B ack in the early 1990s, many of Seedling’s pages were devoted to discussions about international treaties and public research agendas. Corporations were part of the discussion, but mainly as a looming threat, one group of actors pushing forward the industrial model of agriculture that was destroying agricultural biodiversity. Fast-forward twenty years, and the landscape has changed. Corporate power in the food system has grown by leaps and bounds. Today corporations set the global rules, with governments and public research centres following their lead. The fall-out of this transformation for the planet’s biodiversity, and the people who look after it, has been devastating. Corporations have used their power to expand monoculture crop production, undermine farmers’ seed systems and cut into local markets. They are making it much more difficult for small farmers to stay on the land and feed their families and communities. This is why social movements are increasingly pointing to food and agribusiness corporations as the problem in the global food system and the focus of their resistance.

Dear Riely,

Is it possible for small farmers to band together,
elect their representatives and form their own
grassroots organisations to by-pass the corporations
and deal directly with the markets?

Part of the problem seems to be that the world is
getting smaller due to technology and farmers are
producing the same crops all over the world.
Unless we want to sell for less - we have to find
crops that can compete in the markets.

Prime example - Chinese tariffs on Barley. Don't
grow barley - find alternative crops that trading
countries need.

If you can't sell the product why keep growing it?

Seeds. Over the past two decades the seed industry has been dramatically transformed, from an industry of small seed companies and public programmes to an industry dominated by a handful of transnational corporations (TNCs). Today just ten corporations control half of the global market for commercial seeds. Most are pesticide producers focusing on the development of genetically modified (GM) crops that support a chemically intensive agriculture. The high level of corporate control in seeds, however, is confined to those crops where these companies have been able to bring GM varieties to market (soya, oilseed rape, and maize) and to those countries with relatively large commercial seed markets, particularly where the commercialization of GM varieties has been allowed. In the US, for instance, just one company, Monsanto, controls over 90% of the seed market for soya. Corporate efforts to expand markets are thus focusing on opening more markets to GM crops and on capturing seed markets for crops in which they are still only minor players. With the latter, they are primarily doing two things. One is to buy up all or part of smaller seed companies, as Monsanto did by taking over the vegetable seed company Seminis, or as Limagrain is doing by buying into wheat seed companies in the Americas and rice seed companies in Asia. The second is by developing hybrid and/or GM varieties of crops such as rice, wheat and sugar cane, which have traditionally resisted private sector involvement because of the general practice among farmers of saving seeds. With the rise of transnational seed corporations, the public plant breeding systems, which were so significant 20 years ago, have been reduced to contractors for the private sector.

Dear Riely,

You are painting a very negative picture.
Instead of just focusing on the problems
involved - what solutions do you suggest?
Otherwise - your discussion will not get much
reaction.

AU farmers are under ever increasing regulation, 2018 was the latest and biggest shift in animal husbandry ever, what we import is cheaper than what can be raised here.
Farm zoning land is under unprecedented restrictions and regulations and many of us are not sure of the impartiality of the persons in power that create these laws.
It seems it’s ok to import rather than or produce animal proteins. The large supermarkets are the driving force. We cannot process on farm and sell locally.
Shires are under stress and are hiring persons that have little or no practical knowledge about farming.
Even though China does not want our beef the price of beef is rising, how does that happen.
American farmers can farm process and sell to anyone locally but no such thing here even though America enforces the export laws of protein hygiene, but it does not apply to its own farmers who sell locally.
There is good reason why China is buying our barley and beef and iron ore. AU growers produce the worlds no one in grain production, our beef is best because we sell prime beef as mince. Iron ore has the highest level of iron / ton of ore in the world.
We are the most restricted farmers in the world you can farm kill but you can not sell or give any away. We are governed out of business.

Dear Riely,

It would appear that there's no other option but to
vote the government out and elect people that would
represent the nation's needs and work for the good of
the nation. It's a very worrying picture that you have
painted and I'm sure that many Australians would not be
aware of the facts you're presenting. We need to support
our farmers and growers - who are the mainstay of our
survival. Where would our country be without the hard work
that is being done by our rural industry.

We need to write letters to our MPs both state and federal
who obviously don't or aren't aware of what's going on in
either their regions or the country.

I mean not only the farming community should write and
boycott overseras products - but city dwellers as well
because we are one nation and we should support each other.

Come-on Aussies - this is our future!

Paul Barnes has written an article in the Australian
Strategic Institute's - "The Strategist", 23 August
2019 - "Time to rethink Australia's food security".

We're told that the establishment of the "Future Food
Systems Cooperative Reserch Centre at the University of
New England is significant. The CRC will work across the
food supply chain and incorporate innovations in
protected cropping, advanced manufacturing, smart logistics
and developments in food science in support of high-value
industries in agricultural hubs.

The CSIRO has made long-term investments in the areas
covered by the food-disaster-climate nexus, along with the
"climate change institute" at the Australian National
University.

The question is asked - "Are we doing enough to bring
together the strands of food security, disaster resilience
and the impacts of climate change?" We're told - probably
not - but there may still be time to do more.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/time-to-rethink-australias-food-security/

New outdoor pig rules as of sept 2018
Who would ever figure that a pig of 26 weeks of age, a grown pig ready for breeding is not one pig its value is worth 1.8 pigs and when the pig is gestating is value is 1.6 pigs. That same pig is now lactating it’s worth 2.5 pigs its progeny are worth .1 of a pig until 4 weeks of age and weaned then the Sow Being a dry sow is valued at 1.6 pigs. The weaned progeny progress from .1 of a pig at 4 weeks of age to 26 weeks of age where the value is 1.6 pigs. Presuming 5 of the grown pigs are sold at 26 weeks of age and 5 are kept as future breeders and valued at 1.8 pigs.
10 progeny can be 5 ladies and 5 gentlemen.
Whatever happened to a pig just being a pig.
Breeding sows only on farm as artificial insemination is used.
A pig can breed 2 times / year x 20 progeny / year.
Foxy you are good at equations just like a farmer.
You are allowed a factor of 12 Spu / hectare. [ That means pig values]
The accepted birth rate of a sow is 10 progeny
How many pigs in number does that equate to on a 60 hectare farm lot.

Dear Riely,

I can see from your posts that you are very knowledgable.
I suggest that you pile it all into
a book so that other people (farmers) can have the material
as references to pertaining farming practices.

Monsanto was the villan in the peice a few years back.
If a farmer was not buying their seed they would sneek onto his land
and sample the plants near the road.
Also contractors machines are contaminated.
If they turned out to have their seed DNA they would sue.
However adjacent farmers using Monsanto seed drive their trucks past
and the seed blows off their trucks.
Also Monsanto did not allow the ages old custom of the farmer saving
seed from one crop to the next.

Watch out now we will have the feminist animal lovers protesting about exploitation.

Only the Vegans Bazz.

Foxy,

I find it curious that in order to reduce the regulations that are strangling agriculture that you would advocate for voting the current government out as the prime source of the regulations are the labor governments.

Shadow Minister,

It's the retention of antiquated laws and regulations
that need to be questioned - who brought them in is
irrelevant. It's who's keeping them and why - that we
need to look at. Bringing politics into it is simplistic.

Of interest is news that the cargoes of three ships taking barley to
China have been sold and the ships have changed destinations to Japan,
the Middle East and Europe.

Bazz,

Yay!

I wonder how much they got for the stuff. It would have been a buyers market for shiploads with no destination.

Don't know Hasbeen, they may have just put it on the spot market and
and gave a good delivery date.
Never the less there is a market there.

New outdoor pig rules as of sept 2018
Who would ever figure that a pig of 26 weeks of age, a grown pig ready for breeding is not one pig its value is worth 1.8 pigs and when the pig is gestating is value is 1.6 pigs. That same pig is now lactating it’s worth 2.5 pigs its progeny are worth .1 of a pig until 4 weeks of age and weaned then the Sow Being a dry sow is valued at 1.6 pigs. The weaned progeny progress from .1 of a pig at 4 weeks of age to 26 weeks of age where the value is 1.6 pigs. Presuming 5 of the grown pigs are sold at 26 weeks of age and 5 are kept as future breeders and valued at 1.8 pigs.
10 progeny can be 5 ladies and 5 gentlemen.
Whatever happened to a pig just being a pig.
Breeding sows only on farm as artificial insemination is used.
A pig can breed 2 times / year x 20 progeny / year.
Foxy you are good at equations just like a farmer.
You are allowed a factor of 12 Spu / hectare. [ That means pig values]
The accepted birth rate of a sow is 10 progeny
How many pigs in number does that equate to on a 60 hectare farm lot.

Dear Albert,

To get the appropriate answers to your questions -
(I suspect you have more than one question) I
suggest that you contact:

The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment
GPO Box 858
Canberra City, ACT 2601

Tel: 1800 900 090

http://www.agriculture.gov.au/general-inquiries