Tag: food security

The Paddock That Grew Nothing

On why “save our farmland” is the wrong fight for the right reason.

Wollongong Railway Station, 1900. 

Take a good look at that old photo of the railway station. Timber and tin, a scatter of weatherboard cottages, and open paddock rolling away in every direction. Now go and stand where the photographer stood. There isn’t a vacant block for miles. Every one of those paddocks filled in, one approval at a time, and nobody felt the loss on the day it happened. That’s how it always goes. The green doesn’t vanish in a single bad decision. It goes in slices, each one too small to argue about, until one day you look up and the hills have a rash.

The same station, 1920. Twenty years on

And it didn’t stop in 1920. Local residents Lesley East and Annette Young and their now husbands still remember driving into Wollongong in the early 1960s to see Psycho at the Regent Theatre on Keira Street, then a grand Art Deco picture palace only a few years old. They parked in a paddock right near the cinema. A paddock, in the middle of town. Today Wollongong is a city of more than 200,000 people, the Regent has been a church since 2005, Crown Street is a pedestrian mall, and the idea of an open field to leave your car in near the main street sounds like a tall tale. But that’s the whole point. Every one of those paddocks was “just one block” once.

Nobody stood in it the day it was lost.

So I have a lot of sympathy for the worry behind Graham Pike’s comment on one of my Catch-Up posts. He was referring to a development application on Minnamurra Lane, Jamberoo, a house and a farm shed on a vacant block, the one Cr Lawton sensibly sent off for a second look and independent legal advice at the May Council meeting. Here’s part of what he said:

“We might not be using the vacant lands or the land in question for food production right now. but most of these lands have been used for farming within the past century or less and, most importantly, we’ll need them for food production again as the human population, even in our area, increases uncontrollably and unsustainably and the resulting suburbanisation sprawls across and fragments this same agricultural/food producing land. The zoning of the land as RU1 or RU2 is a human construct and immaterial. It is still land that we have used and will in future need to use, if any is left uncovered by concrete and asphalt, for food production.” Graham Pike, Jamberoo

I’ve turned that over for days, because there’s a lot in it I agree with. The slow creep of houses and sheds across those hills is real. I’ve watched it happen. And his bigger worry, that we keep paving over the very ground we’ll need to feed ourselves one day, is a serious one.

In a later note, Graham went further and put his finger on what he sees as the root of it all: too many people. Human overpopulation, driving an economy that chews through the natural world. It’s a heartfelt view and plenty of thoughtful people share it.

That’s too big for me to sort out. What I’d say is simpler: whatever any of us thinks about how many people there ought to be, they’re already here. They were born, they need a roof, and saying “there are too many of them” doesn’t put one over a single head. So my mind goes to the thing we can actually do something about, which isn’t the number of people, but where they’re going to live.

The thing is, all that green didn’t go in one big decision anyone could point to. It went in slices, a block here, a shed there, each one too small to worry over on the day. Nobody ever stood up and voted to lose it. It just happened while we weren’t looking.

So maybe the better thing isn’t to fight every single house, but to decide on purpose where the houses should go, instead of letting them turn up one at a time until the hills are full again and we’re left wondering how.

And there’s a part of these “save our farmland” conversations that almost never gets said out loud. Farming is a business. For most farmers, the land isn’t only where they work. It’s the biggest thing they own, the nest egg meant to see them through old age after a lifetime of hard years and thin margins.

So when we say a paddock must stay green forever, I think we should stop and hear what we’re really asking. We’re asking that farmer, and only that farmer, to lock away the worth of their own land so the rest of us can enjoy the view on the drive past. A person in town can sell their house for whatever it’ll fetch. The farmer gets told their paddock is a community treasure and they ought to keep it green for a fraction of what it’s worth. I’m not sure that’s protecting farming. It feels more like asking one family to foot the bill for everyone else’s nice outlook.

I’ve stood on that side of the fence. I dairy farmed for decades, and I know what it is to look at a paddock and see both a lifetime’s work and the only retirement you’ve got. So I find myself asking the question that doesn’t get asked much: is that fair?

And it’s a slippery word, fair. Everyone in this thinks they’re on its side. The people in town feel it’s only fair the hills stay green, they get the view and lose nothing. The farmer feels it’s only fair they get to realise the worth of the land they’ve worked their whole life, the same as anyone else can with what they own. Both are sincere. Both are “fair.” They just can’t both have their way.

And it tends to be the farmer’s fairness that gets left out, because the farmer’s usually not in the room when the rest of us decide their paddock is too precious to touch.

So where does that leave me? Not where you might think. I’m not saying build everywhere. And I’m not saying the green hills don’t count, they’re a good part of why people love this place, and why the visitors come. The slow spread of sheds and houses across those ridgelines is real, and worth watching very closely.

But if we want our farmers to keep the hills green for the rest of us, the least we can do is be honest that we’re asking them to give something up, and decent enough to talk about who carries that cost rather than pretending it’s free.

Lock the gate on a farmer’s land and we haven’t saved farming. We’ve decided their retirement is a fair price for our view.

Good on Cr Lawton for asking for a proper look before anyone signs anything. That’s the kind of careful, eyes-open thinking this deserves, on this block and the next one. The conversation I’d like us to have isn’t “green or houses.” It’s “if we want the green, who pays for it, and is that fair on them?”

I don’t have a tidy answer. I’m not sure there is one. But I think we owe the farmers at least the courtesy of asking.

A note on the photos: I came across these two images on Facebook, where they were dated 1900 and 1920 and identified as Wollongong Railway Station. I haven’t been able to independently verify the dates or the photographer, so if anyone can confirm the details or knows the original source, I’d love to hear from you, please get in touch.

The Shit Sandwich and the Sacred Calling

Last week’s budget was described, by at least one prominent politician, as a shit sandwich. In the days since, my feed has filled up with variations on that theme. Angry posts from farmers and farming families, several of them quoting scripture, most of them warning that the government is now taxing Australians in life and in death.

There is no death tax in this budget. There is no inheritance tax. What there is, among other things, is the end of the pre-CGT exemption for assets bought on or before 19 September 1985. From 1 July 2027, those assets get a market value reset, and any gain after that date becomes taxable. For a family sitting on land a grandfather bought in 1972, that is a genuine change. The pre-2027 gain stays exempt, but the planning assumption that the asset would never attract CGT is gone.

That is worth being angry about if you are directly affected. It is not the end of civilisation, and it is not a death tax, but it is a real shift in the rules for long held family assets. The small business and farm CGT concessions remain in place. The 50% CGT discount is being replaced by cost base indexation, which is a return to how the system worked between 1985 and 1999. Trusts get a 30% minimum tax from 1 July 2028, with several categories exempt.

That is the factual picture. The emotional picture is different, and it is the emotional picture that gets shared.

The post that prompted this one quoted Proverbs 13:22, a good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children, and built an argument that modern tax policy is in tension with biblical stewardship. It is a familiar move in rural commentary.

Farming gets framed as a sacred calling, a multi-generational legacy, the soul of the nation. The argument runs that ordinary commercial rules should not apply to it, because what farmers do is not ordinary commerce.

Here is the problem with that framing. A farm is a small business. It happens to involve land and livestock rather than dry cleaning or panel beating, but the structural features people invoke to mark it as different, capital intensity, weather risk, commodity price exposure, thin margins, succession planning, asset values shifting under policy changes, exist across the small business economy. A suburban café owner whose parents bought the shop in 1980 faces the same pre-CGT change as a grazier whose parents bought the property in 1980. Only one of them gets Proverbs quoted in their defence.

Farmers already have a substantial suite of concessions that other small businesses do not. The small business CGT concessions, the farm-specific rollover, farm management deposits, primary producer income averaging, fuel tax credits, drought assistance and the farm household allowance.  By international standards Australian farmers are lightly supported. The EU and US are far more generous. But by domestic standards, against other small businesses, the deal is good.

Which brings me to the honest version of the argument, the one farm lobbies rarely make out loud because it undercuts the rugged independence branding.

The rebates exist because food has to stay cheap. Australian consumers pay one of the lowest proportions of household income on food in the developed world. That is not an accident. Production costs are subsidised at the input end. Fuel, finance, drought support, levies matched by government. The saving flows through to retail. Governments of both major parties have made the same political judgement for decades. It is cheaper and less visible to subsidise farm inputs than to let food prices float to their true cost. A $12 loaf of bread ends governments faster than a fuel rebate scheme that nobody outside agriculture understands.

There is a second piece, which is food security. Most developed countries support domestic agriculture for the same reason they support domestic steel or semiconductors. You do not want to be wholly import dependent for something essential. That is a legitimate public interest argument and it is the one that should be made.

What is striking is that this argument almost never appears in the angry posts. Instead the framing is persecution. City elites who do not understand us, governments that hate producers, taxes designed to crush the family farm. It is emotionally satisfying and politically effective, but it obscures what is actually going on. The rebates are not charity. They are not a moral reward for choosing a noble profession. They are a consumer subsidy delivered through producers, designed to keep retail food prices down and maintain sovereign production capability.

If the argument were made that way, it would be harder to dismiss. It would also be harder to wrap in scripture, which may be why it is not the version we hear.

The budget is not a shit sandwich. It is a set of policy choices, some of which deserve sharp criticism. Pretending otherwise does the people most affected by the real changes no favours at all.

Why Are We Fighting About Cows When the Real Problem is Us and Trust?

It’s the great cow controversy of 2024, and social media is on fire. This time, it’s not about dairy vs. oat milk or even beef vs. tofu. It’s about a tiny supplement called Bovaer, designed to reduce methane emissions from cattle, and the uproar is deafening.

On Facebook, it’s war. Some are decrying Bovaer as the latest corporate conspiracy, something Bill Gates would whip up in his private jet to poison our milk. Others see it as the saviour of the planet. But here’s what’s really happening: we’re missing the point entirely.

Let’s be honest. The problem isn’t cows. It’s us. The more people we have, the more food we need to produce. That means more cows, more methane, and, yes, more impact on the environment. But when a practical solution comes along to reduce that impact—something backed by a decade of research and field trials—we throw up our hands in shock. Why?

There’s a fundamental trust gap between the people making these solutions and the people consuming them. Scientists, bless their well-intentioned hearts, roll out their data and expect us to just get it. But most people don’t live in peer-reviewed journals. They live in real-world uncertainty, where the line between “helpful innovation” and “corporate takeover” feels razor-thin.

And social media isn’t helping. Instead of nuanced discussions, we’re fed bite-sized outrage. A single post about Bovaer can spiral into fearmongering faster than you can say “methane,” leaving consumers more sceptical than informed.

Take a moment to consider this: humans pop supplements every day with little to no evidence that they work. Collagen powders, detox teas, mystery vitamins—there’s a whole industry thriving on the “it can’t hurt, right?” mentality. But introduce a scientifically-proven supplement for cows, and suddenly we’re all chemical experts, clutching our organic milk bottles like lifelines.

The debate over Bovaer isn’t really about methane or cows. It’s about trust. Trust in the people who make our food. Trust in the researchers who develop solutions. And trust in each other to have real conversations instead of trading cheap shots online.

We can’t fix this problem by vilifying farmers who are trying to do the right thing, whether they’re grass-feeding their cows or testing methane-reducing additives. Nor can we solve it by blindly defending corporate-backed solutions without addressing consumer concerns.

Here’s the truth: no single fix is perfect. Grass-fed systems sequester carbon but still produce methane. Feedlot systems can use products like Bovaer but rely on grain, which has its own environmental cost. The real solution lies in recognising that everyone—farmers, scientists, and consumers—is on the same team. We all want sustainable food systems. We all want to protect the planet. We just need to stop fighting long enough to figure out how to get there.

So, next time you see a post about cows “killing the planet” or a product like Bovaer being the hero or villain of the story, pause. Ask questions. Demand transparency.

But don’t let fear or outrage guide the narrative. Because if we don’t tackle the root problem—how we produce and consume food—we’re just mooing in circles.

Will agriculture ever learn? How many own goals does it need to kick? Trust and Transparency is everything.

I rest my case 4 December 2024 SMH – Panic over additive in cattle feed sparks milk and meat furore 

 

#Bovaer #MethaneReduction #SustainableFarming #GrassFedBeef #DairyFarming #ClimateAction #FoodSecurity #LivestockSolutions #EnvironmentalImpact #ConsumerTrust

What if there were no farmers could we feed ourselves from our backyards?

The team at Picture You in Agriculture has been surveying young people between the ages of 8 and 18 and adults with a tertiary education for 15 years to get an understanding of their images and perceptions of the industry that feeds and clothes us.

To see whether the community realises the depth and breadth of the role Australian farmers play in not only feeding and clothing us as well as managing  60% of the land in Australia we ask them three questions.

The answer to only one of these three questions is well known. The exact statistic is blurry depending on who is collating the data and their classification of what constitutes a “farmer”. Irrespective of that challenge Australians know Australian farmers look after a big chunk of Australia.

This year we decided to create a graphic to raise awareness of these facts. The below graphic is the first iteration.

The source of the data is the fabulous Climate Works Australia Interactive 

These statistics are important because:

  • Australian farmers produce enough food to feed 3 x the population of Australia. This means Australia is food self sufficient or food independent (see footnote)  and that’s pretty impressive and very rare.
  • Its imperative that Australian farmers have profitable, climate resilient farming systems because who is going to look after 60% of Australia if we don’t have farmers?
  • Australia is the hottest, driest continent. Water is a precious resource. Our soils are fragile. It is imperative our farmers be the best they can be

Above are the facts below is the reality

  • The majority of Australians think we import 50% of our food !!!!!
  • Australians know our farmers look after up to 60% of the Australia’s land.
  • The majority of Australians think we can grow fruit and vegetables. (horticulture) and crops on all our farmland.

Feeding and clothing people is a big responsibility and it is a risky business 

Not only do:

  • we want access to food when we need it (food security),
  • we want it to be affordable,
  • we want it to be safe, and
  • we want it to be nutritious.

And if we are forward thinking we want more

We want Australia’s land and waterways to be able to supply it for generations to come whilst ensuring we can live in harmony with all the magnificent wildlife we have here

How do we rank compared to the rest of the world?

Its pretty shocking that 1 in 5 Australians go to bed hungry every night yet 30% of us are obese and our environmental record is definitely one area we can do better  


Source

This is why it is a shared responsibility. It takes a village and more. Partnerships between those who produce ( farmers) and those who consume ( all of us) are so important and this is why our team love what we do.

Footnote

“Food security” means being able to afford to access to adequate and sufficient food, regardless of where it comes from.

“Food self-sufficiency” is when we grow all the food we need, right here in Australia .