rehctub "At present the grower and the retailer are the only ones who's margins get cut. Is this fair?"

Blame Hawke/Keating, they were the ones who let the Coles/Myer and Woolworth/Safeway mergers go through, which has left the retail sector with too many food and other products locked into a market suffering a distribution bottleneck controlled, with almost monopolistic authority, by the two large and market dominant retailer groups.

As to "is this fair" nothing will ever be "Fair" but the question should really be is this commerically "desireable" ?

and I believe it is not.

Just as the two airline agreement was unfair, state owned banks were unfair, government subsidy of selected auto manufacturers and all the other "playing-with-the-market" games, which take place when politicians and bureaucrats get their grubby fingers in to things are, invariably, "Unfair".

Col,
two small problems with your argument about Keating and Hawk....context. At the time there were other players who have since gone.
Secondly it is/was Liberal policy too or are you coming over to the dark side of socialism? ;-)

Pelican and others
Much of the problems is more the way we farm see the Ch2 program on alternative land care issues. Note also that while the program focused on one man's method that involved "weed" species one could reasonably adopt his processes but with native plant alternatives.
Then of course there is the system that encourages/allows 'big is best'(uber capitalism). There are alternative without going to the extreme which is Col's nightmare, socialism or Keynesian capitalism. Total regulation as in trade barriers aren't really feasible (pushing the geni back into the bottle) would have far reaching consequences.I firmly believe that returning capitalism to a tool rather than a philosophy (humanist capitalism) is the best option. :-)

*And free trade in food has not led to cheaper prices for consumers only larger slices of the pie for distributors.*

It certainly has Pelican and above all it has massively increased
choices. In my pantry I have guavas from South Africa, grapefruit
from Swaziland, mangoes from Thailand, cherries from the USA,
baby carrots and baby peas from Belgium. All cheaply priced, due
to competition and globalisation.

*Not if domestic competition remains free from interference, price fixing or collusion Yabby. The same risks we see in international trade and can be oversighted by appropriate agencies.*

Rubbish. The fact remains that we are a mere twenty million, we
simply cannot make a myriad of products efficiently, due to economies
of scale. Take that computer right in front of you. Its all
a numbers game, for the microprocessors, ram chips, lcd screens, etc,
each take a mega billion $ factory to produce them. To just pay
for that infrastructure, would soon send you as a consumer broke

Pelican,
I do not think it correct that our best meat is exported. Some lamb may be exported but nost of our meat exports is in mutton and manufacturing beef. In fact my butcher was importing extra vacume packed rumps and loins from NZ. May still be the case but rehctub would know. But I agree it is better to buy from local butcher.

Same with seafood, I just will not buy non Aussie seafood. Fresh fruit and veges we get from local markets on Sunday.

Yabby,
Shame on you for buying imported tinned fruit. We buy Aussie only, but is getting harder to find. Must take glasses as some made here with 'local and imported' contents. Looks like our Coles have stopped stocking Goulburn Valley tinned fruit, so another gone.

Farmers costs are rising all the time so how long it will remain viable I don't know. I can't find any Aussie made tinned ham now.

*Yabby,
Shame on you for buying imported tinned fruit.*

Err hang on there Banjo. I just sold some lambs last week
and the choice cuts are going to the USA. The cheaper
cuts to China or South Africa. Then I grew a bit of wheat last year,
which from here generally lands up in Indonesia, Malaysia,
or the Middle East. Just this morning we loaded out a
road train of oats, which are going to the racehorse trainers
in Hong Kong and Japan.

Are you suggesting that I should only believe in selling things
overseas, but not buying any? Sorry, but I am not that
selfish. People in South Africa, Thailand or Swaziland need to
work too and if they have efficient industries, why should I not
support them? Who produces canned quavas in Australia btw?

Global trade is a wonderful thing, for it benefits everyone.
Mind you, I will be the first to jump up and down, when backward
and archaic people in Australia, deny us the right to build
efficient industries in this country, due to their warped
ideologies. People like Grim etc, whom I am arguing with on
other threads, want to take us back 50 years. Sorry, the world
has moved on and changed.

Yabby,
I do not believe that there is any need for us to import food stuffs at all. If,as it appears, Coles stop buying Goulburn Valley brand tinned fruit, then I feel sorry for the farmers around and the people in Sheperton, Vic. I have seen orange trees dozed and now our oranges and juice is imported.

What is now going to happen to all those producers that have relied on Murray water now they cannot get the water. That will impact heavily on what we produce. This will inevitably lead to more imports.

Over the years the governments have done a real good job of demolishing most of our manufacturing industry. Now nearly all you can buy is made from rubbish steel. Most tools and parts, bolts,etc. is no better than black polythene. The only advantage of the chinese and korean steel over poly is that you can weld it. There has been an utter sacrifice in quality of manufactured goods.

With the cost of fuel and other inputs rising, I do not see a great future for Australian agriculture.