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The Forum > Article Comments > How much will we pay? > Comments

How much will we pay? : Comments

By Fay Helwig, published 24/6/2008

Australian farmers will cope with droughts and floods as they have always done, if they can sell their produce for an equitable price.

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Interesting points you are making,

It seems there is no real shortage of food ,[as our shops reveal]in fact much food gets plowed under because we cant pay the workers enough to harvest the crop.

But you have said all that [so i will tackle some of the other stuff you didnt mention]

The price of food hasnt gone up [let me explain] the american dollar has falled near 40 percent ,and food has only kept value to its worth but as the yanki dollar is the measure we use to price our resource , the ammount of dollars it takes to buy them
has increased.

Naturally the aussie dollar has fallen further than other euro ,. chinese currencies etc ,because of deliberated policy that sees much of our stuff sold in yanki dollars ,
so policies to try and retain a parity to the ever faster sinking yanki dollar will inevitable drag down our equity value inherant in our currency.

For egsample under howard a twenty year deal was done to supply natural gas
[at about half the current value [and soon to be effictivly paying them to take it
[further even good contracts being writen today [in yank dollars ]will be well below par by the time the new world order achieves its goal to reach parity with the mex peso ,to enable the intro of the amero [all ready printed].

As to the long term affect we are tied to a yank dollar being hyper inflated thanks to the 4 trillion spent on going to war in iraq,

Noting the american fed is privatly owned by the banking cartel as is ours , but worse it is them doing all the wrong thing [printing ever more cash to pay to the war lobby privateers[$47.000 owed by every american citizen currently] ,and rising fast.

While we consumers are experiencing all the pain for no nett gain [except the few exporters , contracting to sell our assets for dimes on the dollar]on the futures market, while we buy yesterday product at todays hyper inflated price tomorrow.
Posted by one under god, Tuesday, 24 June 2008 7:29:34 PM
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I don't quite get the point of your article. Are you saying Australians should be paying more for their food, or that we should be paying more to send food to impoverished parts of the world, or that the world food shortage won't be solved until people in developing nations can afford to pay higher prices?

Last time I checked, the staple grain prices were the best they've been in thirty years, with the price rise driven by a combination of increasing global demand and restrictions on supply caused by localised weather events (such as droughts). But I'm not really sure how what you're saying ties into this.
Posted by NorthWestShelf, Tuesday, 24 June 2008 8:48:30 PM
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You are right about the grain prices being the best in the last 30 years, in fact they are the best for as long as you want to go back in $ terms.
As for real prices, i.e. adjusted against inflation, oil price, wages, they are very much behind.
For instance, wheat peaked at $125 at the farm gate in 71/72. Today it is around the $300 mark.
If it was adjusted for inflation, i.e. the value of goods and services from the rest of the community, it would be in the “000’s”, my estimation from information I have, would place it around $3000 per tonne farm gate.

All other agriculture commodities tell a simular story. In fact , discussions with some farmers has lead me to believe, that those that can, will be scaling back plantings next year as the terms of trade are so bad.
Many farm costs have gone up far greater than the rise in fuel costs over the last 2 years. In fact some costs have approached 400% during this time.

I believe the food shortage that the world is experiencing, will continue to get worse, with land laying idle due to poor terms of trade.

This will continue to be the trend in Australia, until removal of the “regulated benefits” to the non agriculture sector in the Australian economy.

Agriculture commodity markets are based on “WORLD MARKET” pricing. Until this is the norm in the domestic economy. Agriculture will continue to suffer falling terms of trade, leading to lower food production as well as poorer land management as farmers struggle to make income match the cost of farming.
Posted by dunart, Saturday, 12 July 2008 4:01:47 PM
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