The Absence Common Sense has Sent us Broke.

I have lost all Image result for pictures broken piggy bankfaith in the political process in this country. I no longer believe that those whom we have elected over the last decade have the ability to run this country. We are one of the most naturally wealthy countries in the world and we are broke. Governments are elected by the people to manage the assets of the country for the people. Our governments have manifestly failed. They have abrogated the powers of government to multi national companies and financial institutions many of which are not Australian and who have demonstrated they have no interest in the welfare of Australia. Our assets have been colonised and to all intents and purposes stolen to build financial empires in other countries.

Nobody is born with common sense; it is acquired over time and by experiencing the joys and hardships of life. The mistake we the electorate have made, is that with a few exceptions we have assumed that those whom we have elected to run our States’ and our country had benefited from life’s experiences and when we elected them had at least a modicum of common sense and some experience and skill in financial management. How wrong we have been.

Continue reading “The Absence Common Sense has Sent us Broke.”

A Reason for Bed Wetting – Australia has less than 30 day’s supply of fuel and oil.

If anything serious happens in world affairs, like a little war, which interrupts for a couple of weeks the flow of fuel tankers reaching Australia, life as we know it will very quickly grind to a halt. Australia has less than 30 days supply of fuel and oil in the country. Farmers will unable to sow or harvest their crops. They will be unable to get their produce to market whether it be grain, livestock or fresh food. It is said that everything at some time in its life is moved by truck. Take a long look at Fig 3 below and calculate how long you can manage without your medicines at home and in the hospital and how long you can manage for food if there isn’t any in the supermarket. The freight trains will stop. The power stations that rely on coal will have to dig into their reserves and then what? No fuel for the coal trains. There is just three days supply of petrol in the petrol stations. When that runs out how do the kids get to school and how do the majority get to work?

days supply of goods

Continue reading “A Reason for Bed Wetting – Australia has less than 30 day’s supply of fuel and oil.”

Free Trade Agreements – Are they an Oxymoron?

Stop Press.

Why do we put up with governments who do nothing for our national security?

It is Friday March 3 2017 at 08.00 hrs. On ABC AM this morning at about 10minutes 29 seconds into the programme, Andrew Davies from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, announced we only have about three weeks supply of petrol in store in Australia — three weeks!! (search in the archive for the AM programme of March 3, otherwise you will get today’s programme) He raises the possibility of any tension between America and China could close off the sea route through the South China Sea and so cut of our supply of fuel from Singapore, on whom we are almost totally reliant. The story gets worse because it is not a new problem, there is a story in The Conversation from 2013 which forecast an impending fuel supply crisis unless the government of the day took strong action. It didn’t happen. The point needs to be made made it wouldn’t need a full blown war to disrupt fuel supplies, just a disagreement between the world super powers and the shipping routes that service Australia could close and we would run out of not only fuel but everything we import by sea.

Continue reading “Free Trade Agreements – Are they an Oxymoron?”

Is the Australian wheat industry finished?

 Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 3.39.04 pm
Two reports from the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC) on the competition Australia will almost certainly face from Ukraine and Russia in the wheat markets of the future should be compulsory reading for all wheat farmers in Australia. They provide a sobering analysis of the wheat market and will force the sensible to seriously contemplate their future.

 

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

Dame Iris Murdoch 1919 – 1999.

Stranger than fiction.

The post harvest stories, some of them as close to fiction as one can get without the author claiming to be a novelist, have recently appeared in both the national and the agricultural media. Minister Joyce is on the front foot; that is when it isn’t in his mouth, determined to persuade the Australian electorate, through a compliant media, that all is well in Australian agriculture and that the emerging Right in politics in Australia (Hanson) and around the world (Trump and Brexit), has nothing to offer to those who live outside the ever increasing majesty and grandeur of the State capital cities of Australia.

I have used the words ‘majesty and grandeur’ quite deliberately. Around Australia billion of dollars has been spent on State capital cities, much of that money is for the enjoyment and the pleasure of those who live in those cities. As we shall see, as billions has been spent on shoring up the city vote with new sports stadiums and the like, the infrastructure vital to agriculture has been allowed to deteriorate and in some cases decay to the extent that we are no longer world competitive — we can no longer, at times, but ever increasingly, compete for markets around the world.

The Nationals heartland is in rural Australia, it’s the country folk who get them into parliament. In WA they did a deal with the Liberal Party, which put the Liberals into government and some National members into key positions in the WA Government. Again, and have we seen it too often, a minority determining government policy? The Nationals are now worried that Hanson, the Hunters Shooters and Fishers Party and maybe others will replace them in Parliaments around the country and in so doing, replace them in holding the balance of power.

Minister Joyce wants everyone in the country to believe that record high prices for livestock and an ever-increasing demand for wool are the beginning, as one journalist put it, of a ‘golden era’ for the farmers of Australia.  Coupled with what some are calling a record harvest, what could possibly go wrong for Minister Joyce and the wheat farmers of Australia? Well this for starters. Continue reading “Is the Australian wheat industry finished?”

Australian Wheat is too Expensive – Interflour.

The World Wheat Market – Where is it going and where are we going with it?

Interflour has added to its Vietnam flour mill portfolio, with the purchase of an existing mill at Da Nang on the central coast adding to its site at Cai Mep (pictured). Photo Fairfax
Interflour has added to its Vietnam flour mill portfolio, with the purchase of an existing mill at Da Nang on the central coast adding to its site at Cai Mep (pictured). Photo Fairfax with thanks.

The recent comments reported to be made by Greg Harvey, Interflour’s Australian born Chief Executive, that Australian wheat is too expensive for the markets in Indonesia and Singapore defies belief. If we cannot be competitive in the big and expanding markets on our doorstep, with wheat at the price it is at present, where will that leave Australian grain merchants selling into markets around the world? What price for growers at the next harvest?

The move into Interflour was strategic for Cooperative Bulk handling making vertical integration a reality for Australian wheat growers. Recent announcements have reported Interflour expanding into Vietnam. Cooperative Bulk Handling the West Australian grain handling and marketing cooperative owns 50% of Interflour. Interflour, which now owns nine flour mills across Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey is, one would think, integral to the prosperity of WA wheat production, if it is to meet the challenges of market expansion in the region in which Interflour operate.

This story fits in quite nicely with another story. A few years ago I was talking to a lady whose family had decided to build a new biscuit factory in Indonesia rather than Perth and then export their biscuits into Australia and around the world. I found their biscuits and good they were too, on the shelves of Woolworths. Out of curiosity and because of what was on their label I phoned their Perth office.  The lady was quite open in claiming that it was cheaper ‘for them’ to build a new factory and manufacture in Indonesia than in Perth. She claimed their factory was as clean as any Australian hospital and having a base in Indonesia it opened up the world wide Halal biscuit market to them.

I said I hoped they always used Australian wheat. Her answer was something like ,’We do when we can, at the moment we are using British wheat. Sometimes we can’t get Australian wheat.’ I never thought to ask if that was because of price — It never entered my head. If Australian wheat remains too expensive — just look at the markets below.

Continue reading “Australian Wheat is too Expensive – Interflour.”

The Farmers in Europe are Revolting

There is a paradox, an absurdity of enormous proportions happening in agriculture in much of the Developed world. In spite of the US$486 billion a year being paid to farmers in the 21 top food producing countries in the world – heavily subsidised farmers in the European Union (EU) have embarked upon a civil disobedience campaign, some of it has been violent and massively disruptive to the rest of society. Their problem is that in spite of being paid over US$100 billion a year in subsidies, they are going broke. Their costs are greater than their returns. Across Britain, France, Germany, the low countries – everywhere in Europe, mainly family farmers are saying ‘enough is enough.’  They are  taking to the streets and the supermarkets to show those who buy and consume the food what the difference is between what it costs to produce food, what the producers are being paid for it and what the consumers are paying for it at the supermarket. There is a sober lesson here for Australian agriculture as the value of the food we import goes up every year it is mostly from countries who subsidise their agriculture. According to the Worldwatch Institute, ‘Agricultural subsidies are not equally distributed around the globe. In fact, Asia spends more than the rest of the world combined. China pays farmers an unparalleled US$165 billion. Significant subsidies are also provided by Japan (US$65 billion), Indonesia ($US28 billion), and South Korea ($US20 billion).’

The value to Australian agriculture from Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) can be put into perspective when we contemplate having to compete against the home grown subsidised produce of much of Asia. If their ‘home grown’ produce, for instance beef, is subsidised, then to compete we have to be price competitive with a subsidised product – can we compete with subsidised agriculture? Only if we can sell at a price that is competitive, which may mean lower, than the subsidised product. For decades, since the seventies, Australian farmers have been duped by politicians of all colours and from agriculture, that ‘market forces’ and a ‘free market economy’ will eventually prevail. Fig 1 and Fig 2 (later) puts a lie to that propaganda and shows what it has cost. To compete we can see that Australian farmers ‘chased’ the ‘get big or get out’ mantra of the 70s with debt. More of that later.

As a child growing up in post-war Britain anything from Australian from wool to meat, to apples both fresh and dried, dried fruit and the delicious Sunday treat of Australian canned peaches, was a sign of absolute quality. The only exception to that rule was the processed cheese we were served in the army in the nineteen fifties. I am sure it had been imported during the war. Second World War, I think – maybe?

How times have changed. Britain is part of the EU, the European Union. This is what the EU say about themselves:

The EU is an attractive market to do business with:

  • We have 500 million consumers looking for quality good
  • We are the world’s largest single market with transparent rules and regulations
  • We have a secure legal investment framework that is amongst the most open in the world
  • We are the most open market to developing countries in the world

That is a proud boast and if you look at the link you will see the truth of it. They are indeed a powerful union – even a nation. To protect their agriculture the EU pays their farmers subsidies amounting to about US$100 billion a year.

image001
The team from Copa – Cogeca – Brussels.
In ‘Farming on Line’  a UK farming journal came this alarming news on Wednesday 29 July 2015. Copa and Cogeca warned at the EU Milk Market Observatory meeting today that the EU dairy market situation has deteriorated rapidly in the past 4 weeks, and without EU action, many producers will be forced out of business by Winter. Speaking at the meeting, Chairman of Copa-Cogeca Milk Working Party Mansel Raymond said “The market is in a much more perilous state than it was 4 weeks ago, with producer prices far below production costs. It’s a critical situation for many dairy farmers across Europe”.

Who or what are ‘Copa’ and ‘Cogeca’? ‘Copa’ was formed in 1959 to represent farmers within what we now know as the EU, it had 13 affiliates at that time. It now speaks in Brussels for sixty farmer organisation’s within the EU and another thirty six affiliates like Norway and Turkey, outside of the EU, but in Europe.

Cogeca? Straight off their website : On 24 September 1959, the national agricultural cooperative organisations created their European umbrella organisation – COGECA (General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation in the European Union) – which also includes fisheries cooperatives.

COGECA’ s Secretariat merged with that of COPA on 1 December 1962.

When COGECA was created it was made up of 6 members. Since then, it has been enlarged by almost six and now has 35 full members and 4 affiliated members from the EU. COGECA also has 36 partner members.

So ‘Copa & Cogeca’ to our antipodean ears may sound like a dance from South America, is in fact a very powerful agricultural lobby in Brussels and the Parliament of Europe. Stuck down here at the other end of the world we tend to forget that Europe is now a bigger trading bloc than America and China.

Vive la France !

image003

French farmers are a passionate lot and in support of Copa & Cogeca, last month on warm summer days in the middle of the tourist season they dumped loads of animal manure in the middle of Paris and other cities. For those who don’t know what the machine below is, it’s a ‘muck spreader’. Normally filled with animal manure and coupled to the power take off on the tractor it ‘spreads’ the manure on the fields or paddocks. In this case it looks like it is being used to ‘clean’ windows – on a bank perhaps?

image005

Continue reading “The Farmers in Europe are Revolting”

A Lidl of what you fancy does you good.

rsz_lidl_logo
Photo: Oxygen IE

European Bank Subsidised Lidl Expansion with A$1200 million.

This article owes its origins to an intriguing report originally published by GRAIN. You will see why I found it intriguing when you get to it. I have spent some time on the Global Farmer discussing agricultural subsidies, little did I know and I’m sure you didn’t, that the Guardian Newspaper recently revealed German discount supermarket giant Lidl and its sister chain Kaufland have benefited from almost US$900 million (A$1200 million) in public development money over the last ten years. Is this just another form of subsidy to encourage the global expansion of European supermarkets and European food?

The companies, owned by the large retail company Schwarz Group and controlled by one of Germany’s wealthiest families, received loan funding from a little-known wing of the World Bank and from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). There is no suggestion there was anything ‘wrong’ with the funding, as you will see it is part of the specific mandate of these organisations funded by taxpayers and owned by governments to encourage local development, in this case in Europe.

The German Federal government, on their website has been heavily promoting both Lidl and Aldi in America to help it to become established in that country and, no doubt, sell food that has been made or produced in Germany. Lidl like Aldi, also sell a range of German made hardware, electrical goods and many other things.

Aldi already have stores in Australia and it is understood they plan many more. Lidl are also planning a chain of stores throughout Australia. In what seem like a few years in the UK they have secured over 10% market share and are causing both Tesco and Waitrose, the two biggest food retailers in the UK, to review their business plans.

They have made no secret about being ‘aggressive’ with their entry into America. Maybe interesting times for the Australian consumer, but what about the producers and what few processors are left, what of the future for them?

Continue reading “A Lidl of what you fancy does you good.”

Not the last word – MCPI #3

image001

Below is an email I received on June 3 from Jay Horton from Strategis Partners, the company that is promoting Multi Peril Crop Insurance. I have attached a copy of the spreadsheet to the email I sent to you informing you of this article. I hope it works, if not then write me in the comments section at the end of this piece and I will forward it to you.

I circulated the email among consultant friends and I have to say that none have been enthusiastic. One said he could see ways of taking advantage of the proposition. Some of the comments I cannot repeat. Let’s say they were from non-believers. But here is a sample of the comments and questions about the commercial proposal to provide MPCI:

  • Fire and hail is only 1% or $5/ha compared to $$21/ha. Do not tell me that isn’t an extra cost.
  • It will happen(government assistance) and I wish I could have that sure bet on it.
  • Benefits are imaginative. In risky areas where the cover would be most useful the premium will reflect the risk.
  • I fail to see why interest is saved. We normally pay insurance (F + H) after harvest. I am sure they will require payment before.
  • What about the interest on extra inputs?
  • Real cost $32,000 net of saved insurance. You could get the yield by extra inputs anyway, nothing to do with insurance.
  • For every winner with forward pricing there is a loser. Is the farmer better at this than the speculator? In the end forward pricing is a COST. Frankly it has to be to pay for the broker of the deals. Otherwise everyone would be in on the act. It is only sensible when prices are towards to top decile as currently with wool. How much can you cover forward anyway, safely? (Remember this was written early June, just this morning wool has continued to go down and wheat up. It needs an expert to comment but I have noticed the Shanghai Stock exchange has taken a hit over recent times. Once again China controls the market this time in wool. Ed)
  • Only a % of the output is covered. 70% as I read it. To me that business will have a serious loss if only 70% of the proposed output is achieved.
  • Jay relies on security of income to make business decisions that could or might pay off. Returns from extra inputs. Forward pricing. True should they work but they are not assured. Observe Canola prices this year. Early pricing, which looked pretty safe has been eclipsed. Do you hedge currency as well?-you should at extra cost.

End of comments. I welcome comments from farmers and anyone else in agribusiness. If in this article I have missed something, then tell me. Same goes if you think I am wrong.

Continue reading “Not the last word – MCPI #3”

Live cattle exports – Is there a future?

With yet another report of Australian cattle being mistreated in a foreign slaughterhouse, this time in Israel, the question must be asked whether the export of live animals from Australia is sustainable? Not only is it sustainable as far as numbers are concerned, particularly following the dreadful drought in Queensland and New South Wales, which has decimated numbers . We need to consider that between February 2012 and June 2015 there have been sixty ESCAS Regulatory Compliance Investigations. All have been or are being investigated.   The Federal Dept of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (DAFF) who pick up the bill at present, have served notice on the exporters that they are going for cost recovery. In other words the exporters are going to pay. This is government policy throughout Australia—the user pays. No other country involved in the export of live animals has an Exporter Supply Chain Assurance scheme (ESCAS) type scheme.
image001
A common sight in Vietnam. How do we stop generations of habit? Only the mode of transport has changed. The animal is alive and destined for some village somewhere far away from ESCAS.

The Australian Livestock Exporters Council (ALEC) CEO Allison Prescott has been telling the international press that a significant investment is being made in building and upgrading slaughtering facilities and feedlots in Vietnam and exporters from Australia were expecting the trade between the two countries to continue to grow into a long-term and sustainable market. The question must be asked, who pays for the upgrades? And where are the cattle going to come from?

Continue reading “Live cattle exports – Is there a future?”

Multi Peril Crop Insurance

image001

Bob Hall is a well-known agricultural consultant based in Darkan, Western Australia.
Back in the sixties Bob challenged us all about the way we managed our merino sheep.
There was nothing theoretical about Bob’s challenges. They were based on sound, practical and proven experience gained through working with his clients.
Bob offered solutions stretching from sheep yard and shearing shed design, to management practices designed to improve the efficiency and profitability of growing merino wool, which are still, maybe even more, relevant today.
Bob now manages a broad portfolio of consultancy covering all aspects of farm management in the wheat sheep belt of Western Australia. Here he presents his views on a hot topic of the day, Multi Peril Crop Insurance.

Continue reading “Multi Peril Crop Insurance”