Agmates has been writing for months about the disastrous impact on Australian farmers of the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme in its current form.
We have been critical of Australia’s peak farming lobby group the National Farmers Federation (NFF) almost total public silence on the issue.
Finally flushed out by the concerns of the Agmates community coupled with the rising chorus of dissent from Agricultural economists the NFF has broken its silence on the issue.
As reported In todays Age Newspaper the NFF is calling on the Rudd government to issue the farming community with free permits. “Make ETS Permit Free for Farmers, says NFF”
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The National Farmers’ Federation said free permits for agriculture would be justified as action by farmers had cut greenhouse emissions from agriculture, forestry and fishing by 41.7% between 1990 and 2005.
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The NFF call comes from it’s submission released 12 days ago [10th of September] in response to the Governments publication of its Green Paper in July of this year.
The NFF says that free permits would cushion the impact of increased farm input costs that farmers and rural economist have warmed will force 1,000’s of farmers off the land.
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“This process [free permits for Agriculture] has been adopted in Europe and New Zealand,” the NFF said.”Agriculture’s capacity to pass on costs is notoriously poor, meaning that many farmers will be forced to absorb the vast majority of the cost of these permits,” the NFF said.
“It would be perverse if agriculture was more adversely treated in the Australian CPRS than in any other ETS in the world,” the federation said.
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The issues we have raised in articles like “ABARE Chiefs warn Ag Doomed under ETS” [18th Sept] are also starting to receive national press coverage. Our most prestigious National Newspaper The Australian today has run this article “Emission Scheme “will mug farmers“.
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Brian Fisher [pictured] , executive director of Concept Economics and former head of the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics ….
Although farming is exempted from the ETS until at least 2015, Dr Fisher says that many small farmers will be mugged in the meantime by increases in the costs of inputs such as electricity and fertiliser.
His warning reinforces recent modelling by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Farm Institute that predicts many businesses will be made unprofitable by the scheme.”
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We have to ask why has the NFF needed to wait for the likes of Agmates,[5/7/08] ABARE, Concept Economics, [18/9/08], Business Council of Australia, Australian Farm Institute,[15/9/08] Queensland Farmers Federation,[15/9/08] to come out publically and state what should have been obvious to Australia’s peak farming body…….
Indeed after the release of The Green Paper on the 8th of July we called for the NFF to ’step up to the plate’ on behalf of Australian farmers.
“National Farmers Federation Must Save Australian Agriculture”.
Finally 10 weeks later the NFF is rather timidly poking their head out of its shell, to add its voice to the protests on behalf of Australian Farmers. Hardly a driving force.
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