Dont know whether the KPMG got commissioned by anybody important to us farmers, or whether its just another group of headbangers sounding important, but its report released yesterday has some interesting comments, compiled from interviews with "more than 80 agribusiness leaders".
They say a national agribusiness strategy is needed so industry wants and vision can determine long term decisions.....
Uh huh...
The key recommendations contained therein open up worthwhile issues for discussion:
> Introduce a bio-security levy on passenger and product arrivals, they say for researching incursion threat
- but I'd say, better spent on expanded border policing
> Tax incentives to allow young farmers to invest in farming businesses
- disagree, incentives are a distortion to rational money flow
> Skills incentive program to attract qualified people into the rural orbit
- disagree, its that incentive word again, and I think they're including in this one targeted student loans
I'd sooner student loans implement a system where they actually got paid back
> Charge farmers for water taken for irrigation
- fair enough, but what about where farmers have paid to build their own scheme?
> Greater degree of integration on carbon strategy
- dump the lot
> Industry task-force to establish needs of international markets on sustainability so that a production code can be set up
- arent we already there?
> Greater meat company control over stock ownership to better manage plant throughput
- that's easy, they can put their money where their mouth is and buy it, some companies already do,
or the other way round, why didnt they suggest more farmer ownership of meat companies
> Greater collaboration along the value chain on meat, wool, wine and dairy
- well, dairy's been there for some time, wool, we gave it a decent shot, meat, coming along, so's wine
> Explore organic market opportunities
- great, except polls say few seem to want to pay the extra, in the face of cheaper conventional stuff
and I've left the doozey for last...
> Minimum stockmanship standards to be met before a farmer is (get this), licensed to own animals...
So how will this work?
Another layer of bureaucracy adding cost and decreasing profit, and with a further prospective role to play if/when NAIT gets properly rolling too. You can bet your balls some boffin will dream up a national births, deaths and marriages register for farm animals, if it isnt already in the pipeline, (and I bet it is), so that will have to have a qualified professional to oversee farmers returns, and comment on every death over and above "normal", (and who's going to say what's normal).
This whole suggestion of permitting me to do my business on an asset bought and paid for with my own family's blood, sweat, and tears, is just a bad joke.
Another example of the non-farm community extracting tribute by way of witch-doctor mongering.
Like with the possibility of farmers having to be licensed to own and run quads, the people charged with qualifying us, will probably know less about the subject than we do.
I havent been visited by the OSH Quad Squad yet, but how many of them coming to tell me how to suck eggs will have run a farm motorcycle (without serious accident) since 1966, how many of them will own and run 5 motorcycles, quads and ATV's (and pay the ridiculous registration fees on each), how many of them will have held a full motorcycle road license since 1970, how many of them will have ridden 20,000km in the states in USA where helmet-wearing isnt in the law and not seen any negative impact on statistics, let alone on a farm for 45 years.
How many of them will even have been born before then?
Of course, they'll come up with accident statistics, but they'll probably skim over the fact that over 40% of fatalities on quads are smart arses from towns who think their country cousin's machinery is mainly for demonstrating their thoughtless toy-thrashing prowess on.
The constant higher moral ground barrage on farming isnt helping it's future.
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