresters? Mining and tourism are also affected by weather – do they deserve handouts too?

Rhian,

One flood or one week without water for stock can destroy a farmers whole income for the year and for some, their whole farming life. Once the animals and plants are dead that's it. Not so for those you mention.

It is not just a matter of handouts either. Finance repayment and interest can be suspended. Big banks do not need such huge super profits. Government could set up lending or farmers if banks are not interested in giving impacted farmers a go.

Most importantly drought affected stock could be bought provided agistment by government, in a special project to increase the national herd, instead of culling and killing it.

There is a shortage of affordable animal protein worldwide and the situation is worsening especially due to collapse of world ocean seafood supply sustainability involving devastation of ocean food-web nursery ecosystems

JF Aus
Farming is a tough and risky business. But every farmer knows that.

Favourable loans are a form of handout whether from shareholders and superannuants (if by the banks) or taxpayers (if by government).

If there is a shortage of protein overseas, farmers should be able to make a living exporting their animals. Why should Australians’ taxes be used to pay to feed your livestock so you can ship them overseas for someone else to eat?

Yes farming is risky. So is a lot of other business these days, including motor car manufacturing and the airline business.

There is not just a shortage of affordable animal protein overseas. More than 70 percent of fish product consumed in Australia is imported.

Loans favorable at the time of lending can get out of control and cause stress and even suicide, for example just because of natural or AGW influenced drought. (and I do not agree with the CO2 angle)

Farmers are making a living exporting their animals and that business is generating revenue for government in Australia and all of us.

Australian government used to guarantee a price for wool and I think it could do similar for cattlemen by way of helping to keep breeding stock alive when the chips are down due to drought.

JF

The wool price scheme was a perfect example of how agricultural protection can prove counter-productive. The price was too high, so producers kept on producing far more than the market was willing to take at the floor price. Eventually the stockpiles got so huge that the scheme became unsupportable and collapsed. The results was a massive drop in sheep numbers, years of depressed market prices as the stockpile was gradually sold off, and millions of dollars charged to the longsuffering taxpayer.

OLO even has an article on it:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12493&page=0

Rhian,
I am not talking about defying the markets as the wool industry did.
I am suggesting farmers get help in a similar way as the wool industry got help.

There is opportunity for taxpayers by increasing the national beef herd.
Why dump older cows for a pittance price, when cows that could deliver another calf or two could help increase the national herd and help farmers at the same time?

The banking/finance industry generates a fortune in tax revenue for government from the blood of borrowers. Surely government could help stay the execution of genuine drought impacted farmers.

I really cannot comment on the wool industry assistance failure except to say many country towns are now on their knees because of the wool industry collapse and that must be now costing taxpayers much more.
Bourke for example used to be a thriving town with a meat works and rail link to Sydney, but not anymore.

What do you think should happen to drought and associated stress impacted farmers?

By their comments, most of the respondents here seem to know little about how farming enterprises in Australia are structured. Most farms are run on debt.

If there was no drought for the next 10 years a large percentage would still have debt. This has happened largely because of the bad advice given to them by their accountants and so called financial planners.

Back in the seventies when I ran a 100 cow dairy farm the advice was to get big or get out. Those who took the advice and got big are now ruing the day. They borrowed heavily to buy the farm(s) next door and now have a bigger debt than they can comfortably service.

I attended a financial seminar for farmers run by a local accounting firm. At the end of the presentation I asked the question "Is the advice give to farmers aimed at increasing their disposable income or is it aimed at reducing their taxes". The presenter was unable to answer. Most accountants seem to have their clients buying new machinery at the end of the financial year to minimise their tax. I say "better to pay the tax and spend the money on paying back the bank". If you are not paying tax you are not making any money.

The way Australian agriculture is going at present, any farmer's son who wants to be a farmer has got a hole in his head. There has got to be a better way to make a quid.

David

The debate about the need or otherwise to intervene in the economic life of certain industries is one which will live forever as some of us can not bring ourselves to stand back from the issue and look from afar, we are philosophically tied to the axioms of our minds, either we are pragmatic about intervention or we are against it or some may be very prone to intervention.

The subsidies of public transport or infrastructure in urban environments come to mind, yet to be frank I see them as necessary and I would not begrudge these populations this important necessity.

Yet when we contemplate some form of intervention in agriculture , to for instance "make it profitable to produce the food" the community need there seems to be resistance, I might say mostly by misinformed people.

The economy is shaped like an inverted pyramid, a small portion of the bottom is primary industry, and the activity of the primary industry feeds up into the secondary industry and then to tertiary industry, if the primary industry is healthy, it follows that the entire economy is so. It follows that it is important to maintain a healthy primary industry.

The various comments from contributors re the collapse of the floor price scheme of the wool industry all miss the fundamental fact that its collapse was bought about as a result of the loss of about half this nations market when Russia collapsed and was unable to continue to purchase Australia's wool. No matter whether you had a free market system or an interventionist system a cataclysmic shift had occurred and no amount of hand wringing or bone pointing can get away from that.

The passing back of the entire risks of production via the removal of the various regulations and the removal of EC and so on have left farmers bereft of return for risk and this policy risks a collapse of production as dramatic as the collapse in sheep numbers to less that 1850 no less following the floor price schemes collapse.

VK3AU,

The debt and dire situation of farming in Australia you indicate was not known to me as being general but I take you point. Accordingly I think therein is even more crucial reason why farmers of animal protein in Australia should be immediately assisted by government.

Farmers should not think they are alone with such debt burden. Many city and town people have been swayed into similar borrowing with similar consequences causing exceptional and damaging stress.

I respectfully warn government, the whole world ocean is nearly empty of available and affordable fish protein, and associated food web ecosystems are generally devastated.
There is need to support bona fide farming big and small.

The problem is not CO2 as emission trading scheme commission agent spin doctors are indicating. Time is being wasted on gobbledegook, especially in the Parliament.

Overfishing is not the cause, it’s not the easily seen fishing boats on the surface.

Evidence of substance indicates the cause of world fish depletion is sewage nutrient overload pollution that is feeding/proliferating algae, algae is reducing essential photosynthesis in seagrass. Small fish depend on seagrass for their nursery. Big fish depend on small fish.
Fish are not immune to starvation.
Underfed or starving animals are not usually fertile, they do not breed, do not multiply.
When fishing stops or is reduced, most depleted stocks are not re-populating.

Desk bound ‘experts’ see fish in supermarket tins and increasingly expensive fish shops.
The source and quantity of food that wild fish need to eat to survive is not even known.
Yet farmers know the quantity of grass that livestock need.
Government economists see aquaculture profit but not the need and cost importing fish to feed aquaculture.

Evidence of collapse of world ocean seafood supply sustainability is being suppressed and gagged by Australian government and ABC and major media, so are the impacts, consequences, solutions and opportunities in general. (this is not govt or ABC bashing)

No wonder the public is not aware of the dire need to support farmers, especially at this time.

For those who really want to understand the situation I suggest a visit to the;
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/RBA_Amendment_2013/Submissions

and a read of the first few submissions which will set out how the bush is doing and provide some salient reading and direction. The bush and agriculture indeed has a problem of chronic low profitability, which is a policy outcome resulting form the direction followed this last few decades.

The proposition of a Australian Reconstruction and Development Board is well put and logically argued.

What is Mr Truss doing to help?