Thought Leadership and Opinion Archives - Page 32 of 35 - Clover Hill Diaries

I am not happy Woolworths

Agriculture has an image problem and Woolworths you are NOT helping

Have you seen these bizarre adds?

I mean have you ever seen a farmer dressed like “Malcolm”? What about the imagery of rural and regional Australia. What on earth are they thinking? The food looks like it has been transported from the 1950’s

This is what Generation Food and Fibre look like in the 21st Century. They are young professionals who are articulate, well educated, passionate and committed and they deserve better from Woolworths

Art4agriculture Young Farming Champions from NSW

To make it worse Young Farming Champion Kylie Stretton from QLD tells me she walked into her Woolies’ store this week and they were having Fresh Farm Day “with hay and stupid hats and shirts with fake freckles”

Fake freckles OMG this all has to stop now. Once again the Aussie Farmer Image is collateral damage in an advertising campaign.

Enough is Enough. Looking forward to your suggestions on how we tackle this.

Post script

This post has attracted a lot of conversation on twitter. The farmers aren’t happy but if the urban press is right this campaign is pure genius.

The very important question was asked on twitter “What image do we want agriculture/farmers to have”

After much twitter debate the question was answered

How do farmers want to be portrayed in the media? Exactly how they are “professional and caring” Thank you Woolworths, the Food and Fibre generation fraternity look forward to your new adds with gusto

On another note this is not just a job for Woolworths – image needs to be created and it needs to be actively maintained. I am excited to be part of a team who has been charged by the National Farmers Federation working group on Labour, Skills and Education to help come up with the image vision. I am relishing the challenge and look forward to your feedback when we put our thoughts on the table. I can assure you “professional and caring” will be right at the top of the list

Some interesting thoughts from Dr Heather Bray here “Does getting it wrong bring us closer together”

Friend or Foe

In our region almost 90% of prime agricultural land is owned by lifestyle farmers. They represent a major and growing sector in the Australian rural landscape and now play a critical role in the protection of Australia’s natural resources.

Lifestyle farmers have diverse views, drivers and values. Many are new entrants to farming with little or no background in agriculture, and their knowledge of land management and agriculture tends to be poor. Their local knowledge is also limited and they lack the practical or tacit knowledge that larger farmers have such as good agronomic knowledge, identifying soil types and weeds, applying fertilisers or herbicides, building fences, operating machinery or vaccinating cattle.

Growing concern has been raised over the level of knowledge and skills within the lifestyle farm sector, and the ability of these farmers to manage their property in an ecologically sustainable fashion.

Depending on your point of view and who you mix with lifestyle farmers could be viewed as potential threats or possible allies for maintaining healthy, viable landscapes. I tend to mix with the one’s who care about Australia’s natural resources with a fervent passion and take every opportunity to up skill

In our region we are lucky enough to have the unique personality that is Richard Scarborough. Richard is a knowledge hub on all things natural resource management like no other and he takes every opportunity to share his vast expertise with those who want to learn and there are plenty of lifestyle farmers in our region who want to learn.

Richard Scarborough at Clover Hill sharing his knowledge of the pros and cons for planting wildlife corridors.

Richard has drawn this diagram to show us the SMART way to plant trees to achieve the best outcomes for the landscape, the native animals and the farm animals.

In our region Richard on behalf of Landcare Illawarra is conducting the Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest project which means locals have a wide diversity of tree species to pick from. A wide diversity of trees means a variety of food sources for wildlife and that’s a very good thing indeed.

Richard tells me rainforest tress DO NOT need a pioneer canopy and its very important not to use wattles in this capacity. Why you ask? Well wattles are very fast growing and will compete with the rainforest trees for nutrients and water

So if you want to use Eucalypts and wattles Richard says its important to segregate them and create competition free niches for rainforest trees.

If you follow Richard’s clever strategy you will have wattle and eucalypts for farm timber, furniture making and fence posts and superb rainforest trees for eternity.

Here is a tip: Rainforest species will grow faster in response to light competition and its ideal to plant the trees far enough apart to allow slashing with a tractor or ride on mower.

Thanks Richard for sharing. You are a natural treasure

Also check out this video which showcases some other people who are inspiring their neighbours and pooling their skills for the beneift of the natural resource base and the wider catchment

Permeate a thing of the past is good news for NSW dairy farmers

You might remember I posted the following blog “Permeate -What’s all the fuss” – reprinted at the bottom of this post a few months ago – when the ongoing “permeate saga” reared its ugly head

Well I must say this media announcement ( see summary below ) today by all the major milk processors who supply the domestic milk market in Australia certainly caught my eye.

Whilst the addition of permeate to standardise milk did not overly concern me as a consumer. The fact that it was, I am given to understand in the main carted all the way from Victoria (note this is anecdotal and not officially confirmed or denied by processors ) to add to NSW farmers milk did rattle my cages.

“Chair of the Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operative, Ian Zandstra, says the decision means companies like Lion will have to buy a little bit more fresh milk from dairy farmers”.

I believe this outcome is a win for NSW dairy farmers already under far too much pressure from things outside their control. For consumers it once again shows “people power”. For industry its a reminder of the pivotal need for transparency at all levels of the supply chain.

Dairy processors say no to permeate

By Sarina Locke

Monday, 25/06/2012

Milk processors have bowed to consumer concerns about the by-product permeate and say it won’t be added to their branded products.

Lion, which produces Dairy Farmers and Pura brands, and Parmalat, which sells Pauls brands, have announced their milk will be permeate free.

Permeate is the liquid left behind after milk is separated into cream and low fat milk, and mixing it back into the milk was seen as an unnecessary additive.

Chair of the Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operative, Ian Zandstra, says the decision means companies like Lion will have to buy a little bit more fresh milk from dairy farmers.

“That’s a good thing. That buffers the nervousness about a cut in contracts,” he said.

“Price-wise, I can’t see it having much effect.

“Clearly, if more milk was needed in regions of milk shortage, there’d have to be a price response and an increase in prices.

“But generally Lion is needing less milk from our farmers in virtually all the regions.”

Dairy Farmers Co-op represents 750 milk suppliers around eastern Australia, from far north Queensland to Victoria. The co-op is in price negotiations today with the processor Lion.

Permeate what’s all the fuss?

Posted on April 21, 2012

I wasn’t going to write a post about this topic but people I respect are now concerned about the addition of permeate to milk and one of Art4agriculture’s Young Farming Champions wasquizzed about it and wasn’t confident answering the question when she gave a recent presentation. So I decided it was time to debunk the misconceptions and get it out in the open

Permeate so why all the fuss?

As always controversy sells newspapers and attracts viewers in droves for TV shows and apparently food controversy does this better than any other topic.

In fact it’s become so popular that we could have controversy food isles and controversy free food isles in supermarkets and food products and brands would be moving backwards and forwards like yo yos as long as the issue continued to improve ratings .

This week its milk and how it is standardised. Below is a nice simple diagram of how milk is standardised. Standardisation means you can put accurate fat and protein percentages on milk product labels.

Fairly straight forward stuff wouldn’t you say? What the labels don’t say is how the milk was standardised and this is causing controversy because the word permeate now emits “controversy”

So how did permeate fall into the controversy isle of the fridge. My opinion is lack of transparency. Transparency within food systems refers to full disclosure of information about rules, procedures and practices at all levels within a food production and supply chain. Transparency ensures that consumers have detailed information about production of a given food item.

When permeate first appeared in the media the reaction from the big milk companies and industry bodies was “no comment”. Not the wisest decision they ever made.

Milk companies it’s time to fix this mess. If the milk is standardised with permeate put it on the label. Australian shoppers are not known as most discerning in the world, the statistics say we buy on cost and convenience and take 7 seconds to make a food item purchase decision in the supermarket. It’s a pretty fair bet that the word permeate on the label won’t even make a dent in sales but the consumer has a right to know and it’s time to show them that respect

Let’s hope this is a lesson learned “truth in labelling” should be nothing to fear. After all if you are not proud of what goes in your product and you can’t talk about it don’t add it.

Back to permeate – Let’s get fair dinkum I can confirm for milk consumers permeate is nothing to fear. It’s just a milk by product just like cream is but I won’t be whipping to put on my dessert any time soon

Food Myths Everywhere

The hidden costs of Private Label Milk

This morning I had a call from ABC Radio National looking for comment on behalf of our regional dairy farmers on this story National Foods cutting fresh milk contracts.

This story is a very sad reflection on state of the fresh milk industry in this country and the ongoing ramifications of the supermarket milk price war

For many farmers in our region like those in the Bodalla region it is time to sign new milk contracts with Lion ( National Foods) but there has been no communication from our milk supply company (Dairy Farmers Milk Supply Company) who supplies Lion as to price per litre being offered nor contract volumes on offer .

Can you imagine how difficult it is to make smart business decisions in this situation. Dairy farmers need to make decisions about our cows, our people, equipment and environmental investment twelve months in advance. So to make the best business decisions for everyone on our team we are looking for clear market signals at this time from our processors

However, the processors are not able to commit to supply arrangements with farmers until the processors have finalised their contracts for private label milk volumes with the supermarkets.

As currently these contracts are only for short periods of time processors are second guessing supermarkets and the farmers are second guessing how the processors will respond if they don’t get the private label contract and as you can imagine all this second guessing leads to a third rate supply chain model and undermines farmer confidence in the whole milk supply sector

The latest Dairy Australia survey show 85% of dairy farmers in NSW see milk prices as the biggest challenge to the survival of their businesses.

So you may well ask why processors continue to supply private label milk to supermarkets. Well they have been asked that at several Senate inquiries so I have an answer (or 3) for you.

In confidential evidence provided to the ACCC Grocery Inquiry 2008 * (see reference at bottom of post) by processors indicate that the main reasons they pursued private label contracts were:

overhead recovery—generating revenue through private label sales to contribute to fixed costs of running the business
supply relationships with retailers—supplying private label product provides a stronger relationship and possibly improves processors bargaining position in relation to branded products
volume—the volume of milk supplied through private label contracts provides some stability to the business

The first national contract for supermarket private label milk was given to National Foods (now Lion) by Woolworths in 2002 The ACCC remarked in 2008 that the change in tendering arrangements by Woolworths in 2002 had a clear impact on the returns farmers received

National Foods (Lion) like all processors tenders for private label milk contracts to maintain relationships with the supermarkets and gain shelf space for its own brands

When the volumes of private label milk were relatively small compared to their own brands then the milk processor could recover the costs associated with supplying this milk at the low price

This is no longer the case. There has been an 11 per cent increase in the sales of private label milk in the last 12 months alone and now private label milk sales are 72% of all fresh milk sales

As you can imagine this is putting a lot of pressure on both farmers and processors. In fact I believe whilst all supermarkets in this country compete on price alone the entire fresh food sector in this country is at risk

Already 85% of products in a typical supermarket trolley are either imported or are supplied by foreign owned companies. This will only increase as more and more private label products are introduced so the supermarkets can compete with each other and continue to make profits.

At the moment milk processors have been the first line collateral damage in the supermarket milk price wars, farmers are starting to feel the brunt of it now and it wont be long before it impacts on consumer choice in the supermarket

At the moment shoppers have three choices “Will I buy a local product, will I buy an imported product, will I buy private label?” Unless we all stand up and be counted the only choice will be private label (imported from overseas)

So this is not just about the farmers, families who buy the Dairy Farmers brand are making an investment not just in the future of their community but in the future of Australia

Lets all get together and make an investment in the future of this great country

Further commnet on this story in this interview by Sarina Locke found here

*Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Report of the ACCC inquiry into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries, July 2008, pp. 234–5.

Sudoku farming

Today I am delighted to share this guest post by Gus Whyte with you.

By way of background Angus and Kelly with 8 yr old son Mitchell Whyte run a grazing property that is 12,500ha on the Anabranch River at Wentworth in far western NSW. They have been rotationally grazing to repair the landscape since 2001 and have seen significant changes in that time

I first “met” Gus on Twitter and was delighted to see him profiled by Fleur McDonald as part of her 52 farmer stories to celebrate Australian Year of the Farmer.

I just loved this quote from Gus

“Our attitude to farming is simply to work with nature rather than against, so we no longer have weeds, we have “plants with stories” that we can learn from and our aim is to make our business simple and our ecosystem extremely complex, the more complex the better.”

and I have been following Gus and his ethos via twitter closely since

The more I talk to farmers across Australia the more I am feeling the social environment we farm in today is totally foreign to most farmers and many are feeling overwhelmed. Today’s food system offers a wide range of choices that allow consumers to purchase food that meets their needs and is consistent with their values

Consumers have traditionally trusted farmers because they believe farmers share their values but the problem is some consumers are beginning to question if today’s agriculture still qualifies as farming. We are seeing consumer alienation from agriculture and the food system expressed through concerns about nutrition, food safety, affordability, environmental sustainability and animal welfare – to name but a few

What the “concerned consumer” fails to recognise is many of our farmers are torn too. Gus and his family farm on 12,500 ha compared to our family farming on 120ha. On that 120 ha we produce milk that sustains 50,000 Australians everyday. We are proud of that but no matter where we farm, how much land we have to do it on or how much we produce our farmers can only give back what the market place is prepared to pay.

Before you judge your farmers Australia (and the world) please reflect on this. “Never before have so few people fed the world. Never before has food been cheaper in this country. Never before have so many people been able to afford to be so blissfully unaware of this”

When you read what Gus has to say can you doubt in any way that Australia has many great farmers who truly care and share your values ?……

The Gus Whyte ethos….

One of the things that I enjoy is to sit down on the weekend with a nice cup of coffee and complete a Sudoku or two. For those that haven’t played there are 9 rows and 9 columns and each row and column should contain the numbers 1-9. Also there are 9 sections that again should contain the numbers 1-9. I liken this to the environment where everything is interdependent and the change of one number has implications right through the whole puzzle/landscape. Of course there are many more than just nine possible numbers when dealing with an ever changing environment, the challenge is to always come up with the same outcome. Farming can not be done with set “systems” as these don’t always take into account the people, land, animals, the changing seasons and the climate etc, instead we need to focus on achieving the right outcomes using what tools/knowledge we have on hand. That is why in some instances organic accreditation may not actually produce the healthiest foods.

Also like the environment when we focus on one area and do a really good job there, sometimes the other sections may be totally wrong and there is no chance of reaching the desired outcome. When we think of farming we may think of the vocation that aims to produce the best crop or best wool/meat etc. Aside from farmers there are those that say we should be only eating a plant based diet to improve the welfare of animals, well again this only looks at a small section we need both plant and animals to farm together. One without the other is an incomplete system that will fail.

Few people view farming as the best way to produce healthy food in a healthy environment, while respecting the people and community around them. Maybe we should be seeing farmers as healthy food producers or as environmental regenerators or even nutrient nurturers. While we as the broader community compartmentalize farming we don’t put their real role into perspective so we don’t look to encourage those that fulfil some or all of these roles. As Wendell Berry points out in his book “The unsettling of America” Culture & Agriculture, either we are exploiters or nurturers, there is no in between.

The end goal is for people, animals and the environment to be improving in health rather than the direction they are currently going. The question is “how can we feed and clothe a growing society while looking after the health of us and the environment?” If you say “we are what we eat”, currently you are chemicals, GMO’s & Phosphate fertilizers etc. (yes these are both in the plants and animal products!), while others may be happy with this there are some that aren’t. So how do we change what we currently do to become nurturers and all (people, animals and environment) end up healthier? All of the top businesses/farmers look at the implications of what they do and don’t compartmentalize so let’s extend that a bit.

So let’s start by agreeing on what we see as healthy.; Healthy to me is food that is grown by harnessing Mother Nature to add all the vitamins and minerals required, without the use of any chemicals or fertilizers or by being processed in any way. I’m sure that most would agree that that is very healthy, however how are we going to grow enough to feed all the people?

To put together farming methods that will produce enough food while enhancing the land and retaining wild species will not be simple so will need lots of support from all of us if we would like to be healthier. We can produce more food/fibre than we currently do by harnessing Mother Nature rather than going into battle with chemicals and GMO’s, again that has been proven to be right, we may need to change the concept of farming though. What might drive a change? You ask. Well there is plenty of information around saying that the current food systems we have in place are causing major health problems with depression endemic as well as cancer and many other problems that put enormous drain on our health systems. With drugs only working on the symptoms, surely we need to look deeper at the root cause of these issues. Maybe we will be forced to find out the hard way if we keep doing what we are doing until we reach “peak Phosphorus” in about 2030.

So farmers can be seen as “just exploiters of the environment mining the nutrients & jeopardizing the welfare of animals” or they can be part of the Sudoku puzzle with everything in order, the choice is ours.

You will notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about money as yet, well you can’t put a value on your health or the health and well being of the animals and environment so why would I start. Currently our community puts the mighty dollar above all of the above, we can feed an ever growing world with very healthy food if we start putting some of these issues above money. We can choose to select food on the looks and the “value for money”, or we can start to demand food that is produced more naturally in harmony with Mother Nature, the choice is ours.

Farming in a Peri-Urban Goldfish Bowl

Today I am speaking at the Australian Farm Institute’s conference Managing the Future of Australia’s Farmland. Regular readers of my blog will know that I have been agonising over what to say and how to say it for six weeks now. I have shared my work in progress thoughts with my readers along the way.

Here it is from the heart

I am a

Farmer
Climate Champion
Program Director and Chair of Art4agriculture
Agrifood Skills Ambassador

I seize these opportunities to talk to farmers, decision makers and consumers, all key people who can help me deliver my big picture vision for agriculture in this country

The vision

I want a dynamic innovative exciting and profitable agrifood sector that the next generation’s best and brightest see as a career of first.

I know this is achievable but we have a myriad a veritable rabbit warren of issues and challenges we have to acknowledge and address first before this will happen

Today we are tackling peri-urban Agriculture

Is it possible?I know it is possible to farm on the fringe of our towns and cities because my family business does this every day

My family milk 500 cows three times daily on two farms at Jamberoo. Both farms have a high rural urban interface

The home farm Clover Hillis situated in very steep high conservation value rainforest country

It is part of a dairy centric rural residential subdivision which contains 15 houses

Our second farm Lemon Grove Research Farm is located adjacent to Jamberoo Township and has main road frontage. So not only do the 1000 people who live in the village get to see our farming practices every day So too do the tens of thousands of people who drive by on the highway each year

Should we farm here?

Rich volcanic soil, 2000mm rain fed pastures and good management practices allow us to achieve KPI’s like this

It’s the best place to dairy in Australia so of course we should farm here

Do we want too?

I must admit it is very challenging and unless you are passionately committed to building close working relationship with your neighbours and the community, you may find yourself waking up every morning feeling like you are farming in a combat zone

This is the view from my front veranda you can see why everyone wants to live here

I don’t want to move and I don’t think my neighbours should move

So I have been looking forward to speaking to a room full of kindred spirits. People who have also taken up the challenge and dedicated their careers to support the sustainability and fabric of our advanced societies.

Close your eyes and have a listen to this……

10 seconds of silence – Blissful wasn’t it?

Time to just think.

Perhaps you were thinking about the

· extra 350,000people who will born today

· 60 million plus people our farmers feed everyday

· 80,000 tonnes of beef we exported last month

· The 500 million people the cotton industry clothes

· 65000 tonnes of rice we export every year

· 100,000 tonnes of cheese we send to Japan

· Or perhaps the impact on food production of price on carbon

· 3000-4000 GL/yr. of water being lost to farming in the Murray Darling basin,

· the banning of live exports to Indonesia last year

Or perhaps you were thinking you might like rob a bank and move into a house next door to me

· We know that food demand will double by the 2050, driven by growing populations and rising living standards

· We know that 1% of farming is disappearing across the world each year

· Even 1 degree of global warming, accompanied by greater droughts and floods will make agriculture as we know it much more challenging almost everywhere.

If I can steal a line from ‘Apollo 13’ – “HOUSTON – WE HAVE A PROBLEM”! Can we really expect farmers to produce more food, cheaper, with less land and natural resources???

But it’s not just a task for farmers is it? – Solving this problem is a task for everyone in this room.

As a farmer our cows produce the milk that sustains 50,000 Australians every day. It is what we do.

Scientists as providers of R&D&E and government policy makers enable us to do this as efficiently as we can.

But it goes much further than this doesn’t it

Every single Australian owns the problem AND is part of the solution

But they just don’t know it yet!

Whilst we all think what we do is vital – most of the people who we are doing it for, are more interested in who is going to win ‘The Voice’ or ‘Masterchef’.

This problem has manifested itself because farmers today are less than 1% of the population

We know as much about the other 99% as they know about us

Never before have so few people fed the world

Never before has food been cheaper in this country

Never before have so many people been so blissfully unaware of this

And regrettably everyone in this room (including me) not only just stood by and watched this situation develop – MANY OF US HAVE ACTIVELY HELPED THIS HAPPEN.

Australia has developed sophisticated supply chains to supply our cities with fresh affordable ethically produced food in fact everything they need.

Here is the problem as I see it

We have a food ‘value’ chain with farmers down one end and consumers at the other. We could not be more far apart if we tried

We have become victims of our own success.

Cities have become hermetically sealed from the reality of where their food & fibre comes from.

This is a big problem if we want agricultural production to double over the next 30 years to feed the predicted 9 Billion people.

It is obvious this value chain model is flawed – there is a pivotal link missing – the link that directly connects consumers with the people who produce their food.

It is our job to create this missing link. This link that connects farmers with the people who buy their food and fibre

It is a big task. But I believe the very future of our modern society is dependent on communities valuing what farmers do, and providing them with the resources to get on and do it in a way that meets the values and expectations of the communities which they serve.

It is not about farmers getting it all their own way – it is about farmers and communities working cooperatively for mutual benefit.

And that takes ENGAGEMENT.

This is the task…. ENGAGING with all facets of society

Let me use my experiences of farming in a peri-urban environment to show you how we have engaged. How we have formed collaborative relationships between government, the community, value chain partners and farmers

Farming is a business and business is all about building relationship
Our business is listening to the market place and is focused on changing with the world. We are not unique in this respect.
We have outsourced expertise to help us manage risk and adopted new technologies and farming strategies that improve our efficiency.
We have built strong natural resource management partnerships and have undertaken extensive Landcare projects to adapt to climate variability and build carbon in the soil
We have innovatively grown our business in a peri urban environment where 90% of the prime agricultural land is now owned by lifestyle farmers without large injections of capital by leasing land from these lifestyle farmers

What else can we do?

Firstly the notion of the farmer as someone who merely works on the land has got to go.

We can’t change the world overnight but we can change it.

So maybe we have to ask ourselves 2 questions

1. Who do we want to target?

2. What is the ideal vehicle?

If we can make it fun at the same time then we are doing really well

Let me show you one of our ideas

You have heard “every long journey starts with a single step”?

I work with a team of people who are rolling out the Art4agriculture initiatives

They are taking big steps to start engaging with urban communities and young people –

THEY ARE BUILDING A BRIDGE

Why ARE THEY TARGETING young people?

Because YOUNG PEOPLE are future consumers, decision makers and our workforce.

We have 2 signature programs

Archibull Prize and YFC program – They dovetail into each other

How do they work?

1. Each school gets a life size fibre glass cows

2. Each school is allocated food or fibre industry

3. Each school is allocated a Young Farming Championwhose area of expertise is that food or fibre industry

4. The young Farming Champion goes into the school and shares their farming story with the students and mentors the students

5. Young farming champion is provided with extensive professional development that includes the skills sets that enable them to be comfortable talking to non-farmer audiences

We then ask the students to use their allocated food or fibre industry and their YFC as their inspiration to decorate their cow in the theme

“Was does it take to sustainably feed and clothe your community for a day”

We also give points for a series of social media resources we ask them to create which we then load on the web

The Archies in the Food Farm at the Sydney Royal Easter Show 2012

As you can see we are building a bridge from both ends:

· Urban side – Archibull Prize build as bridge for students to interact with farmers and put real faces to the food they buy

· Farming side – build a bridge for YFC to hone their new found skills and have two way conversations with the people who buy their food and fibre. The YFC are providing real life examples and inspiring other young people who may have never considered a career in agriculture

Where does R&D and Government fit with this model of engagement?

Well scientists and researchers and policy makers are the pillars that hold the whole structure up.

They also have a role to build their own bridges to ENGAGE with the broader community

To explain why their work in supporting agriculture is vital to the future sustainability of our society.

What can be done?

There is no denying this is a huge task and we need to be working together.

ENGAGING with the community (and I am sad to say even between ourselves) needs a much higher priority in our overall thinking if we are going to solve the future issues that face BOTH agriculture and our modern hermetically sealed urban communities.

We MUST add this to our list of ‘most important jobs’

· We talk a lot about the rural urban divide
But I believe the real disconnect is between value and price
Consumers do value food they just don’t want to pay for it
Governments tend to absolve themselves of responsibility and foster the notion of food at rock bottom prices as a birth rite
Even farmers in different regions are often confused. Dairy farmers in Victoria who supply on a seasonal basis for the international market fail to see why dairy farmers in NSW and QLD who supply the domestic market consistently all year round warrant a higher farmgate price
On top of this farm land has become the poor cousin to mining and residential land. Whilst mining is yet to impact on my farming enterprise there is a constant regional conflict between the need to house people without sacrificing our most productive farm land & effectively destroying our food base.

“Food is as important as energy, as security, as the environment. Everything is linked together.” (Louise Fresco)

If Australia is going to get this message

THAT food is a topic of social and economic importance
THAT responsible agriculture production and food consumption are crucial to world stability

Then farmers, researchers, scientists and policy makers must ALL BE SELLING THIS message and selling it well

My vision for the future isn’t too difficult

It just requires a different way of thinking.

I believe a profitable and sustainable healthy future for the farming sector is achievable

The health and welfare of all Australians and many people around the world depends on it.

To drive the process of change requires champions and leaders. But to change grass roots perceptions, we need grass roots action.

Industry has to take the lead – we need articulate, well educated farmers and we need to identify these people and nurture them and promote them and ensure we retain this talent

We need government and farmers working together with everyone in the value chain selling the message and selling it well that food is a topic of social and economic importance on par with oil

Farm land has to be seen as important as mining land and residential land no matter where it is.

Our farming systems cannot be locked into a religious type paradigm of what we think is best. Our farmers must be free to continue to adapt to our changing resource base, the seasons and climate, the economy and our markets. Our farmers must be able to innovate, achieve efficiency gains and intensify their businesses.

And our researchers and our scientists need to be resourced to help us do this

Our farmers must have access to our best agricultural land if we are expected to keep feeding 60 million plus people from an ever shrinking resource base. We need to get better at engaging with a disconnected market place,that continually wants to pay less for food that costs more to produce.

Consumers are an integral part of this chain. They need to understand and appreciate where their food comes from and be comfortable with how our production techniques must change to meet the world’s need for food.

This can only be done through ENGAGEMENT.

This starts with being prepared to pay realistic prices for the food they buy
With making wise food choices
Understanding the environmental impact of 50% of our food is wasted and ends up in landfill

We all have a role to play. Let’s work together to strengthen and support the missing link

Engagement is the missing link let’s put a price on it and invest in it.

Creating a community which is engaged & informed with agriculture is our ‘MOST IMPORTANT JOB’ and is the key to the sustainability of, not just agriculture – but to the ENTIRE FABRIC of our modern advanced society.

WE CAN DO IT

Farm Day Oz comes early in Paradise

Young Farming Champion Heidi Cheney has just landed a new job with Pfizer Animal Health and scored the dairy industry as the key area in which she will work with farmers.

Heidi’s mum and daughter Pippa get an early Farm Day OZ experience at Clover Hill Dairies

So where better to get hands on dairy farming experiences – well Paradise of course.

Autumn tones at Paradise

Heidi grew up on her parents beef and sheep farm but her children Hunter and Pippa are like most kids these days they learn where yoghurt comes from through pages of a book or the TV screen .

Pippa and Hunter just aren’t just yogurt fans, they love cheese and milk

So Heidi took the opportunity to bring Pippa and Hunter and her mum Lynne with her so they could learn first hand where milk comes from. So whilst Heidi worked alongside Nick and Emma to get an inside look at dairy farm and cow management. Pippa and Hunter got friendly with the chooks

First Hunter decided he should collect all the eggs and was eyed off by this rooster

Heidi in the meantime was checking out the dairy

Where she caught up with Emma and they went through our procedures for drenching and vaccinations

Emma has just done an evaluation review of all our procedures with the team to ensure all our information is up to date

She is very pleased that task is almost ticked off

Then it was time for the whole family to see where their milk comes from

Farmer Nick has a soft spot for little kids and enjoys showing them how the dairy works

Then it was off to visit the baby calves and see how the robotic calf feeder works

Pippa and Hunter soon got the hang of it and made great friends with the baby calves

Robotic Calf Feeder mimics the natural experience

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The weather forecast says its going to rain in the next couple of days and so Michael is putting out some nitrogen fertiliser to see if we can get this recently sown pasture to get a wriggle on. Hunter was pretty taken with the really big green tractor.

But then it all got too much and Hunter says its time for a siesta

The sun goes down in the trees.

I enjoyed sharing paradise with Heidi and her family as will many other faming families with their Farm Day OZ visitors this weekend

I am also pretty confident cows will get due credit for the dairy products in the fridge at the Cheney household from now on

You can be part of the solution

Over the past few weeks I have written a number of posts sharing my concerns about the future of the farming sector in Australia. I am concerned because I am finding our best farmers are feeling demoralised and physically pushed to the limit by the supermarket prices wars which show no sign of ending and our farmers are questioning why they bother to farm in this hostile environment

Most people have no idea that food has never been cheaper. The graph below puts this into perspective by showing the cost of food as a percentage of income over the last 100 years. That’s a whopping 80% drop and who has funded that drop – farmers that’s who

This extract from an essay by Julian Cribb explores the issues further. What it also does is provide 8 big ideas solution options that will ensure Australian families can continue to enjoy affordable, nutritious, ethically produced food from Australian family farms. What I would love to know is what you the reader thinks is the appropriate option/s? I look forward to your feed back

Why Farmers Need a Pay Rise…( Extract)

by JULIAN CRIBB on 22 SEPTEMBER 2010

A Culture of Waste

Food is now so cheap that developed societies such as the US, Britain and Australia throw away nearly half, while developing countries lose nearly half post-harvest. (source: vii)

Societies that pay their farmers such low returns, have found they can afford to send nearly half of the farmers’ efforts to landfill. Or burn in an recreational vehicle enough grain as biofuel in one week to feed a poor person for a year.

In short, the modern food system has established a culture of absolute and utter waste, sustained only by the mining of energy and nutrients (from rock or soil), which will eventually run out or become unaffordable to most farmers.

This situation cannot persist more than a few decades. We will need to recycle and invest in new systems – but for that to occur, farm incomes and the incentive to invest in food production must rise and the economic signal to invest in agriculture must change.

An Unhealthy Situation

Cheap food is at the root of a pandemic of disease and death larger in the developed world than any other single cause of human mortality, and spreading like wildfire in the newly-industrialised world. Cheap, abundant processed food is a driver for obesity, which now affects two in five humans, and plays a significant role in the society-wide increase in cancers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and bowel disorders.

Cheap food, in other words, is an economic invitation to consumers – including millions of children – to kill themselves prematurely through overindulgence.

Cheap food is the chief economic driver of the greatest budget blow-out in all western democracies: healthcare.

Solving the Food Challenge

The purpose of this essay is to call attention to the effect a never-ending reduction in farmers’ incomes will have on world food security at a time of rising physical constraints to production, including scarcities of land, water, energy, nutrients, technology, fish and stable climates.

At the very time when most experts agree we should be seeking ways to double food output sustainably over the coming half-century, the ruling economic signal to farmers is: “don’t do it”.

Of course, we can simply obey the economic signal and allow agricultural shortfalls to occur – but that will expose 8 or 10 billion consumers to massive unheralded price spikes, of the sort experienced in 2008, which have a dire impact on the poor, start wars and topple governments – and will not benefit farmers as much as a stable, steady increase in their incomes.

Most of the world’s poorest people are farmers, and it follows that one of the most effective remedies for world poverty is to increase the returns to agriculture. True, this will involve raising food prices for the urban poor but they are less numerous and can more easily be assisted by other government measures. At present rural poverty is maintained throughout the world largely by the economic policy of providing affluent city consumers with cheap food.

It is necessary to state this essay does not advocate a return to agrarian socialism, protectionism, commodity cartels or an end to free markets. In fact, we probably need to move much faster and further towards totally free trade in agricultural products in order to encourage efficient producers – large and small – around the world.

But it does hold up a warning flag about the universal dangers of underinvestment, negative signals and sentiment, resource destruction and rural dislocation caused by the undervaluing of the one commodity humanity absolutely cannot do without, as we approach the greatest demand for food in all of history.

There are numerous ways this issue might be addressed. Here are a few:

1. Price: through an educated “community consensus” that results in willingness on the part of consumers, supermarkets and food processors to pay more for food so as to protect the resource base and enable farmers to invest in new technologies (source: viii)

2. Subsidy: by the payment of a social wage to farmers by governments for their stewardship on behalf of society of soil, water, atmosphere and biodiversity, separate from their commercial food production

3. Regulation: by limiting by law those practices or technologies which degrade the food resource base and rewarding by grant those which improve it

4. Taxation: by levying a resource tax on all food which reflects its true cost to the environment to produce, and by reinvesting the proceeds in more sustainable farming systems, R&D, rural adjustment and enhanced resource management.

5. Market solutions: by establishing markets for key farm resources (eg carbon or water) that result in higher returns for farmers from wise and sustainable use.

6. Public education about how to eat more sustainably;

7. Industry education about sustainability standards and techniques.

8. A combination of several of the above measures.

The technical solutions to most of the world’s food problems are well-known and well understood – but they are not being implemented as widely as they should because of a market failure which prevents their adoption. To avoid grave consequences, affecting billions of people, this failure needs correction.

It also needs correcting because, as long as world food production remains an undervalued activity, then so too will investing in the research essential to overcome future shortages –crop yields, water use, landscape sustainability, alternative energy, the recycling of nutrients and the reduction of post-harvest losses. To satisfy a doubling in demand for food over the coming half century calls for at least $160 billion in worldwide agricultural R&D activity a year – equal to a tenth of the global weapons budget. However this would leave the world both more peaceful – and better fed.

It is not the purpose of this essay to solve the issue of how to deliver fairer incomes to farmers worldwide, but rather to foster debate among thoughtful farmers, policymakers and researchers and consumers about how we should go about it.

However it does question whether some of the ‘old truths’ of the 20th century still apply in the 21st, or whether the era of globalisation and resource scarcity has changed the ground rules.

It also asks whether the unstinted application of overwhelming market force against farmers is the act of a sapient species – or a mob of lemmings?

Over to the sapient ones among you.

–– Julian Cribb FTSE

Julian Cribb is Founding Editor of Science Alert, and is the principal of Julian Cribb & Associates, specialists in science communication. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Frontbenders or backbenders – Being flexible in an inflexible market place

Contortionists according to wiki “have unusual natural flexibility, which is then enhanced through acrobatic training, or they put themselves through intense, vigorous and painful training to gain this flexibility”.

So how does this relate to dairy farming? Quite a bit in fact! Cows and farmers are living things that ideally should be able to operate in a flexible environment to achieve the best outcomes for their health and wellbeing. However more and more they are both finding themselves operating in a totally inflexible market place and quite a bit of intense vigorous and painful training is going on to help them bend and weave and duck to cope

Let me explain

Dairying systems in Australia are probably as diverse as they get and they depend on a combination of factors which include the best options for the cows, the milk market you supply, where your business is located, and your soil and the types of pastures you can grow, the amount of rain, the temperature range, your access to grains and other bought in feed. I could go on forever.

This diversity of production systems also means a diversity of calving patterns. These include batch calving, seasonal calving, split calving and year round calving

The most common is seasonal production where cows calve during the peak period of pasture availability. This system is used by nearly two-thirds of Australian dairy farms and is most prominent in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia.

Graeme Nicoll who farms in Victoria and writes the excellent blog Montrose Dairy has written a great post about the ins and outs of his seasonal calving pattern here

Most of Australia’s milk production is concentrated in Victoria with the second biggest milk production state being NSW

The second most common production system is year round production. Under this system, calving is spread throughout the year, which means that milk production is stable during the year (or as close as it can be.) This production system is most prominent in areas like ours which supply fresh milk for domestic production.

Hello welcome to my world

We supply two different milk processors (Parmalat and Lion via Dairy Farmers Milk Supply Coop) who both process and supply drinking milk for the Australian domestic market. This means they need a consistent supply of high quality fresh milk close to their processing plants which are invariably located either in or as close to the major capital cities as possible

Producing milk consistently all year round is not as easy as it might sound. It fact it’s damned tricky. Milk production is essentially the conversion of pasture to milk.

The paddock in front of my house was planted with ryegrass and oats 3 weeks ago and its not growing near as fast as it should be

Hopefully we will get a nice drop of rain, a bit of warm weather and it will look like this again shortly

So pasture is the Holy Grail and the best pasture is available in spring and early summer so logically cows produce more milk during this time of the year.

As you can see milk production goes up significantly in Australia in Sept – December

To encourage farmers who supply the domestic market to balance this and achieve a “flat supply curve” i.e. less milk in spring and more milk in the autumn/winter we are paid a higher price for autumn/winter milk for the milk we supply Parmalat

Lion/Dairy Farmers Milk Supply Coop. on the other hand have a two tier system (as Malcolm Fraser said “life wasn’t meant to be easy”)

Tier 1 milk prices are paid on milk supply volumes representing an allocation of what Lion (formerly National Foods) have estimated is their fresh drinking milk requirements (“anticipated full demand” or AFD). That is you are essentially allocated a milk quota

To discourage you (and believe me it’s very discouraging) farmers who supply milk in excess of these contracted Tier 1 volumes attract Tier 2 prices.( which in the main are half the price you get for Tier 1)

For farmers, the pressures arise because they must make investment decisions about the size and composition of their herds and their infrastructure investments more than nine months in advance. Those decisions necessitate a longer term investment horizon and exposure to ongoing fixed costs. Consequently, farmers look to the processors to provide guaranteed cash flows over the farmers’ investment horizons. However, the processors are not able to commit to supply arrangements with farmers until the processors have finalised their contracts for house/private brand volumes with the supermarkets.

The processors are exposed to the risk of significant loss when their milk supply arrangements with farmers extend beyond the term of their house brand contracts. In 2011, Lion claim changes in the configuration of demand for fresh white milk caused them to lose approximately $20 million on its fresh white milk contracts. On top of this Lion lost the Woolworths house/private label supply contract which was a whopping 20% of its milk intake and they have subsequently written down their business by $1 billion, this is on top of a ½ billion dollars write down in the previous financial year. Scary stuff

Milk producers like us contracted to Lion (through direct supply contracts or milk supply co-operative DFMC) currently suffer from the combined effects of a rationalization of Lion’s processing requirements in dairy products (other than fresh milk) and the loss of private label volumes.

Our business is doing the very best it can to listen to the market place and we are focused on changing with the world. We are not unique in this respect.

We have outsourced expertise to help us manage risk and adopt new technology and farming strategies that improve efficiency.

We have found novel ways to grow the businesses and have built strong natural resource management partnerships and have undertaken extensive Landcare projects to adapt to climate variability and build carbon in the soil

We have innovatively grown our business in a peri urban environment where 90% of the prime agricultural land is now owned by lifestyle farmers without large injections of capital through procuring lease land

We are actively working to secure markets for our products by working with the processing sector and supplying the companies that best fit our farming system. That is DFMC/Lion on the home farm and Parmalat on the lease farm.

We are also thinking of hiring a full time physio/chiropractor because the constant balancing act ain’t getting any easier

Fighting alligators isn’t much fun

In the last two years I have been very lucky to have met some amazing farmers from different industries all over Australia through my role as a Climate Champion as well as working with the new breed of exciting young farmers through the Art44agriculture Young Farming Champions program. These young people have fire in their bellies and see farming, and the entire agribusiness chain, in a new light.

Young people like Nick and Emma have fire in their bellies and see farming, and the entire agribusiness chain, in a new light.

Anyone who reads my blog post regularly will also note my growing concern for the hostile environment our farmers are finding themselves in. As Victorian dairy farmer Ron Paynter says its like fighting alligators all day, everyday.

Its just bizarre when you think of the 1 billion hungry people in the world, half are small farmers – a quarter are landless labourers working on plantations and over 24,000 people are dying of hunger each day, half of them children. Yet the spend on agricultural research and development is a mere 1.8 cents of the developed world’s science dollar. This gives a very clear idea how unimportant most of the world’s governments now consider food production to be. (Chartres C, World Congress of Soil Science, Brisbane, August 2010)

We talk a lot about the rural urban divide but I believe the real disconnect is between value and price. Consumers in affluent countries do value food they just don’t want to pay for it. The Australian government absolves itself of responsibility and fosters the notion of food at rock bottom prices as a birth rite. (See what Julian Cribb has to say on this at bottom of the post)

There is a complete lack of lack of understanding of not only what is required to produce high quality affordable nutritious ethical food BUT also what it takes to do this consistently and AD INFINITUM.

In Australia, agricultural farm land has become the poor cousin to mining and residential land. Whilst mining is yet to impact on our farming enterprise there is a constant regional conflict between the need to house people without sacrificing our most productive farm land to housing.

Surely is must be a plain as the nose on your face and Louise Fresco is right when she says “Food is as important as energy, as security, as the environment. Everything is linked together.” After all sustainable food production and consumption is pivotal to the health, wealth and happiness of all Australians and many people around the world.

What’s the answer?

Well I am giving it a lot of thought as I prepare my presentation for the 2012 Managing the Future of Australian Farm Land Conference next week. I am looking forward to hearing and working with the “big ideas” people to do my little bit to ensure our policy makers have all the facts to enable them to make the best decisions for everyone including our farmers.

We all have a role to play. Its time to take the shackles off our farmers and enable them stay in business for the long haul.

Why Farmers Need a Pay Rise…

by JULIAN CRIBB on 22 SEPTEMBER 2010

Extract

Globally and especially in developed countries, food has become too cheap. This is having a wide range of unfortunate – and potentially dangerous – effects which include:

§ Negative economic signals to farmers everywhere, telling them not to grow more food

§ Increasing degradation of the world’s agricultural resource base

§ A downturn in the global rate of agricultural productivity gains

§ An ‘investment gap’ which is militating against the adoption by farmers of modern sustainable farming and other new technologies

§ A deterrent to external investment because agriculture is less profitable than alternatives.

§ The decline and extinction of many local food-producing industries worldwide

§ A disincentive to young people (and young scientists) to work in agriculture.

§ Loss of agricultural skills, rural community dislocation and increased rural and urban poverty affecting tens of millions

§ Reduced national and international investment in agricultural research and extension

§ Lack of investment in water, roads, storage and other essential rural infrastructure

§ The waste of up to half of the food which is now produced

§ A pandemic of obesity and degenerative disease that sickens and kills up to half of consumers of the ‘modern diet’, resulting in

§ Soaring health costs causing the largest budget item blowout in all western democracies

§ The failure of many developing countries to lay the essential foundation for economic development – a secure food and agriculture base – imposing direct and indirect costs on the rest of the world through poverty, war and refugeeism.

From this list it can be seen that low farm incomes have far wider consequences for humanity in general than is commonly supposed.