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The Forum > Article Comments > An Australian food campaign that is not fair dinkum at all > Comments

An Australian food campaign that is not fair dinkum at all : Comments

By Greg Barns, published 8/8/2005

Greg Barns argues Tasmanian farmers want protectionism, but only for themselves.

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Greg Barnes might espouse great theories, but the pragmatics of what he argues is somewhat out of kilter. People don’t just sell their farms because there is some kind of ultimate economic imperative understood by one and all. Farming is a lifestyle rather than just a job. Farmers are independent businessmen and their numbers cannot be reduced because it is economically viable to do so. Do we encourage small corner shops to make way for supermarkets as they are less economically viable?

It makes sense to buy local produced food, it is likely to be fresher, and carry less of a chemical residue
Posted by ant, Monday, 8 August 2005 10:11:51 PM
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If farming is largely a lifestyle thing then we definitely should not prop it up with subsidies, tariffs or other protectionist means
Posted by Terje, Monday, 8 August 2005 11:17:25 PM
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Well, if people really think that vegetables fertilised with human waste are in the long run cheaper than the ones grown in our own country, they must have read too many books.
In a world crying out to save oil, a vanishing resource, it makes no sense to transport vegetables and fruit thousands of kilometres, just because for the moment the lords of finance have decided to let the Chinese wage slaves produce them, to ruin the growers in other countries, INCLUDING in the Third World.
Posted by johnmassam, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 1:13:59 AM
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It is 1 thing to say find new markets, eg China. Have you tried that yourself? Have you sold fresh, perishable produce to China which has been air-freighted there, only to have it returned for some lame excuse (at your expense) because the price dropped a few days after it was sold? Then, because it is out of your hands, it is sold & returned again to China at an even lower price because it is of a lesser grade now? China is not the only country that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of geniune farmers trying to find new markets for their produce. Farmers are value adding where possible. However, because farmers are at the beginning of the food chain, they are still treated like the proverbial.

Farmers can no longer have a country-bumpkin-type life-style. Farming is now a high-tech science and farmers and their families need to be up-to-date with everything imaginable from business and legal, I.T, agronomy, water & land conservation, machinery operation, machinery repairs & I could continue - only I would probably put your skills to shame.

The impression I get from your article, is that you believe Tasmania is made up of too many small farms, which should be swallowed up by the larger farms - because you obviously believe this would make them more economical & viable. Let me tell you something. A farm is a member of a family. If it is not cared for properly, it will die. It is the farms that are swallowed up by bigger and bigger farms that invariably turn to salt basins (going a bit far - you see my point). When the big companies take over the small farms, they are only in it for the $$ and don't give a monkeys..about the land or the water or the environment or anything else other than their back pocket.

If we are going to have successful trade with China, make sure there are safeguards in place for farmers to prevent further heart-break to new-comers to the export trade. NB. Watch their cadmium levels!
Posted by brightside, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 1:25:24 AM
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One of the things you should also be addressing is the quality of the produce being rejected in Australia.

Have you ever stood on the back of a potato harvester and seen the perfect produce left to spill over the back of the harvester? Why does it go over the back? Because the packing sheds and supermarkets don't want it. It is either too big or too small - NO JOKE. Sad reality. People are starving, even in our own country, yet potatoes (and other fruit and vegetables) go to waste in our paddocks because farmers CAN'T (not won't) sell it. Some paddocks are white with the vegetables - some marked - majority just the wrong size.

What is worse still - when the produce is taken to the packing shed. It is graded again. Too big - and too small - rejected again. "Take it home to be dumped." - otherwise there is a dumping fee.

It is absolute Bs**t that there is not a market in Australia for this produce. The only reason is that the "girls at the checkout can't tell the difference" - told to us by a supermarket owner some years back when we were first told to stop including the bigs and smalls.

My solution would be to package bags of "smalls" and "bigs" and sell the average size loose. Many people like the smalls to boil in their jackets and the large to make chips. There is a market. The problem is the Australian packing sheds and supermarkets are the LAZY ones - not the farmers. The housewife would definitely be prepared to buy them. Just ask her. I can tell you she would - she already buys them by the 25kg and 50kg bag when given the opportunity, so I'm sure she would buy them in a 500g, 1kg or 2kg bag.
Posted by brightside, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 1:33:20 AM
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Great post brightside

Greg Barns has completely missed the point about the freshness of locally grown produce.

Interesting about the waste of small and large potatoes - I would happily purchase either size for different cooking purposes.

After reading another feature which refers to Earth Charter - surely it is both economical and environmentally preferable to grow produce in a sustainable method rather than relying upon chemicals/mass production. In the long term some protectionism now would pay off both environmentally and economically - more and more people are buying organic produce. We should be encouraging that trend to ensure a viable future rather than a profit now mentality.
Posted by Xena, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 7:41:29 AM
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Terje, you argue that if farming is just a lifestyle then it should not be subsidised.

However, because it is a lifestyle’ farmers put in huge effort, they work long hours, and try to look after their land as best they can. They provide seasonal work for a number of local people; or harvesting is done by sub contractors. Where harvesting is done by sub contractors, it doesn’t matter about the size of farms as long as farms are in close proximity to one another.

Small rural communities are becoming less and less viable and small farms provide an employment base helping small communities survive
Posted by ant, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 11:00:44 AM
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Having grown up on farms and been a farmer for the first 39 years of my life one has a close bond to the soil and the life it produces and supports. Ask any devoted gardener what they feel about their garden - yes it is a lifestyle of pleasure and pride, but it is more.

To quote, "Terje, you argue that if farming is just a lifestyle then it should not be subsidised."

Farming is the very production of food that we all need to sustain life on this planet. This essential need must be protected and nurtured. If farmers do not survive, humanity itself will not survive.

Farmers are receiving prices for their goods they received 20 years ago because of imported food dumpimg. Do we expect them to survive on incomes similar to Thialand and China, while sharholders in large Supermarkets increase their incomes. Imported products must have a wage equalisation tarrif applied otherwise Australians will be working for the same wages as from the countires that Supermarket chains import. These tarrifs could be administered by the Government and redirected back into the developing countries thus placing our produce on equal price footing while assisting developing nations.

Australian farmers are among the best in the Universe. Unchallenged!
Posted by Philo, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 9:32:21 PM
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BUY AUSTRALIAN
BUY AUSTRALIAN
BUY AUSTRALIAN
BUY AUSTRALIAN
and we create employment, reduce dole queues, retain the wealth within our country. Only new materials and primary produce grow wealth for our Nation, everything else is merely the circulation of the same money.
Posted by Philo, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 9:39:59 PM
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I grew up on a farm but now I live in Sydney. Sydney imports nearly all its food. Maybe we should have some Sydney centric patriotism and stop importing food into Sydney. I could make a lifestyle for myself growing vegtables for market in my garden if only the councils would subsidies me enough. Even if we did not elliminate food imports into Sydney perhaps we could at least become a little more self reliant
Posted by Terje, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 5:46:10 AM
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In regards to the potatoes (and other vegies) left to rot in the paddocks - farmers could get some of the costs associated with producing them back buy selling them as livestock food. Not oats and pasture I know but something for the starving stock in drought affected areas.
Out Broken Hill way, they do the same thing with onions deemed to big and small for the supermarkets.
I'm no sheep but potatoes must taste much better than onion - and they scoff the onions down.

t.u.s
Posted by the usual suspect, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 3:07:50 PM
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Greg I don't want extra special protection for spud farmers on the north west coast of TAS.

I'm not for quarrantine manipulation or tarrifs. The north west of Tas is however the best soil in the country and I think it would be a travesty to turn that land into pine plantations which is something already occurring.

I am a consumer and I want to make an informed choice, its my cash so when I go into a supermarket to spend it I should be able to see the origin of the fresh fruit and veg, not a sticker on each spud but clearly identifiable product. At that point I can decide if any extra cost for local produce is something I am prepared to wear.

I think it is not that hard for the supermarkets to have produce origin listed when they display price per kilogram.

McDonalds is free to do what it pleases within the laws of the country regarding sourcing food. When it comes to Chips (or Fries as they are trying to get us to call them) the mark up is obsecne. Even if they doubled what they currently pay per kilo it would have to be far and away the best mark up on any of their product range.

Mc Donalds should not be forced to use Tasmanian spuds fair enough, But if that's the way they want to go then they have a real nerve trying to associate themselves with all things Australian. I'm starting to think the shameless adds with a digger they play each year around ANZAC Day are forgetting about the first A in ANZAC.
Posted by jimbo, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 4:05:11 PM
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usual suspect,
Your sentiments may be well meaning, but if no one will buy the discarded crop, we cannot expect the potato farmers to bear the expense of transportation. What do you think is the cost to transport a tonne of Tasmanian potatoes to drought affected areas? Probably in the order of $1,000. What is a tonne of discarded potatoes worth as stockfeed? Nothing! Farmers often receive transport and sales bills for crop sent to market greater than the return from the sale. Farmers deserve a fair return on their crop.

Quote, "In regards to the potatoes (and other vegies) left to rot in the paddocks - farmers could get some of the costs associated with producing them back buy selling them as livestock food. Not oats and pasture I know but something for the starving stock in drought affected areas."
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:19:45 PM
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Terge,
Why do you expect the councils to subsidise you growing vegetables?

Quote, "I could make a lifestyle for myself growing vegtables for market in my garden if only the councils would subsidies me enough."

Why don't you grow certified organic and sell in Balmain? You don't need subsidies, just customers willing to pay a fair price
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:33:47 PM
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To increase the profits of the potato growers you don't aim at the lowest price first (i.e. stockfeed). Firstly, you only harvest the good quality product (all sizes). The packing shed then packages it into small bags of smalls, bigs, X-lg spuds and then 25kg or 50kg mediums for loose sale in the supermarket. There will still be reject produce at the packing shed from machine damage, green marks (sun damage), grubs etc. missed by the pickers which can be sent as stockfeed.

The important thing I haven't seen anyone mention is getting the message to the consumer about our Aussie product. There are oodles of "lifestyle" programmes on TV which include cooking segments. Women and men alike are glued to the tellie each week to check out a new recipe or tip. Also, newspapers and magazines have special cooking sections in most of their editions. Hit them hard with the Aussie (not just
Tassie) spud. Push the tiny tatters in their jackets as well as the bigs. When we grew spuds, we rarely used the mediums. We sold them. There are plenty of uses for the others and the chefs (given the challenge) will come up with heaps of new recipe ideas. That will create a market for bagged smalls and bigs. More profits for the Aussie potato farmer and it should help to keep the cost of the potato at a reasonable price for the consumer.

Any potatoes that are left in the paddock should then be genuine rejects and they are usually worth more to the farmer as fertilizer for his next crop than to sell as stockfeed.
Posted by brightside, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:59:14 PM
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One thing you have to realize, is that it is not the farmer who sets the price of the potato. It is the merchant.

If the price of potatoes is low and a certain merchant thinks the price will go up in a week or two, you will see the parking area adjacent to his shed empty as well as his shed as close to empty as possible and before you know it semi after semi load of spuds arrives (at a cheap price - he "buys" them). He holds onto them. Next week - the price goes up $5, $10, $15 or even more per bag. The farmer sees none of the price increase.

However, if the price had gone down, the farmer would have received the lesser price. This is fact not fiction.
Posted by brightside, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:02:06 PM
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Philo,

The price would be fairer for a potential backyard farmer like me if councils prohibited imports from the country areas outside Sydney. Surely it is their duty to make Sydney self sufficient. After all they represent the people of Sydney not the people of Dubbo or Tasmania. Do they really think it is reasonable that I should compete with the low wage areas like Dubbo?

Regards,
Terje
Posted by Terje, Thursday, 11 August 2005 9:19:01 PM
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Terge,
You are obviously not serious; just a stirrer. The plight of Australian farmers has become a serious issue. Please respect the seriousness of this issue.
Posted by Philo, Thursday, 11 August 2005 10:28:09 PM
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Terje, The way I see it, you are a selfish, self-centred person who really doesn't give a s**t about the rest of Australia or the real Aussie farmer. You said you grew up on the land. If that were the case, then you should appreciate the hard slog these farmers put in day after day only to be ripped off at the farm gate.

Your most recent comments are unbelievable. For an ex-farmer you should be truly ashamed of yourself. How big is your backyard - the one you plan to feed the whole of Sydney with? hmmm and how long would
you be able to keep it up? Get real. You are not the only person living in Sydney or Australia for that matter.

To quote you:- "The price would be fairer for a potential backyard farmer like me if councils prohibited imports from the country areas outside Sydney."

To feed the population of Sydney, day after day, week after week - where are you going to grow the spuds, Terje? On the roof tops of all the high-rise buildings and rip up all of the parkland in metropolitan and suburban Sydney? You should know you need an awful lot of land to grow the amount of spuds to feed that many people on a daily basis YEAR ROUND.

Tell me Terje. How many crops of spuds would you grow in a year? Considering there are 52 weeks in a year. Would you be able to keep up with consumer demand? That's what is expected nowadays. Continuous supply.
Posted by brightside, Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:36:46 PM
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It seems most people don't understand, how markets work with respect to the price the farmer gets. We gave up growing spuds some years back because it was like playing a game of Russian Roulette.
Some years, extremely few, you may hit it lucky and get $50 a 50kg bag. However, more often than not, you were likely to end up with $8 or $5 per bag. In those days, it cost approx $13 a bag to grow and harvest (depending of course on yield).

Rarely did we hit the $50 per bag, because even if we predicted the price right, and booked the harvester contractor for that specific time, because the harvester contractor also had his own crop (due several weeks later), he harvested his crop early at the high price making us wait (although our crop was mature and his immature). We weren't the only farmers affected. It happens all the time and not just with potatoes.

We always maintained that it would be fairer if a genuine price could be fixed that represented the true costs and a decent return e.g. $25-35 (max)/bag. However, it would have to be stipulated that poor quality product would not be included in that price, otherwise the system would fail. This would also help to keep the merchants in line. The merchants are supposed to be the farmer's representative at the market. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. A lot of them (not all), are money hungry leeches out to suck as much from the farmer as they can. When the price is down and they want to buy up big, even if the farmer tries to hold on to product in the hope the price will go up, the merchants use blackmail tactics against the farmers. "If you don't sell to me at this price now, I won't buy from you next week or next month or next year..."
Posted by brightside, Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:48:25 PM
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A few comments
Modern agriculture is heavily based on oil. Farm machinery uses oil, fertilisers and pesticides are largely oil based, transport is based on oil. There is no longer any food that is out of season as we source food from all over the globe. The amount of energy we get from food is tiny compared to the energy used to grow, process and transport our food. The green house gases caused by all of this oil consumption is not costed into our food! if it was included in the price of our food then buying local tassie spuds would be cheaper than any imported spud!!. Oil is also not a renewable resource and it is widely believed we have now used half of this resource with the remainder more costly to extract, at a time when demand (india and china) is booming. Look at oil prices now! they will likely continue to climb!!. Why is George in Iraq?? For the oil!!. I have heard that sydney has only 3 days supply of food on the shelves. if oil were too become too expensive food prices would definitely rise!!

i dont think terje is too unrealistic to talk of producing food in his sydney backyard. A family can be fed on a small amount of land using permaculture principles. A sustainable future will require food is grown as close as possible to where it is consumed.

john
Posted by future=permaculture, Friday, 12 August 2005 1:34:18 PM
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You guys get real! How are you going to feed 5,000,000 people from back yard vege patches in Sydney? Most people who live in Sydney have no back yard, no fishing spots, no grazing paddocks, no dairy cattle, no canola / sunflower field. Just try making margarine from your back yard canola or olive crop. Three days supply alright! What do you do for the other 362 days? A very limited diet.

Australia could produce enough bioethanol and vegetable oil to drive every tractor and truck in Australia, and solar and nuclear energy to run every factory processing the food for the next 20,000 years. We just need to manage it properly.
Posted by Philo, Friday, 12 August 2005 10:27:31 PM
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Well, I understand the urge to protect Australian farmers, as a natural response when our "in group" is "attacked" by an "out group", but I do have to agree with Greg that Tasmanian farmers only want protectionism for themselves. I might be mistaken (correct me if I am please), but I think I heard that many Australian farmers complain of EU Subsidies, claiming that they are "unfair". Isn't that slightly hypocritical? I mean, if you're going to protect your own farmers, you shouldn't cry foul when others do so.
Posted by Unconquered_Sun, Saturday, 13 August 2005 5:16:01 AM
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Actually, now that I think about it, it isn't so bad to want to protect our farmers. It's the natural thing to do, of course, and everyone does it, including all our major trade partners.

And you can't expect companies and CEO's to take pity on the farmers. I'm afraid that requires a human heart, not a mechanical one which pumps dollars instead of blood.

In regards to my earlier comments, all I was trying to say was that it's okay for us to protect our farmers, but it's also okay for the EU to protect it's farmers
Posted by Unconquered_Sun, Saturday, 13 August 2005 5:19:57 AM
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It would appear that some posts on this forum are not aware of the tractor convoy from Tasmania through Victoria and NSW to Canberra, gathering support from farmers in all these States to give proper protection from disease borne by imports and shelf identification to food grown in Australia so that consumers can choose to buy Australian. Our farmers food production can compete in a world market with countries with equal wages and work conditions. It is the disparity of wages and work conditions that place our farmers at a disadvantage; as well as the merchants sourcing cheaper product from third world countries.

The Tasmanian farmers are part of Australia, and the convoy was supported by farmers in all other States. It is just that they were being financially impacted at this time by a $10,000,000 loss to their industry. Farmers throughout Australia suffer the same fate for their product, example bananas from Argentina, beef from Brazil etc etc.
Posted by Philo, Saturday, 13 August 2005 9:01:58 AM
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Philo, there is no alternative to fossil fuel energy at our current rates of consumption! Below is some stuff about biofuels copied from http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html which also has some great stuff about other alternatives such as solar. I found out about peakoil early this year and the more I read the more I am convinced!

The main point I wanted to make in my earlier post was that if the full cost to the environment was added to products then imported goods could not compete due to the vast distance they are transported which will advantage our farmers in the local market and disadvantage them in foreign markets. But it would be fair.

I agree we cant be totally self sufficient in our backyards but without oil, modern agriculture cannot provide all our food for the current population.

"What About Biofuels Such
as Ethanol and Biodiesel?"

Biofuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, methanol etc. are great, but only in small doses. Biofuels are all grown with massive fossil fuel inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) and suffer from horribly low, sometimes negative, EROEIs. The production of ethanol, for instance, requires six units of energy to produce just one. That means it consumes more energy than it produces and thus will only serve to compound our energy deficit.

In addition, there is the problem of where to grow the stuff, as we are rapidly running out of arable land on which to grow food, let alone fuel. This is no small problem as the amount of land it takes to grow even a small amount of biofuel is quite staggering.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html
Posted by future=permaculture, Sunday, 14 August 2005 12:36:39 PM
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There have been posts saying farmers should not be subsidized.
As a farmer I will agree totally.
I will also agree to all subsidies being removed from the domestic market as well.

As a farmer I compete on the world market to sell my product.
This means I receive a world market price for my product and labour.

So how many non farmers receive a world market price for the product / service they sell.

I would say it’s almost between zero and none.

So who pays for the difference?

Maybe it’s the reason for the extraordinary high production costs farmers have in this country?

How about the agriculture sector demand world market production costs?

The difference between world market production costs and Australian market production costs is a subsidy to the urban areas from agriculture.

Quote;
As Churchill said, “trying to tax / regulate your self into prosperity is like standing in a bucket and trying to lift your self off the ground.”
Posted by dunart, Monday, 15 August 2005 2:34:19 AM
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It would seem that my sarcasm with regards to protectionism and regional patriotism was misunderstood as a serious proposal. Somehow its appropriate for Sydney to be dependent on food from Tasmania but wrong if it gets dependent on food from New Zealand.

I agree with Dunart regarding the removal of all subsidies
Posted by Terje, Monday, 15 August 2005 9:13:10 PM
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Terje,
You seem to be talking in a moral sense about good and bad sourse of supply. This is not the issue, the issue is a social responsibility to our Australian economy. New Zealand do not finance our unemployment queue, or receive taxation from our farmers. We Australians must firstly support our own nation's employment and income.
Quote, "Somehow its appropriate for Sydney to be dependent on food from Tasmania but wrong if it gets dependent on food from New Zealand."

For instance we do not import apples from New Zealand because of fire blight; they may be cheaper, but of inferior quality. We need to protect the quality of our fresh farm produce, and by importing we may be importing disease.
Posted by Philo, Monday, 15 August 2005 10:10:23 PM
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The problem agriculture is faced with, is not the fact cheaper food can be imported from overseas.
The problem is that we are not allowed to import the cheaper cost of production that allows overseas producers to out compete us.
This whole debate will only turn out to be a negative for the rural sector, as this thread is.

The protection the urban areas get, as well as the direct subsidies they get as well are our problem.
Take a look at this fact;
Farm gate price goes down
Retail price goes up
Urban areas reward themselves (thanks to regulation) with a pay rise.

This is after their productivity has declined.
It now takes more farm gate kg of potatoes to buy an urban product.
In any sense of the word, a decline in productivity and an area the govt should be made to address due to the fact that the gap should be declining with productivity improvement, not increasing as it has done for the last 50 plus years.
Posted by dunart, Tuesday, 16 August 2005 12:29:57 AM
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From a consumer's POV the whole shopping thing is a complete bummer.

We fork out $20 for a pizza but apparently we're being ripped off if we pay 50c/dollar more per kilo for fruit & veg.

I just want to buy fresh fruit and vegies, fresh milk, ripened cheese, full-fat yoghurt, well-made bread and good eggs.

I don't want calcium-fortified “dairy”; I don't want OJ with "Vitamin C" or D or A or bloody H. I want yoghurt with full milk, not skim plus cream and sugar (you read the labels). My two year old is not on a low-fat diet so why the hell does it take so long to find yoghurt that is yoghurt? So far I have found TWO brands and about 40,000 brands that are "low-fat" "97% fat-free"; "lite"; "light" "original(!!)" This is choice apparently.

I don't want to buy perfectly round red apples (it's still impossible to believe that they are "phasing out" Red Delicious), I don't want green tomatoes picked too early; or frozen oranges shipped around the world for days and days at subsidised prices. I can live without African potatoes.

I don't want tinned tomatoes like I bought last week only to find the tomatoes also had tomato paste (10%), gums and maize thickener inside. Why anything other than water and salt? Maybe because the can has such a long journey round the world or the ingredients were aged or of such low quality that they need a bit of oomph on their travels? Or is it cheap padding of ingredients? Is it so hard to make good food?

Anyway, its a bummer, I can't grow vegies to perfection and I don’t want to keep reading every bloody item to make sure it a) hasn't been taken apart and put back together again or b) hasn't been frozen, flown around and flung half-ripened and flavourless at people. For god’s sake I’m not even a vegetarian so why is this all so difficult?

Edina in Ab Fab said it all when she said "I don't want choice, I just want better things"
Posted by Ro, Monday, 22 August 2005 11:58:58 AM
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Absolutely Fab post Ro.

I deliberately purchase local, in season produce for the simple reason it is more nutritious and tasty - especially if organic. If we have to put in place protections to keep our produce fresh and local - then so be it.

I too am tired of reading labels - don't have a weight problem - prefer real yoghurt, real milk and real cheese. Where I can, I buy from the local organic shop - believe me if you try organically grown asparagus you'll never go back to the supermarket version.

There is the real possibility of promoting local, safe produce, to make a profit from it and to avoid following the mass production nutrition depleted food like that produced in the USA and elsewhere.

Why are sales of multi-vitamins so high? Because we are not getting the nutrition we need from over processed, over-transported food.

Protect our fresh food industries both for our health and dare I say our economy.
Posted by Xena, Tuesday, 23 August 2005 8:28:28 AM
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Where did Greg Barns get these figures from? “Where it takes 450 Tasmanian farms to produce 80,000 tonnes of potatoes, 13 New Zealand farms can produce the same amount”

Assuming Greg is right. he is advocating a huge number of farmers must leave their land in Tasmania so the remainder can compete. But unlike Greg who met people in the Premier’s offices way back I actually met more than a few of these folk and their forbears out in their paddocks.

I offered the Senator for “poor” farmers some advice recently on my private thoughts that lots of big tractors were part of the problem based on my experience watching daily operations in those rich soils. But I can also say labeling in globalization of alternative sources is a big problem. Only the big international brands know how to rip off us consumers at the supermarkets too.

As consumers we leave the door wide open to this abuse. Generally, from my work with processors our local quality control has led the world but who knows what we get with the same major brands as importers? With JASANZ we can expect product from New Zealand to be interchangeable with our own in regards to quality.

However I doubt NZ farmers can do anything for much less than our best efforts in the long run. Both countries overheads should be much the same. Land and labor costs, like fuel must be roughly equal when all are considered on a level playing field. My best example for comparison is all the varieties of cheese available from this part of the world. If I am wrong darned kiwis would out number the devils in our big cities ten to one.

This raises another issue, how dependent on the bush are our city folk? Who in this forum can actually grow or make anything? Sustainability anywhere is really about how we actually relate to the land, tractors or no tractors.
Posted by Taz, Tuesday, 23 August 2005 5:35:47 PM
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