Hi Jane. I guess farms come in all shapes and sizes, from small intensive berry/flower operations to massive grazing/cropping properties. Therefor what affects a salmon farm in Tassie doesn't matter to a mango grower in FNQ. We are in central Vic and produce lambs and crops such as barley, oats, wheat, I can only speak for myself.
All Aussies though believe we are a continent and should be taking advantage of that. We need to promote ourselves around the world as CLEAN, GREEN and FRESH. Free of crippling diseases like mad cow, rabies, foot and mouth etc..and ethical farmers in the way we treat our animals. With a traceable structure in place, if out breaks were to occur. The Govt need to provide funding for that, a small outlay considering the benefits to an industry that provides 12% of GDP.
Genetically modified crops is a big issue here. Most people see these foods as being "untested" contaminates, being pushed down our throats by large multi nationals like Monsanto and destroying that image. I don't want them, others do, but the Govt seem to have some wishy woshy views and once they are allowed in all areas, there will never be a turning back point.
Climate change is also a hot topic, not so much for the reasons in the thread on this subject but because we just WILL NOT stand for being taxed every time our sheep farts. Its a stupid argument and Aussie farmers wont buy it.
On a national issue we really need to get food labelling sorted. Again large companies like Coles and Woolies get away with things like "product of Aus" etc and no one really understands what any of it means. I believe most of us would support Australian farmers over imports but we just don't know which is which. That's a federal issue and they need to stand up and set strict, easy to understand guidelines.
Govt is a poor neighbour. If you border a forest or crown land they wont pay their half of the fence for eg, they allow feral animals to breed out of control. They allow massive numbers of lice infected roos/foxes etc here, they dont feed them in droughts, provide water, but take away our rights to shoot them or poison them. We just have to suffer them, the damage they do, the feed they steal, the lambs they kill. We will be prosecuted if we dont control our weeds, yet they can let them run rampant on roadsides. If they provided $$ and equipment most farmers would do the controlling for them. There is way too much bureaucratic paper work to even deal with these govt departments. We see all our levies going towards all these conferences but no action on the ground.
We've had a couple of good years lately, we are not complaining about commodity prices we are getting at well maintained livestock centres near us. This will end though if sound management isn't in place. Like everything it could be done better, and alot of farmers are ageing and pretty stuck in their ways. PETA is a good example of that. Some of their ideas are "öut there" (like calling fish, sea kittens, so people wont eat them)others need to be dealt with (like mulesing) and work with these influential groups rather than against them.
Every American eats 600gms of garlic per annum, but only 400 grams of lamb (2 chops) if they ate 4 chops the world would never keep up with lamb production again. Thats the sort of promoting/trade talking, I would like to see. So therefor I'm voting for Sam Kekovich
