A Viable Farm? - part 2
September 27th 2007 09:26
Some time ago I wrote about the question "Is farming Viable?" There has been considerable interest, so I feel it important to write a little more on the subject. At the moment we are holidaying in North Queensland - away from the sheep and farmbooks, seeing new places and hearing new stories. However, when we talk to farmers or ex-farmers we find, that despite the different crops or animals being farmed, the same questions about farm viability remains.
There was the water taxi owner at Dunk Island. He used to own chicken farms until the "big two" (Woolies and Coles) squeezed the price he could get for his eggs to just over one cent an egg. Considering hens only lay one egg a day - at best,and it costs more than that a day to feed them - you can see why he got out.
There was the sugar farmer - a very efficient industry from what we can see, but many of the farmers are beyond the age of retirement- still working because younger men are being paid more away from the industry. Contractors, used for harvesting the sugar need a harvester - worth almost half a million dollars, at least three tractors worth $100,000 each and three bins worth at least $50,000 each. They try to keep prices down so that the farmer can pay them, but how can they replace equipment and cope with petrol prices.
The price of land is huge - out of reach of any farmer to buy land to expand or to help their children farm.Why? because large tree companies- in North Queensland it's mahogany, in WA it's pine, are buying up farm land for their investors. So what? you may say - let the farmers sell to the tree people. But the sugar industry and sugar towns with their mills rely on a certain percentage of sugar being available to make the mills viable- so when they go so do the mills and the towns. And do we really want to get all our product from overseas when there is a capacity to grow things here - if given half a chance.
With an election coming up, we have one party promising extra assistance to drought affected farmers, and the other assistance to look at the long term adjustments to climate change, but no-one is addressing the issues I am discussing here. So the fight to remain viable remains. Do we want our nation fed locally or not- that is the question.
There was the water taxi owner at Dunk Island. He used to own chicken farms until the "big two" (Woolies and Coles) squeezed the price he could get for his eggs to just over one cent an egg. Considering hens only lay one egg a day - at best,and it costs more than that a day to feed them - you can see why he got out.
The price of land is huge - out of reach of any farmer to buy land to expand or to help their children farm.Why? because large tree companies- in North Queensland it's mahogany, in WA it's pine, are buying up farm land for their investors. So what? you may say - let the farmers sell to the tree people. But the sugar industry and sugar towns with their mills rely on a certain percentage of sugar being available to make the mills viable- so when they go so do the mills and the towns. And do we really want to get all our product from overseas when there is a capacity to grow things here - if given half a chance.
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