Come on Yabby. I am giving you driverless farm equipment, gigantic diversified acreage and it's still no good.
You had better get a horse to pull your single furrow plough.
The miners have the wage system tied up, and poaching labor from industry.
Maybe the old farmers are stuck in the 50's and don't know how to get out of it.
House prices are set by the market, and with the mining wages that will continue.

Australian truck drivers claim we will starve without them, A not unexpected claim from a group of middle aged kids.
They them selves named the Hume highway, their play ground Sesame Street.
Farmers are changing.
And for the better, price will always be the first problem, not production.
Given the price we could sell a great deal more beef than we do now, subject to the vegetarians not manufacturing problems.
Sugar cane too, only the price stops thousands of more acres being grown.
Our grains are some of the worlds best and we grow much more than we can use.
I can not get my head around including milk in this debate.
We keep changing the goal posts with it.
We are too, not close except in Victoria, to producing the quality and quantity that NZ is.
Once on the north coast of NSW family's made their own butter and cheese from milk and sold the cream ,often one tin, but managed to live.
Not all that long ago deregulation hurt farmers badly, took many away from the land.
By invitation my union went on bus tours trying to help.
Right now chain stores interested in other than profit pitch state farmers against each other.
The thought this country can not become a bigger player is uninformed.
If the world needs it, and will pay for it, just like the $12 Bananas we can get it.

579, one of our biggest challenges moving forward, will be providing jobs for all who want, or can, work.

Replacing man power with machines is one way to increase profits, but what then for the out of work people.

This is where collective governments have got it wrong, they shoukd reward businesses for employing people and punish them for investing in high tech plant.

Unfortunately, it's the other way round.

Today, tomorrow, even five years from now is not where the focus should be, rather, we should be focusing on twenty years down the track. God only knows where the jobs will come from then.

How on earth we can even consider being a food super provider is beyond belief.

*Come on Yabby. I am giving you driverless farm equipment, gigantic diversified acreage and it's still no good.*

579, any business is no good, if it does not make a profit. We
could of course simply waste your super to do these things, but that
is hardly good business, more like ripping you off.

Fact is farm machinery sits in the shed for 10 months of the year,
unlike mining machinery which works 24/7 all year round. What sends
alot of farmers broke, is too much investment in machinery.

Once again, the numbers have to stack up, or its not worth doing.
Put it in the bank, you'll at least keep up with inflation after
tax.

*The miners have the wage system tied up, and poaching labor from industry.*

The miners don't pay public servants 800 grand. The miners don't
insist on double time and a half, the miners employ a tiny fraction
of the population.

*House prices are set by the market*

The market adjusts to tax policy and Govt regulation. Fact is you
can build yourself a million dollar mansion, all tax free. Your
house rise in value, all tax free. So that is what people do, pushing
up house prices. That is far better then cash in the bank, where
you pay tax on the inflation loss. Result we have some of the world's
most expensive houses, which your average worker cannot afford.

Why is it beyond belief.
There's plenty of people to feed and it's a renewable product.
The case with machinery replacing people is as old as time, and always will be. Hasn't caused any problem so far, that is why jobs are created.
The miners are giving train drivers away also, driverless trains can travel non stop day and night.
The future will still be there no-matter who gets replaced by a machine.
With UHT milk it can go anywhere and be stored for months.
Yabby is not sure and Butch is worried about nothing.
GPS has not yet found it's full potential.

*There's plenty of people to feed and it's a renewable product.*

Well that is exactly why people like yourself are confused, 579.
For the devil is always in the details of course and you don't
understand those.

There are plenty of people starving every day, babies going hungry
every day. If they cannot afford to buy the food that we produce,
its not much good to them or to us.

Given that our wages and costs are amongst the highest in the world,
the numbers don't stack up and if the numbers don't stack up,
its not a business.

Its showing up all around now. JBS are saying it costs them twice
as much to slaughter a cow here, compared to the US. Rio are saying
it costs them twice as much to mine here as elsewhere. This is all
a virtual repeat of 30 years ago, when iron ore and coal took off on
the back of Japanese manufacturing. It lasted for some years, but
quietly the Japanese encouraged Brazil to mine iron ore and coal
else where. Prices eventually came crashing down, as supply caught
up with demand. The same will happen this time, its just a question
of when. Already Rio are looking at cancelling a new coal mine,
the numbers don't stack up.