Everywhere I go people tell me that biggest problem agriculture has is that it is run by old grey haired men. These grey harried men being a cohort of people developing a position for agriculture in the 21st century based on their narrow view of their little part of the world in the last century.
So, many people I admire and seek wise advice from are very surprised that I have done what I said would never do and put my hand up to enter the world of agri-politics.
These wise people are in one of two camps. They are either questioning my sanity or telling me I am very, very brave.
Why have I done this you ask?
Well there are two keys reasons
Firstly I am truly worried dairy industry policy is being driven by people in the industry who live in a silo hell-bent on indoctrinating fellow dairy farmers and everyone else who will listen that whole world revolves around the dairy industry. Dairy farmers like it or not are just part of a team of people who get the milk from cow and consumer and that consumer drinks milk as a part of diet that farmers from multiple food industries right across Australia contribute to.
Lets not forget feeding people is just part of the story, just as important farmers clothe and house people as well. What is even better is we all have so much to learn from each other right along the supply chain and until we acknowledge this we are thinking in the dark ages
Secondly our wonderful team of Young Farming Champions are hell-bent on making a difference in this world and being the change that agriculture must have. Excitingly they are totally committed to gaining the skills sets to ensure this can happen. Ultimately if I am going to help them do is I had to bite the bullet and go to the coal face.
Let me tell you if my experiences to date are what I have to look forward to its scary out there and more often than not its the friendly fire that takes the most casualties.
Wish me luck
Thank you Cathy Law for sharing this image with me
And may we always remember
“Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn’t measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It’s not winning battles that makes you happy, but it’s how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.”
― C. JoyBell C.