I'm a bit sick of hearing about farmers running at a loss; only a nitwit would do that in any other business. While the quality of our food is falling so that they can get the big dollar from overseas with the good stuff, there will be little sympathy for farmers.

Rural debt has as its main cause, huge overvaluation of assets and mindless tax avoidance that results/resulted in massively monumental overcapitalisation!
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And as an asinine response to trying to stay viable during an ever-worsening enduring drought!

The latter made far worse by incompetent and incoherent government policies and from both sides of the abysmally stupid, divide and rule, political divide! And

Furthermore, made infinitely worse by the invited involvement of debt-laden foreign investment! So having Identified some of the causal factors, what are the only possible solutions?

First of all, we cannot, MUST NOT keep making climate change worse by pumping more and more tons of greenhouse gas into an already CO2 overloaded atmosphere!

[Well managed grasslands absorb as much CO2 per hectare as woodland!]

Second of all, we need to set aside patently pernicious and manifestly moronic, Prohibitions on nuclear energy.

Gormless, gutless governments alone, created those prohibitions and can lift them as soon as they want to!

Moreover, have no other option!

Yes, solar voltaic in large enough scale can compete with gas-fired power during daylight, but must have battery back or pumped hydro backup. Which effectively destroys any capacity to compete with now increasingly unfundable, unaffordable, fossil-fueled power!
TBC Alan B.

Many rural properties barely viable, earn less than bank interest. Where desperate farmers clinging by the skin of their teeth are just sold up ASAP/there's a little green grass.

Allowed to sink or resort to suicide, by governments (science/commonsense free zones) that just don't give a rat's!

Because, if seriously incompetent or corrupt governments gave a rat's! They would just stop with the endless half-assed prevarication and just crack on with NOW INEVITABLE, CARBON FREE, nuclear energy!

And statistically, with the lowest recorded (seriously lower) fatalities, than any other generated power source.

Not just any nuclear energy but MSR thorium, nuclear energy! Which used as nuclear waste burners, bring the price of on-farm energy down below a cent PKWH!

Why?

Because the world would pay annual billions for its safe disposal. And those annual billions would over time fund the entire conversion to MSR thorium, nuclear energy, and with fuel, we are paid for in annual never-ending billions. Just as long as we keep accepting this unspent fuel with at least 98% of is available energy still intact and available as unspent fuel in MSR thorium!

With that, we can roll out a (superconductor) graphene highway that'll recharge our electrical vehicles on the go, even tram-tacked cultivation! And massively reducing transmission and distribution losses as the second desirable consequence. And allow farmers to once again irrigate with energy they and every boy and his dog can afford. Without adding a single gram of CO2 to the atmosphere!

Finally, we need to both embrace and rollout Deionisation dialysis desalination. Because, first and foremost, it costs a quarter or less of traditional desal. Produces 95% potable water that's also cost-effective for broadscale irrigation. But more particularly, when a sane government rolls out MSR thorium and uses it to also burn the mountains of the world's highly toxic nuclear waste and extracting free energy in the process!

As a paid-for service that reduces the half-life to just 300 years, is far less toxic and eminently suitable as long-life space batteries that burn up during reentry.
Alan B.

Thorium is the most energy-dense material on the planet, is four times more abundant than uranium and was rejected in the seventies, even after the successful, incident and accident-free, trails at Oak Ridge Tenessee.

Yet like coal has to be mined, but unlike coal needs to be refined. So more not less, long term jobs.

It is so energy-dense, 8 grams that cost around $100.00 to mine and refine, would power the average suburban home and family jalopy for 100 years. That my friends is just $1.00 a year!

Consider these comparisons, A traditional 350MW light water reactor, requires 2551 tons of as rare as platinum, enriched uranium during a thirty-year operational lifetime. Whereas an MSR thorium, a FUJI 350 MW requires just one ton of material that is abundant as lead. And rejected due to the extreme difficulty, during the seventies, of weaponising it.

Those who believe our very temporary exports of coal gas and oil could be in jeopardy? Haven't considered those energy exports that may support foreign nationals in the main, could be progressively replaced by electrical energy exports to the same energy customer via undersea cables with superconductor cores of Graphene.

And given MSR thorium that are also tasked as paid for by other folks, nuclear waste burners for considerable profit and for the next thousand years, which might just be a tad longer than the twenty years or so, it might be viable to export energy products in their present form, from this continent!

And if rollout by intelligent and facilitating funding governments a competing for custom co-ops, able to generate far more highly paid jobs and affordable commodities than any other private or public free-market enterprise

We'd have fully funded cashed up retirees and high tech manufacturing breaking the door down to relocate here, bringing their tax liabilities and jobs creation with them!

More particularly if we finally embraced real tax reform as I've already advocated on OLO!
Alan B.

I have empathy for Australian farmers, contrary to other posts, who ignore the fact that Australian farmers are not supported by their government to the extent of U.S. and European farmers. My second point is that Australia agriculture is rather unique in the depth of natural disasters, especially drought, compared to the aforesaid farmers in the U.S. and Europe. The third factor to consider is that with a small domestic market, most Australian farm produce is placed on the international market, with currency fluctuations which often do not favour our producers. The only two factors which support our farmers are: (a) their tenacity and resilience and (b) their management and use of technology to survive the above-mentioned hurdles.

I agree with Ben Rees' assessment of the failure of our governments to provide adequate support for our farmers. Many people simply do not understand that with a dwindling workforce in Australian agriculture, we risk becoming dependent on foreign imports of food and the introduction of pests which can destroy our current agriculture. Short-sighted thinking leads to a shortened destiny.

Globalisation is bringing us to ruin. In principle, the remedy is simple. We, the people, need to elect politicians whose overriding goal is to create the conditions which preserve and nurture the life, the liberty and the happiness of the citizens of their nation-state; who will always promote their country’s claims over the claims of others.