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?