March 2014 – Global Farmer in Australia

Why is Agriculture Different?

“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways”
– John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Recently the dire situation faced by many farmers and graziers induced by yet another “drought” has reignited the debate around justification for Government financial support to farmers.

On one hand there is the visible and emotive scenario of dying stock and desperate farmers that demand immediate aid. This call for financial support externalises the disruption of drought and market interruption and deems them beyond reasonable management.

On the other hand there is the cold and objective rationalist position that argues, ‘agriculture is a business like any other and hard times are a fact of life, and so if you can’t handle the pressure – get out’.

Continue reading “Why is Agriculture Different?”

Global area under biotech continues to grow while EU policy struggles.

While the EU struggles to define its policy on the cultivation of GM crops, the area under GM varieties globally continues to grow. Recent data from the ISAAA show that the total global area planted to biotech crop varieties in 2013 reached 175 million hectares for the first time. As 1996 was the first year in which genetically-modified crops were commercialised on a significant scale (the first GM crop planted was tomatoes in 1994), supporters of the technology point out that this rate of expansion makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in recent history.

Of the 27 countries which planted biotech crops in 2013, 19 were developing and 8 were industrialised countries. Latin American, Asian and African farmers collectively grew 94 million hectares or 54% of the global 175 million biotech hectares compared with industrialised countries at 81 million hectares or 46% of the total.

Just four major GM crops dominate the market: soybean, cotton, maize and canola (rape). In terms of the share of the total area cultivated, soybean and cotton are the most successful GM crops. In 2012, more than four-fifths (81%) of the total area of these crops grown globally were GM varieties. In the case of maize, over a third (35%) of the 158 million hectares of globally grown maize was GM and 30% of globally grown canola (with a total area of 31 million hectares). Continue reading “Global area under biotech continues to grow while EU policy struggles.”

The Sadness that is Kojonup

The battle in Court between two farmers from Kojonup is one of the saddest events in my career in agriculture, which now spans over half a century.

It is sad because it has given those for and those against, this time GM Canola, but it could just as easily been ‘Yellow Vitamin A Rice’ another stage, this time a Coliseum, to vent in public their malevolence and witlessness.

I admit to being a bit dim-witted at times but is there any way anyone can stop the flora and fauna of this world spreading seeds, either by wind or defecation where ever and wherever they wish? When that foreign seed germinates on organic land how does the foreign plant automatically become organic?

To some on the against side, and one can only judge those against by what they say and write, truly believe that many scientists and farmers, those on the for side are monsters, purveyors of teratogenic engineering, which has the capacity to cause the most awful damage to mankind.

That is sad and grieves me that they hold those opinions. Mainly because it means they truly believe that the for side are or would be, could be, complicit in poisoning, killing, their own families. An outrageous thought.

To some on the for side, those against are Luddites, nihilists and in some cases vandals and despoilers. It is regrettable that some of those against have been vandals and despoilers. Those against have been labelled as anti-science.

It has been known for more than a decade that by 2050 there could well be 9 billion mouths to feed on this earth. To feed those people food production will have to increase by at least 50%, some say more than that. I know I write about this often, that’s because it’s true.

In my working life of over half a century the population of the world has doubled. At the end of WWII world agriculture was basically organic.

We, that is science, farmers and their advisers have fed twice the number of people we started with 50 years ago. Today some eat too much and others go hungry and starve to death. There is no shortage of food though, we just don’t get it to those who need it, we are too busy. Instead we fly over the countries with the starving millions and marvel at international travel, which will take us to the next banquet. Continue reading “The Sadness that is Kojonup”

COSTS UP – PRICES NERVOUS – TIME FOR CHANGE?

Here we are at the start of a bright new 2014. Some Western Australian grain growers had a good harvest in 2013, but some still have plenty of debt and some have left the industry. It seems we are experiencing another period of adverse terms of trade as the economists would put it, or at cost-price squeeze as most of us understand it. But this situation has existed in one form or another since the 1980s and the industry has adjusted greatly to stay viable.

Let’s look at a little history. In the late 80s and early 90s the state average wheat yield virtually doubled from just under 1t/ha to just under 2t/ha. So how did that happen? Well, the cost-price squeeze was instrumental in focusing the minds of farmers mightily. They knew that something had to be done and furthermore they knew what. All the relevant findings were known, either through local research or through hard-won experience and observation.

The average date of sowing was advanced by about 3 weeks aided by the availability of the appropriate chemicals, semi-dwarf varieties and reduced or zero tillage among other things. At the same time the percentage of the crop that received a premium for quality (Hard, Noodle, Soft, APW) was increased from about 15% to over 50%. Continue reading “COSTS UP – PRICES NERVOUS – TIME FOR CHANGE?”

The City – Country Divide. As big as ever.

The gross value of Australian farm production in 2009-10 was $48.7 billion. So the just announced drought aid package of about $320 million from the federal government is equivalent to 0.6570841889117043% of $48.7 billion. Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

Looks like it could be a good year!’

That, ladies and gentlemen of the land, is what you are worth. In other the words, as far as the government is concerned the sustenance and the rebuilding of much of agriculture in Australia after one of the worst droughts in the last 50 years is worth three quarters of five eights of bugger all.

Rural debt is already in excess of $63 billion, so if you borrow another $320 million from the government, you will add 0.5079365079365079% to your debt – but first you have to qualify.

If the qualification criteria are anything like those set for the commonwealth/state funding last year, there won’t be a queue anywhere shortly.

If you want to put the drought aid package into perspective $320 million will pay for one third of a new footy stadium in Perth. Six and a half kilometers of Freeway at $50 million a kilometer or about the same price as it recently cost to upgrade 4.2 kilometers of the Great Eastern Highway.

As many have waited for rain, shot livestock, sold them for next to nothing, taken the kids out of school, done budgets, and talked about next year, should they or should they not try and keep going? I have wondered what this new government, a conservative government will do to ease the problems being faced by so many in rural Australia. This is what agriculture produces for Australia and in exports for the rest of the world:

(Note there is s slight difference in the above gross value of the figures. They both came from ABARES)

Travelling round in Western Australia it’s not difficult to see the affect on small rural towns of 30 years or so of farm aggregation. Farms have doubled in size and families have gone. In some cases schools have closed. Shops are empty, some towns look neglected and many can’t raise a weekend footy team, so they import players from the city to keep the local league going – probably pay them too.

The mantra of the 70s of ‘Get Big or Get Out’ preached by bank managers and farm consultants and amplified a hundred times by the popular rural press made a poorly researched academic theory into what many believed was the only way to survive.

How much use, how effective are the politicians elected by rural constituencies and the extensive and expensive agricultural lobby (MLA, GRDC, NFF; add to the list at will) at getting the true story of Australian agriculture into the heads of the urban politicians who, because of numbers, not because of brains, run the country? On current performance they are about as much use as tits on a bull.

Quite honestly who cares about Holden and QANTAS? One is foreign owned and the other has to face up to competition from foreign government-subsidized airlines.

There is no reason why we should subsidize a car that doesn’t sell; and if we can’t afford to subsidize QANTAS, then we have to let them go and find their money somewhere else. Air travelers being what air travelers are, all but the rich and those on expense accounts will fly by the cheapest airline. ‘The Spirit of Australia’ is sentimental nonsense and political clap-trap.

The difference between Holden and QANTAS and Australian Agriculture is that compared to agriculture, Holden and QANTAS are games of Lego, they don’t grow food and they will never contribute to the national economy in the way that agriculture does.

We will now have to import all of our motor vehicles. Will we ever have to import all of our food? Who knows? Making a living off the land is becoming difficult for many. Working the land is apparently not what many of our young people want.

So maybe in the future it will be Chinese Utes and migrant farmers growing the food? Be like history repeating itself. Great Wall for a Chev and a Chinaman for a Pom.

Saying of the week from Rob Gillam from the Pastoralists and Graziers on hearing the drought relief package offered by the Prime Minister:

“Yes I’m pretty hesitant to give a lot of support to this package. I’m very fearful we’re going back to a business subsidy type circumstances,” he said.

Please explain!