Why only assist the farmers.



Now lets put things into prospective.

Many farmers are 2nd and 3rd generation, paid nothing for their farms, amassed millions in debts yet are the only ones who get assistance in hard times. They get hand outs when it rains too much too little or not at all and many make a killing in good times yet the businesses that rely on farmers to survive, my butcher shop included, fruit & veg another get no assistance what so ever in harsh times.



You see consumers have a budget and allocate $x towards meat and produce and if these become un-affordable they seek an alternative like tinned and frozen food or imported seafood. Yet for me to stay competitive I have to cut margins and staff just to survive working 14hr days for weeks on end at times all because the farmers have emptied the hand out jar.



Another burning issue is local meat prices. You see the reason we as consumers pay so much at times for our prime beef or world-class lamb is because our poor farmers are constantly seeking better prices from the overseas market. You see as a nation our farmers over produce to the max and rely on exports for their survival

(70% of our meat goes overseas) yet the farmers who pick and choose when and where to sell their spoils are the ones who also get assistance in bad times while we, the locals who are trying to provide for our own consumers and families get zip!



So the next time you think POOR FARMERS spare a thought for the people who don’t get assistance, don’t chase the export dollar yet rely on this protected group for their very existence and if we go broke I can assure you there is no buy out offer for us we just loose our family home.

rehctub, similar deal when there is a natural disaster. The uninsured person whose home burns down on it's own is unlikely to get serious help but if lots of their neighbours places burn down as well then help is likely to come not just at the community level but individually.

Sometimes our help is not well thought through.

R0bert

yes Robert I agree however this assistance usually comes from the people within the community rather than the government it's self. Unless of cause it is the horse racing industry whereby the government stands to loose millions. Evidence of this is the fuss over the recent horse flue. Funny how it took little time at all for total damage control procedures to be implimented yet it took at least a week for the cyclone victims to get relief.

You may think I hate goverments but acctually I don't, I just hate the fact that all people are not treated equally. Kids, working or non working adults, single mothers and pensioners alike.
As a business owner and the owner of rental properties I pay the ambulanve levey three times. Once at home, once at my business and once at one of my units. This further frustrates me because I have subscribed to the ambulance for 30 years. I have no problem paying once like veryone should but why should I and several others have to pay more than once. Remember we are also the ones that contribute to the system and receive nothing in return because we work too hard. At times I feel like ringing the ambulance for my business because we had a quiet day, of cause I would'nt because that would be a waste of valuable resourses.

All I have ever wanted is a level playing field, the money pit to be shared to all equally and some support at the end of my working time but if I choose to continue to work long hours I know that the only way for me to get anywhere is to minimise my taxes wherever possible. Very unfair to all PAYG employees.

rehctub

For most of my life I lived on the land and never once did I receive any Government assistance. Also in the drought years when Paul Keating promised assistance to farmers, one of my daughters then living on a farm found they weren't eligible for assistance as they had only purchased their farm 3 years previously and therefore hadn't yet experienced a 'normal' year to show by figures that they were drought affected. I mention this to explain that often what politicians promise and the media publish doesn't eventuate.
I agree however, with previous writers that farmers as such shouldn't receive any special benefit. I smypathise with the view of the butcher, as one of my grandfathers was a butcher, and my first job after leaving school was to work in a butcher's shop. However, it must be realised that the price of cattle has not kept up with the price of other goods. My father sold X amount of cattle to buy his first Holden car. I would now have to sell 3 times as many cattle to buy a Holden Commodore.

"You see consumers have a budget and allocate $x towards meat and produce and if these become un-affordable"

Now let me see. Farmers receive around 3$ a kg for lamb, 1$
a kg for mutton, throw in the rest of the carcass, kidneys,
hearts livers, etc for nothing. Wheat up until this last
crisis was around 20c a kg. Milk around 40c.

Clearly what the farmer is paid has little to do with what
consumers are screwed for! When the average butcher earns
less then the average farmer, despite farmers huge investment
in land, machinery, livestock etc. I will take note.

"Many farmers are 2nd and 3rd generation, paid nothing for their farms, amassed millions in debts yet are the only ones who get assistance in hard times. They get hand outs when it rains too much too little or not at all and many make a killing in good times yet the businesses that rely on farmers to survive, my butcher shop included, fruit & veg another get no assistance what so ever in harsh times."

There are lots of issues in here that can be addressed, but before I do, I make the point that by targeting support towards the bottom (or top if you look at it that way) of the supply chain, then essentially benefits pass all the way through the economy. Support to farmers allows them to keep their stock fed and watered adequately, so that they are in fit condition to go to a butchers shop. It allows them to continue to buy inputs from the local community, with the financial effects of this continuing to flow through the community.

Drought support is now provided to businesses in EC declared areas that supply to farmers. There is an arguement that supoprt should also be provided to those who depend on farmers for their livelihoods in other ways (such as those further along the supply chain). I make the point though that there are currently an awful lot of stock being sold for very little money. So your input costs should be getting cheaper, not more expensive. Granted they are likely to get much more expensive as that supply dries up. But I also make the point, that meat prices in particular dont seem to come down in times such as these where there is abundant cheap supply, so maybe butchers would be on a better marketing foot to justify higher prices if they allowed prices to drop when their supply costs come down