Anyone who has been the victim of credit card fraud will feel my pain today and I must admit I am a bit unhappy with my bank.

It does have an amusing side – in the main my scammer/s chose to spend their ill gotten gains in Coles and Kmart and Liquorland in all of above suburbs in a little over 24 hours. They did 6 balance enquiries, spent the same amount of money 10 times and even managed to overdraw the account without the bank being concerned. The bank even charged overdrawn fees and then reversed them for some reason and still the scammers went unnoticed

Why is this amusing – well as a protest on behalf of dairy farmers everywhere I can count on 1 hand the amount times I have shopped at Coles since the Milk Price Wars began.

Please don’t mention this to my fellow agricultural advocates either – the card was cloned whilst i was doing a dairy industry related advocacy  TV interview –  as you can imagine at the present moment I am seriously questioning whether its all worth it

What the scammers don’t know is what I use this card for and it has been very easy to identify who and where the card was cloned. Its not your lucky day scammers

You might have fooled the Falcon but I know who you are 

Speaking of dairy farmers don’t you love this cheeky little add

Pretty confident the bow has been photoshopped – I now have official confirmation that no testicles where harmed in the making of this commercial and even better news another cheeky version is about to be launched. Watch this space ht SJS

Feeling the pain on behalf of Mike Baird and the NSW Govt today having to cop the flak for the folly of others – it’s started

This is just the beginning I am told

My  question at this point in time is will NSWFA be prepared to accept the moral responsibility for any damage to Brand Australia for agriculture from potential fall out from these campaigns?

Is it doing the right thing to propose a legislation that instigates campaigns that potentially will  put the spotlight on farming in a negative way  when you have been warned that it  hasn’t got a chance in hell of being passed by the NSW Legislative Council

So there is a real risk all this pain will be for nothing – if this isnt a folly nothing is

Backstory

Australian farmers a crisis is looming 

Australian Agri-Politics another brave soul bites the dust

Politics

Rule No 1. Ask for something that is possible

Today’s blog is a reprint of Richard McLellan* piece for the Centre for Policy Development  4 December, 2015. I have referred to Richard’s vision previously and in light of current events I thought it timely to revisit what some of this country’s recognized thought leaders are saying

Image Source 

As my readers know I have been nonstop blogging since the beginning of 2016. The reason for this is I so admire the wonderful farmers I find myself surrounded by and I was so torn

What do you do when you know something that could destroy overnight the credibility of the people you know and love and value and you want to warn them of impending disaster and you want to rally them?

You could do a number of things. In my case I saw my blog as the best vehicle I had to reach as many people as possible in as short a period of time as I could using social media

Like a number of farmers, I do my very best to keep up with the tide of public opinion both positive and negative about modern farming practices and talk to as many groups as I can, to see where their concerns lie

It was these relationships that forewarned me that a mass media campaign was about to be launched that could potentially destroy all the amazing gains our best practice natural resource management Landcare ethos focused farmers have achieved over the last 30 years and potentially destroy our credibility as people who can be trusted to do the right thing

My blogs copped plenty of well-meaning friendly fire. Farmers who were horrified that I would put the mistakes of the past front and centre and subtlety invite my readers to visit websites that share the good news stories. Some didnt realise this was just a taster of what they  would shortly see in the media and there would be no subtle links to the good news stories

Whether we like it or note it’s time for change. The power of public opinion environment farmers operate in is changing. We need to change with it. Yes we provide a very essential service but so do lots of other people in other essential service professions  and they find themselves operating in a highly regulated world and they understand and respect why

Farmers just can’t afford to ignore the world we live in.  The world that loves controversy. Cute, cuddly and cancer stories now sell newspapers and attract main stream media and ensure huge donations to charities that appeal to the three C’s

Josh Gilbert Chair of the NSWFA Young Farmer Council has been working non-stop to bring all the aggrieved parties together to no avail and sadly he has found himself in a position where he felt the only way he could save our wonderful farmers from a name and shame media campaign was to resign his position with the NSW Farmers Young Farmer Council

Josh Gilbert has made a very brave stand. All farmers who have learnt from the mistakes of our fathers and those well-meaning people who came before us are also making a stand as Josh’s supporters are showing

Farmers are people, our sector has a lot of wonderful people doing the right thing and a few cowboys we wish hadn’t chosen farming as a career pathway. A self-regulation policy just isn’t an option  when we are talking about something – our precious landscape -so close to the heart of so many Australians.

What farmers deserve is a ground breaking watershed co-regulation policy model that protects the people doing the right thing from the people who may not be doing the right thing

When you talk about the Australian landscape which regularly polls as front of mind for Australians it is very naive to think Australian  voters will accept a model that suggests the people who look after 60-80% of it should self-regulate without identified clear codes of practice and accountability measures

Josh Gilbert is exactly the person we need to bring all the parties together. Lets not shoot the messenger. We can sit in the stands or we can get on the train with him. Its our choice, which one will you make ?

I was very saddened as were many others to read this announcement this morning

It just belies belief that a fellow farmer/s would think that mafia like tactics are acceptable in agriculture politics.

HT to Lachlan Patterson 

Its clear from the support and comments that Josh is receiving on his Facebook page he has  plenty of supporters, an ever increasing Circle of Niceness and I am confident he will not give up the good fight and will rise like a phoenix out of the ashes

You can read more about this story in The Land here

Now lets look at some great things our 24/7 365 day farmers are doing – how good is this – Courtesy of The Guardian 

Backstory –

As per my previous posts its not the quantity of advocates we have its the quality of advocates we have that will deliver the best outcomes for agriculture

Thanks to the support of an external body we were able to an extensive evaluation in 2015 of both the Young Farming Champions program and The Archibull Prize

These two programs are the cornerstone of the Art4Agriculture advocacy initiative and use young people under 30 in the farming sector to bring the farm into the classroom

The learnings from this report will help ensure investment in agricultural advocacy at a school and community level get the best ROI for the very limited farmer levies available to be directed into this space

I created these programs to do the following

1. Identify and nurture young people in agriculture who are willing and have the capability and capacity to be the face of farming in the community
2. Protect farming’s social licence
3. Create a buzz around careers in the farming sector.

Like me, I hope that farmers everywhere will appreciate what the Young Farming Champions are achieving on our behalf

YFC Laura Bennett and Alexander Stephens visit Calvary Christian College

These young people are very brave-its far from easy putting your hand up for that often very daunting experience: of standing up to be counted, even in difficult circumstances.

They donate considerable time and effort into preparing for, and going into schools and are selfless in their determination to focus on the greater good for agriculture

The schools who put their hand up to participate in The Archibull Prize are also very brave. Its a very high level program and it gets very high level results. 

Primary school teachers are extraordinarily brave because they are expected to work from the secondary school material

I also want to take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart all the wonderful people who support me. This program operates on a shoe string and like me the majority of my support team do it pro bono or at mates rates. This of course is not sustainable and I am very pleased to report that we are talking to a number of corporates who are keen to partner with us

Below you will see the impact the program is having for agriculture, for teachers and the most important people in the world our young people

Extract from The Archibull Prize 2015 evaluation 

The purpose of this report is to determine whether The Archibull Prize Art4Agriculture program has achieved its objectives of using creative arts and multimedia to engage urban and rural school students to:

1. Consider agriculture related careers;
2. Expand their understanding of farming; and
3. Understand the challenges of farming

The findings in this report show that The Archibull Prize successfully achieved these objectives and does far more. It provides schools with an educationally sound and valuable tool for increasing engagement in learning and participation in school and community life. Cohesion within the school community was enhanced through collaboration between Year groups and across key learning areas. Some feeder Primary schools also teamed up with their High Schools. This supports student well-being through improved transitioning to secondary education.

Summary of key findings

This report compares the data from students and teachers as they started their projects and at the end of their learning journeys.

In 2015, The Archibull Prize directly engaged approximately 2,700 urban and rural students from 28 schools. Teachers and students from participating schools provided data about their expectations and experiences through entry and exit surveys. Teams of teachers in each school co-ordinated project-based learning involving a number of key earning areas across multiple Year levels. This effort achieved a significant reach with an additional 16,650 students being indirectly aware of the Archibull taking place in their schools. School communities also became aware of The Archibull Prize through being actively involved in supporting their schools to create their outputs, reporting in school newsletters and local media.

Primary School teachers shared their expertise amongst project tasks and devised age and stage appropriate activities and content so that a number of Year groups or whole of school could participate.

Secondary Schools based their projects from within the Creative Arts KLAs and drew in teachers from other subjects. Other KLAs most involved were Agriculture, Technology, and Science. English, Health and Physical Education, Personal Development and Social Sciences were also involved.

A third of the Secondary Schools partnered with their feeder Primary Schools for some components of the project.

Young Farming Champions (YFC) played an important role in educating students and their teachers about contemporary farming practices and career pathways in agriculture. Student and teacher comments show that this was a highly memorable and significant experience. In educational terms, this equates to strong evidence of emotional and cognitive engagement. Students were impressed in three main ways:

1. Being able to see and/or appreciate the physical aspects of farming;
2. Having admiration for the professionalism, knowledge, work skills and ethic as well as personal passion of each YFC;
3. Gaining insights into farm practices and potential career pathways through hearing the YFC’s story.

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YFC visit Erskine Park High School, James Ruse Ag High School, Gwynneville Public School and Calvary Christian College 

By the end of the competition students were even more positive, in wanting to learn about what farmers do and how food and fibre gets to us; and considering farming or working to produce food or clothes as a good career choice for themselves. Student comments indicated they had gained very positive insights from their meetings with YFC. They were surprised and excited to learn more about farming and very much enjoyed their experiences.

Students and teachers were extremely satisfied with their experiences with their expectations having been met and in many ways exceeded. There is no doubt that students experienced a high degree of enjoyment and that their engagement in learning was significantly enhanced.

Teachers strongly agreed it was a valuable and worthwhile experience that linked well with their school-based curriculum and provided more opportunities for students. They also realised there had been a number of unintended added benefits educationally and socially for students; professionally for teachers; and improvements in whole school cohesion. They described how their students had gained greater appreciation and understanding of farming. The areas of learning that students said they were most excited about related to farming and agricultural processes i.e. what farmers do and the extent to which their products are used (82% of Primary students; 64% of Secondary School students). In this respect, the contact with YFC was considered to be extremely worthwhile.

Students were generous in their comments about what they liked most about learning through doing their Archibull projects. Their perspective is consistent with teacher observations of their learning outcomes. Having a cow (or calf) as a focus of artistic and creative expression was a definite plus in terms of student engagement. The opportunity to develop new skills through an artistic process also excited the students. Students enjoyed learning about biosecurity, sustainability issues or food security.

High school students described the excitement they felt during the creative process from ideas generation to finished product. Social processes and teamwork were important to many students. They enjoyed creatively collaborating with their friends and contributing to a greater result. There is no doubt that using art and multimedia achieves significant leverage in engaging students’ learning about the challenges of farming and agricultural production in Australia.

The teacher ratings of their student’s skill development show a general increase (i.e. from ‘somewhat’ to ‘a lot’) across all areas for all students, both Primary and Secondary School. Benefits were achieved in the areas of,

• self-management
• a range of learning styles
• communication
• using technologies
• initiative and enterprise
• active citizenship
• planning and organising
• teamwork and cooperation
• creative problem solving

Teachers noticed that their students had developed skills in other areas such as,

• Fine motor art and craft e.g. hand sewing, wool swirling / wool craft, fine brush work
• Multimedia, graphic communication and creative arts e.g. music- videos related to beef, ICT technologies- blogging speaking with adults within the community, blogging, research skills, co-operation, interviewing and note taking, uploading images and photo documentation; use of multiple sources and ICT technologies to learn and display their learning. Research and Presentation of professional work
• Leadership and public speaking e.g. when presenting workshops to the Primary school students.
• Literacy and numeracy skills improved, because students were highly engaged in the learning experiences
• General behaviours improved because student had a higher respect for our learning environment

All students’ attitudes to farming and the processes involved in agricultural products increased over the time of the competition. Secondary School students’ attitudinal change was far greater (almost double) than for those in Primary School projects.

Significantly, teachers reported having changed the way they now think about agriculture. They explained what has changed for them in terms of a greater respect for farmers due to first-hand knowledge and experiences. Those who had previously done the competition mentioned having benefited by further expanding their knowledge Their comments indicate deep learning had occurred in order to significantly shift attitudes.

Teachers attitudinal changes related to the following four main themes,

1. Increased understanding of agricultural systems from farm to final product;
2. Revitalisation of passion as an Agriculture specialist teacher;
3. Technology and innovation involved in contemporary farming to increase sustainability;
4. Extension of rural background to a broader understanding of farming.

Teachers consistently mentioned the same positive aspects of The Archibull Prize. These related directly to the use of project-based, cross-curricular and Year level approach through a focus on visual arts creative processes. Students were challenged and extended in their ability to interpret researched knowledge and apply graphic communications skills. Teachers were surprised at the high degree of engagement in learning and resultant deep knowledge of students. Their experiences reflect an holistic approach to teaching that fits well with the NSW Quality Teaching model (QT)[1]. This indicates that undertaking The Archibull Prize is pedagogically sound. The following quotes from teachers have been analysed for the elements from the QT framework they represent,

It was an authentic learning experience that encouraged the development of deep knowledge and engaged our students in higher order thinking. Students were able to demonstrate this learning in an inclusive and fun way. (Primary Teacher)

QT Elements: Deep knowledge, Deep understanding, Problematic knowledge, Engagement, Student directed

 (I liked) Watching students collaborate their ideas and socialising with others. (Secondary Teacher)

QT Elements: Substantive communication, Problematic knowledge, Engagement, Students’ self-regulation, Student directed

A broader impact on the whole school community cohesion including parents was noticed. Teachers’ professional capabilities were extended in new ways that included public speaking, cross-faculty collaboration, and undertaking project-based arts and multimedia teaching and learning.

Three main concepts of Climate Change, Biosecurity, and Food Security were an important part of the learning incorporated into The Archibull Prize. The entry and exit surveys asked students whether they had heard of these terms, what they thought they meant, and what actions they could take to mitigate the effects of Climate Change; prevent breaches in biosecurity; and ensure improved food security for Australians.

Awareness of the term ‘Climate Change’ was very high both before and after the competition. Students struggled to explain what it meant despite a significant majority reporting they had discussed it throughout the project. This highlights the complexity of the concept and why the Australian Curriculum builds knowledge on this topic progressively from Primary to Senior Secondary levels. The Archibull Prize is more concerned about giving students and their teachers an appreciation of the impact of Climate Change on the sustainability of farming and agriculture. Through the qualitative data it was evident that this had been achieved. Much of this knowledge had been gained from talking with the YFC.

Secondary students achieved a significant shift in awareness of biosecurity and its importance to Australia’s primary industries as a result of participation in The Archibull Prize i.e. from 38% to 94% knowing about it and 100% choosing the correct definition.

An awareness of food security has significantly increased amongst Secondary students. However, facts about food waste and how many Australians go hungry are still not well known. By comparison to the start of their projects, 10% more Secondary students attempted an explanation of food security i.e. from Entry 74% to Exit 84%

Back to me

Some important  key leanings from the evaluation are

• We can change the community’s attitude to farming
• The correct language to use when we talk to the community needs to be reevaluated. For example we naively thought we could make agriculture more sexy by talking about “food and fibre’ instead of using the word agriculture. Wow how wrong we were . Our work in schools and that of the RAS of NSW shows that what comes to mind when you say the word fibre to the community “its the stuff you have for breakfast to stop you getting constipated”. If we want to reach our audience we should talk about “farming and farming communities”
• If we want to maintain our social licence the survey showed young farmers are our best advocates
• if we want to encourage careers in the farming sector young people with off-farm careers are our best advocates
• Whilst the phrase “Climate change” and the word “sustainability” are very much misunderstood by community you can show farmers commitment to both
• The Archibull Prize is a great vehicle for getting our key messages out and the NSWDPI will be very proud of their involvement in the program. Almost 20,000 people now know “Biosecurity is a shared responsibility” and  they can actually define accurately what ‘biosecurity” is
• Effective advocacy takes time and money – lets spend our limited dollars on where we can get the best bang for our buck

Judging meat quality

I have had some great feedback on my post on Thea from the Youth Food Movement’s blog post of her reflections of her visit to an abattoir

I have never visited an abattoir and it’s not on my wish list and pretty confident it won’t ever be.

I don’t visit third world countries either. In this case it’s because I don’t want to see other people living in poverty. Whenever we needed an animal euthanized on our farm we got an external person into do it. Not an ideal mindset for a farmer perhaps but I can live with it. Kudos to people like Thea who make the effort to see it for themselves and make their own minds up based on personal experiences. Quoting Thea

Meat eating after all is a conversation which tends to polarise in the extreme.

If anything, the experience reminded me of why I believe transparency is so damn important and reinforced my belief that if we’re going to let people make their own decisions about what they eat, then we also need to let them in on the story of how their food is produced – whether it creeps them out or not – and respect their right to make informed food choices based on that accurate information.

………While I still sometimes question the ethics of eating animals when I have replacements to hand, I don’t question the humanity of those who work in it. Nor will I stop pushing for transparency around those things that give us the creeps. Source 

With regards to the abattoir process I am absolutely fascinated by the ability of the Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition to attract people to careers in agriculture

I have just had an external evaluation of The Archibull Prize done to determine whether it had achieved its objectives of using creative arts and multimedia to engage urban and rural school students to:

1. Consider agriculture related careers;
2. Expand their understanding of farming; and
3. Understand the challenges of farming

The report highlighted the power of sending young people from the farming sector into schools to inspire an appreciation of farming and careers in the sector. A lot of our Young Farming Champions too have been part of the  Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition and are wax lyrical about it. In fact, we had one of  our YFC participate as part of the Australian team at the international finals last December.

Congratulations to the very successful Aussie Intercollegiate Meat judging team. Read more here

According to their website this competition has the following project objectives

Program Objectives

The objective of the Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition is to provide an opportunity for students to learn and to build the pool of intelligent young meat industry representatives, fired with enthusiasm who will give the Australian meat industry the expertise and drive to compete in the meat quality world of the future.

This is done through:

• Exposing students to the fundamentals of meat quality education.
• Demonstrating to students how and why markets perceive meat quality differently and highlighting the various carcase specifications required by these markets.
• Exposing students to different systems of meat identification and classification
• Providing training and a non-threatening competitive environment to assist students develop confidence and communication skills.
• Providing an opportunity for students to acquire and apply knowledge of practical aspects of meat science.
• Raising students’ awareness of career opportunities that exist in the meat industry.
• Exposing students to the requirements of the end-user (consumer)
• Exposing student to new technologies within the meat industry.

If my experience is anything to go by  the ICMJ competition achieves this in spades. And  if I have got it right the program includes visits to abattoirs. What a great job it is doing of sharing the farm to fork story in a pragmatic way and inspiring a passion for careers in the beef industry and in the case of YFC Dr Steph Fowler (picture below)  it can even inspire a PhD in Meat Science

Dr Steph Fowler – meat scientist

Now here is an interesting site for those who want to learn more about Australian Abattoirs

My posts on Australian agriculture leadership or lack of have created some very robust conversations. Some people are under the misconception I am suggesting that I am agriculture’s solution to the leadership void

Heaven forbid that is the last thing on my mind.  Whilst I acknowledge I may have been letting the cat into the pigeon house and the goat into the garden and putting the fifth wheel on the car the exciting news is agriculture in 2016 does have a visionary leader.

He meets the 24/7 365 dirt under the fingernails prerequisite, the only thing that may hold him back in some peoples eyes is he is under 40. OMG that some-one so young should be our silver bullet.

His name is James Walker – he hails from the beef state – the home of the feared Maroons.

A bit of background James is the founder of Agrihive

James as far as I am aware is yet to enter agri-politics  –  the question is what is going to entice him to move to the dark side

I will leave this up to the 24/7 365 dirt under the fingernails farmers to work out

While Australian meat producers have a lot to celebrate on Australia Day the nation’s dairy farmers see it in a different light

Australia Day 2011 marks the launch of the Milk Price Wars in this country.

Poor old Australia Day too often in the news for all the wrong reasons. Its fascinating that a corporate  founded by a farmer group would pick Australia Day to launch the Milk Price Wars.

Today I will be talking to the experts for a 2016 reflection on this dark day for Australian dairy cows – the day Coles undervalued their true worth to the health of the nation

To get the ball rolling here is a report on the state of play for dairy farmers in NSW in 2014/15 gleaned through the NSW Dairy Farm Monitor project

There is no denying the first few years where tough and there were a number of exits from the industry

Our dairy farmers are a tough bunch and they love what they do and there are some good news stories as this report shows

You can read the full report here 

Key points:

• In 2014/15 milk price reached an average of $7.46/kg MS (54 c/l), on the back of strong competition for milk to meet the demands of the NSW and southern Queensland liquid milk market. This is the highest milk price received in the four years of the project.
• Favourable seasonal conditions and above average rainfall meant that farms consumed more home grown feed and increased their fodder reserves during the year.
• Farm profitability significantly improved this year compared to 2013/14. The average earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) was $1.32/kg MS (10 c/l), which was a 48% improvement on the previous year.
• This year there was a marked difference in profit between the farmers in the two groups.

North:

• Across the North, most farms experienced dry conditions in spring, with wet conditions in autumn resulting in above average rainfall for the year. Milk prices rose by 6% to $7.62 /kg MS (55 c/l).
• The average cost of production was very similar to the year before, at $7.79 / kg MS for the North, leading to better overall profit than the previous year.
• Farms fed a little more purchased feed per cow but paid less for it, with concentrates reaching $434 per tonne of dry matter (t DM) on average for 2014/15.
• Average whole farm earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were $120,427 per farm compared to $67,137 in 2013/14. Average return on assets also rose from 0.8% in 2013/14 to 1.9% in 2014/15.

South

• Most of the South region experienced reasonably good seasonal conditions throughout 2014/15, with close to or above average rainfall throughout the year.
• Milk prices increased by around 2% over the previous year to $7.28/kg MS. Cost of production decreased in 2014/15, to $6.11/kg MS, with lower prices for purchased feed.
• Average EBIT per farm was $434,843 per farm this year, up 50% on the previous year. Average return on assets increased to 5.3%, from 4.8% in 2013/14.

Farmer confidence

Following better than average profits in 2014/15, intentions for increasing milk production next year were strongly positive across both regions.

Labour issues including succession planning, along with seasonal conditions and input costs were the top three issues identified by farmers over the next 12 months. Over the longer term the key issues for farmers are competing land uses including urban encroachment, mining and gas explorations, access to affordable land for expansion; and upgrading aging farm infrastructure.

And what was happening in Victoria – mmh we certainly dont have a one size fits all   See full report here

2014/15 Victorian Dairy Farm Monitor Project

Key points

Almost all farms (97%) recorded positive results in 2014/15.

• Whole farm earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) was positive on average, but 34% lower than last year.

• Return on assets under management decreased to 5.3% from 8.5% last year. The 2013/14 year was exceptional on many levels and this needs to be kept in mind when looking at this year’s results.

• The decrease in milk price was the primary driver behind the reduction in profitability this year.

• The milk price fell 11% from $6.77/kg milk solids in 2013/14 to $6.04/kg milk solids this year.

• The impact of lower milk price combined with challenging seasonal conditions was reduced due to higher milk solids sold per hectare and per cow and slightly lower variable and overhead costs.

• Variable weather conditions across the state provided between 71% and 95% of average long term rainfall.

• Farmer expectations were variable but a large proportion believed operating conditions would  be stable or deteriorate for the 2015/16 season.

• The greatest challenges are still managing climatic variability, sourcing labour and managing the uncertainty of milk price.

I watched the announcement of the pairing of Sarah Pallin and Donald Trump on TV last night and I will be polite and say it didn’t exactly make my day.

As an earlier post this week from me indicated I have predicted that 2016 is the year that our leaders in Australian agriculture will be required to step up to the plate in a way they have never been tested before and if we can’t find this decade’s Rick Farley Australian agriculture is looking at irreparable brand damage    

‘When did we last see a peak representative body deliberately and strategically reach out to its perceived opponents, seek to understand their position fully, and commit to work together to find a way through? ‘ Professor Andrew Campbell  Source 

Let’s have a look at how Leadership Experts in the US are reflecting on leadership selection  after yesterday’s “political marriage” in hell. In this case Will Marre

The Most Common Reason We Select Lousy Leaders

Source