Rural Australia

Ailsa Fox of the VFF stated this week that, livestock agents should be acting for their vendor clients (producers) and standing-up to processors on issues such as pre-sale versus post-sale weighing of cattle at markets.
However, Andy Madigan, CE of the agents national association, said that they simply did what they were told. (He didn’t say whether that was what their clients or the buyers told them).

This issue has quite a dark history as it is the agents who provided the vital support for;
1. Collecting MLA levy taxes
2. Supporting NLIS
3. Supporting LPA
4. Supporting post-weighing
5. Supporting ownership of Korumburra yards by its operator who subsequently sold the yards

If agents are going to survive in this more competitive marketplace of less yardings, direct-sales, forward contracts and tighter cost management, then they will need to firmly place themselves on the side that is buttering their bread and show where they are adding value.

What do you think? Please post a comment below.

In general, the ACCC is NOT providing consumers with protection.
Take the great beef pricing rip-off for example;
The Australian Beef Association (ABA) has stated that,
“ACCC Grocery Report Beef Section riddled with errors of fact. ACCC allows the “$4 billion consumer rip-ff …” Read more…

And The Age newspaper’s Michael West has a similar outlook when asking, “Did the investigators visit a supermarket? Read the article

This is not good enough!
Consumers know that the big oil companies have made massive profits as a result of gouging from the oil price rises (that we told are just passing-on the increased costs- What rubbish!)
Graeme Samuel needs to extract the didget, get fair dinkum and stop spouting absolute garbage - websites publishing prices? I suppose next, they’ll be telling us that publishing politicians and public servants salaries on the Web will bring those down too - Hah!

What do you think?
Please leave a comment below.

The 3 experts who have addressed this issue missed by Prof Garnaut are, Geoff Russell (a mathematician and computer programmer), Peter Singer (Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne) & Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Professor of Climate Change at the University of Adelaide).

They conclude by stating,
“Just stop breeding so many sheep and cattle in Australia. And because methane is such a huge contributor to climate change, this is not just an “earth hour” stunt. This is the real deal”.

See the complete Age story here

If the real climate change culprit *is* methane gas from cows and sheep, how can they be exempt from carbon taxing or carbon trading?

When the second-largest current climate change contributor is coal and it gets mentioned 272 times in the Garnaut report and methane from cows and sheep only get mentioned once in the appendices, don’t just think, “We’re safe because we’re special”. Because in a World obsessed with carbon poisoning, no-one is considered special and there are a lot of very influential people out there working on these issues who won’t think you’re special either. If you don’t address it before someone else does it could be to your detriment.

This information is almost certain to get the shock-horror 60 minutes and A Current Affairs shows ranting and they might have a point.
However, I suggest that the World’s farmers work damned hard at ensuring their vegetation can be carbon valued and carbon traded in order to offset the methane production imbalance. If Holden and Coal miners are going to be able to buy carbon credits from forestry plantations then why shouldn’t farmers receive credits from their investment over a couple of hundred years in Australia’s vegetation on their tax-paying farms?!

What do you think

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If you thought all would be OK in the water stakes with a new federal Government, think again! The past mob might have been totally useless but this crowd still has to prove they are different. Ignoring this deadline doesn’t seem like they care .

Scientists say the lower Murray that includes the Coorong, may be now ruined for good. Vegetation has disappeared, some fish species may be gone and salinity is king. Apparently things could be better if the Government deemed increased flows.

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If as Murray Arnel at Stock and Land (Fairfax) (May29) reports, NVD’s are not being completed up to 50% of the time then where does that place the LPA program that relies upon NVD’s?

It’s not news that NVD boxes aren’t being ticked and animal breeds aren’t being completed. While NVD’s have become the default transactional document they are by no means mandatory to transact livestock.

And now it seems the claims made by processors and their membership body, MLA, that NVD’s must be completed, is not absolute and agents are working with processors to attempt to get their client vendors to rectify the situation. This then raises another question about whether agents should be working for their client vendors or the processor buyers - who is paying whom for what services here?!

There’s no doubt NVD’s have served a productive purpose over the years. Is it just since MLA and the processors have interferred with the free market that they are buggering up?
What do you think?

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Rabobank’s latest quarterly survey apparently found that rising input costs and inconsistent rainfall has caused a drop in Australian farmer confidence. Gee, I wouldn’t have thought you would need to be Einstein or run an expensive survey to work that one out!

The survey, apparently questioned around 1200 farmers, found that 38 per cent of farmers expected the agricultural economy to improve over the next twelve months, down from 52 per cent last quarter. Despite the drop, the number of farmers who believe the situation will improve was still above the amount who believe it will deteriorate, which was at 22 per cent, up from 15 per cent in the last survey….And apparently Rabobank’s general manager of Rural Australia Peter Knoblanche said, “without significant winter rain, growers may be prevented from taking advantage of good commodity prices”. (businessspectator.com.au)

This type of meaningless drivel could be of use in a shares stock market that operates to a certain extent on emotion and herd mentality. However, in regard to Australian farming and farmers, it makes me think 3 things;.

1. Whoever is spruiking this type of media release (in this case, Rabobank) is simply looking for a ‘respectable’ excuse to market their brand and gain some additional marketplace credibility from it.
2. Banks have way too much money to be able to waste it this way and perhaps should look at decreasing their rates by cutting their marketing spend.
3. Australia’s farmers are in a valuable market niche segment that deserves more respect from so many brands and marketers, whether local or city-based.

What are some surveys you would like to see performed?  Who agrees with mandatory standardised meat quality assessments? Succession planning? Whether the weather is going to be all rosy at your place within 3 months? Whether your representative farmer groups are representing you well enough? What methods you might be able to use to decrease input costs?
Let us and your mates know via the ‘Comments’ link below.

Even though grain commodity prices might be attractive, the soaring price of diesel is driving down farmers’ profits and forcing them to think twice about planting crops.
Diesel has hit $1.80 a litre and fuel-monitoring company Fueltrac has warned it could reach $2 by next year. How can farmers recoup increased input costs?

National Farmers’ Federation economist Charlie McElhone said the price of fuel was “most definitely” a problem for farmers and was eroding margins. Article on fuel costs to farmers
Country Women’s Association NSW president Margaret Roberts says there are less trips to town because of fuel costs. Article on fuel costs to farmers. When input costs increase in most other industries, prices have to increase to assist in covering such costs. How can Australian farmers increase their sell-price when they are beholden to the ‘price makers’, the Buyers - whether through agents or ‘direct’ the buyers make the price?! Something should be done! But what?! Is this what you expect groups like your MLA, Cattle Council (CCA) & NFF to be working on or are they really just involved at the advertising end and assisting processors/buyers to have more control over quality?