Agmates

Have you been watching the US elections. Sarah Palin swept to the publics attention worldwide when she became John McCain’s vice president running mate.

I’ve been dying to comment on her appointment. This Video comment by Keith Olbermann from 3 days ago, I think says most of the things I’ve been thinking.

It is unbelievable that anyone could ever think that this ‘moose-hunting, soccer mum’ could be elected as vice president considering that Mccain if elected would be the oldest president elect ever.

If elected Palin would be just a 72 year old heart beat from the United States Presidency …… sssshhhhheeesh

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Agmates Video Gallery.

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Seen a video or you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Todays Crikey “Rooted” article is a ripper.

Agmate’s and North Queensland graziers Glenn and Natalie Williams [ pictured below] put the general public straight on what our farmers are doing about carbon sequestration.

Great stuff Natalie.

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“I have to wonder if ordinary Australian’s get away from the computer long enough to get outside and actually make a difference to the world…and sequester some carbon.

Farmers and graziers are sequestering more carbon in a week than other Australian would in a lifetime.

How do I know? Because I am walking the talk ….We have documented and satalite evidence that our pastures have changed from D class to A class in just over 5 years….(look up the DNR&M website for clarification of pasture assessment if you don’t already know).

We have done this over our entire property of 17000 acres. My husband and I are not anything unusual ….farmers and graziers are doing this everyday of the week in Australia and this goes on unrecognized and deliberately avoided.”

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Read the rest of this Article on Crikey Here

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The falling Australian dollar is a god send for Australian Farmers. The dollar is back at levels not seen since 2001. The Australian dollar has been heavily sold down as global traders dump currencies that are tied to resources.

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“National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) manager of economics Charlie McElhone said the NFF estimated that every US1¢ fall in the Australian dollar increased net farm income by $190 million in cash terms.

The Australian dollar, which reached US98¢ in mid-August, closed at US72¢ yesterday. “That’s about $5 billion in revenue terms in added income,” Mr McElhone said.”

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Its not all good news though as all farm inputs like fertiliser, chemical and machinery manufactured overseas will of course be more expensive. But we’d rather have the dollar at 72 cents than were is was just 8 weeks ago at 98 cents.

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

World finance makets are in melt down today. But here are some great numbers for Australias farmers, as at lunch time today:

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• The Aussie dollar was trading around 72 US cents, just 9 weeks ago it was 98cents. This will represent a massive boost for farm incomes.
• Oil was under $US89 a barrel, just 10 weeks ago it was $147 a barrel. Thats a 40% drop with no high dollar to distort the price. This should mean we will see fuel that was $1.70 a litre 10 weeks ago now back under a dollar a litre.
• The Reserve bank is expected to cut interest rates by half a percent today with more cuts expected to follow. It was just 12 weeks ago as variable rates edged up toward 10% that the Reserve was talking up more rate rises.

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The four major farm inputs are interest on debt, fuel, fertilizer & chemical (chemical & fertilizer prices are driven by oil prices). The cost all four major inputs has fallen dramatically. The dramatic fall in the dollar will drive export commodity prices up.

The Emissions Trading Scheme is dead and buried, or at least delayed indefinitely. Imposing an ETS on an economy is the perogative of only wealthy Western Countries.

The Government will have its hands full securing our economy in the face of a resources slow down that will follow a Western World recession, as surely as night follows day. It can ill afford to saddle the ecomony with the fiscal pressure of a go-it-alone carbon tax in industry and jobs.

The chances of the major emitting nations of the USA, China, Russia and India agreeing to restrict their economies will now be Slim to none, and Slim just let the building.

At last farmers had something to smile about. Its not all bad news. Unless of course farmers had borrowed up big to buy Shares or Urban Real Estate. Thats not likely.

It was disappointing to see ABC TV Media Watch program tear into Rural Press’s QLD Country Life last night over appalling examples of “churnalism”.

Of course the QCL deserves it, but still I’m disappointed. Back on the 8th of December last year I called for Rural Press to remove the QCL’s editor Mark Phelps if it wished to restore the papers credibility.

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That was the last time I wrote about how really bad the QCL is.

Since then I’ve just ignored the fact that they just turn out other organizations Media Releases virtually unaltered as news.

How do I know, I get many of the same press releases sometimes a week before I’ll see them printed word for word in the QCL as ‘news’.

I was disappointed that Media Watch exposed what most readers sensed was going on anyway. That sense is that QLD farmers get very little or no objective reporting on the vital rural issues of the day, instead they are just served up the regurgitated (by the QCL) media spin of Government Departments, and farmer peak bodies.

For example Media Watch higlited articles run word for word either in the paper or at their on line web site. These articles were run word for word off these organizations press releases but passed off as ‘news’. In professional journalism that practice is given the derisive name “Churnalism”.

Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) Weed Sciences team

Cotton Australia

Australian Wool Innovation LTD (AWI)

AgForce

Queensland Farmers Federation. (QFF)

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QCL has also had trouble with the press council over biased reporting against the Australian Beef Association. ABA is considered by many as anti establishment and has certainly been critical of many of the Peak Industry Groups (those groups who’s media releases QCL preprints as news).

Indeed the QCL and ABA have been at loggerheads for years with the QCL branding ABA as a “radical” producer organization.

Twice the QCL have had complaints made against them by directors of the Australian Beef Association for biased reporting. Embarrassingly on both occasions those complaints were either fully or partly ‘upheld’ and the QCL has had to print an apology.

However as I said I’m disappointed that Media Watch has targeted QCL. When I launched Agmates I advertised the site in the QCL. After a couple of weeks I had a phone call from QCL’s John Condon, an old mate of mine.

John rang personally to advise that a decission had been made ‘at a board meeting’ that they would not accept any paid advertising for the Agmates web site.

In simple terms, we had been “black banned” by Rural Press. The reason I was given was that they had decided that the Agmates business was a threat to their Newspaper business and they were not prepared to advertise Agmates.

As it turned out it has not affected us at all. With over 10,000 site visitors a month and growing at 25% - every month we are doing OK.

But what they are really frightened of is when farmers and agents realize that they can use the Classified & Auction part of the Agmates site and get better and wider coverage for their advertising dollar at a fraction of the price.

For example - a property ad with 20 colour photos is on Agmates until it sold (or 12 months) is just $220. The same ad in the QCL with as many photos would be approx $12,000 - $14,000 and run for just one week and only seen in QLD. Similarly Business & Studs can advertise on Agmates with 12 colour photos for just $440 a year. Auctions are also now available with a ’success fee’ only. If it doesn’t sell, it Free.

So Rural Press was doing its best to kill Agmates before it got started. They are terrified of losing the millions of dollars farmers and ag companies spend on advertising each year in their papers.

Rural Press is terrified that its “Rural Rivers of Gold” classified advertising will dry up just like it is for them in their metropolitan papers.

That being the case, without quality journalism there will be no need to buy the QCL at all.

Just yesterday in a email newsletter to my Agmates Co Owners I wrote:

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“The future of media is not the newspaper that you currently get each week, its online. An example of this is Fairfax Media who own Rural Press. Fairfax just announced they were putting off 550 employees here in Australia - 70-80 of which are Journalists.

The reason is that they are losing $2m a month out of their Newspaper Classifieds (known in the past as the “rivers of gold”) in Sydney & Melbourne.

That advertising is going online and they don’t have a strong online presence in Australia. Their best performing business is Rural Press and they are looking at modeling the rest of their business on Rural Press.

Rural press is Fairfax’s best performing business because in the niche Rural Market they have virtually no newspaper competition in the 5 states they operate in. Rural press also is a success because they don’t employ a lot of Journalists. But their Classified business is hugely profitable.

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Media Watch should just stand back and leave it to Rural Press and the QCL too keep up the good work.

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Have Your say!

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Executive Director of Gene Ethics Bob Phelps [ pictured below] writes:

We have produced a map of Genetically Manipulated (GM) Roundup tolerant canola sites and GM canola depots in NSW & Victoria. Click on the link to see the maps.

We have published these maps today with information gleaned from media reports. GM canola pollen and seed dispersal threaten many rural industries with gene contamination.

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Our map will help protect GM-free grain growers, beekeepers and harvesters from GM contamination. Only one in a thousand farmers is growing GM canola this year, but they pose an unacceptable risk of GM contamination to all other farmers, rural industries, local government and shoppers.

Monsanto has grossly inflated the scale of GM plantings and the number of GM farmers to draw others into buying its patented seed next year. GM canola contamination is inevitable if we don’t act to stop it now as the GM giants are determined to make all NSW and Victorian canola GM as soon as possible.

States acknowledged that GM segregation and containment are impossible when they set a 0.5% threshold for ‘accidental’ GM contamination in seed for planting, and 0.9% in harvested grain.

It’s impossible to stop the spread of canola seed during windrowing, harvest and transport, with at least 2.5 million seeds per hectare and they can lie dormant for up to ten years before germinating.

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What a weekend. Even though I did not post a single article yesterday we had 1,079 unique visitors to the site. Thats our biggest weekend ever. Thats on the back of our biggest month ever in September with 10,252 unique visitors last month.

Thanks for your support.

It was NRL grand final day yesterday. Had intended to post last night but was in shock over Manly’s drubbing of the Melbourne Storm.

Manly deserve their victory (though I’m of the Era where is hard to cheer for the ‘Silvertails’) - the largest winning margin in a GF in history - 40 to 0.

Largest Winning margin ever in a NRL GF.

Like Geelong it is sad to see a team that has been the bench mark for the last couple of seasons come up short on the day. But that’s footy. - 2009 - go the Broncos.

In my previous article $5 billion Potential in farming from Biosequestration in soil, pasture and trees. I pointed out that the Australian government needed to look at the huge potential of biosequestration on our rangelands to offset carbon emissions.

I called for more funding for research and for vigoursous lobbying in the lead up to the next Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

Grant Molloy of Dairy Park between Bathurst and Cowra NSW has forwarded this email from fellow grazier and Holistic Management Educator Bruce Ward.

It turns out that Tim Flannery is actively championing farmers causes in both of the areas I put forward. This is particularly relevant in that Tim is the Chair of Australia’s Copenhagen Committee. Grant writes:

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“This email was sent to me today from Bruce Ward Holistic Management educator, the bloke that educated myself.

The section of the interview relevant to farmers ( I think it is all relevant) starts at 34 minutes. This is a positive that we should focus on, particularly considering the carbon emission issues that we face are nearly over whelming, for some.

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I have listened to the interview and I agree with Grant that is tremendous. Goes for about 50minutes. Heres the email from Bruce [ pictured ]. Link to the Audio is at the bottom. Click on Listen now, Like I did, you’ll learn a lot.

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Exports of Australian beef to Russia are surging on that back of that countries increasing national prosperity.

Despite a recent drop in exports the future for Australian beef in the Russian market is still strong, according to the head of the Russian National Meat Association, Sergey Yushin [pictured below].

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Mr Yushin, who will be visiting Australia in November for Meat and Livestock Australia’s Meat Profit Day in Orange NSW, is set to provide Australia’s livestock producers with an insider’s view of the emerging Russian meat market.

Russia has emerged as Australia’s fourth largest beef export market this year, taking 61,405 tonnes during the calendar year to August, of which 7,567 tonnes was exported in August. In comparison, Australia had sent only 942 tonnes to Russia in the year to August last year.

During his visit Mr Yushin will explain how beef consumption in Russia is growing as the economy in that country continues to improve and disposable incomes increase.

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“During the last five years, according to the official statistics, the average Russian’s income has grown from 125 dollars to more than 500 dollars per month. During this time meat consumption has been strong and growing, Mr Yushin said.

The outlook looks bright, with the Russian Ministry of Economy forecasting that by 2020 disposable incomes will grow by 1.8-2.4 times and wages will grow by 1.9-2.9 times.”

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Professor Ross Garnaut in his final climate change report does see a silver lining for farmers and rural communities. The potential revenue for biosequestration for farmers at a carbon price of $20 a tonne is $5 billion dollars a year.

Opposition climate change spokesperson Greg Hunt [ pictured] is a biosequestration enthusiast:

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“We have been talking of a conservative target of 60 to 80 million tonnes a year of natural sequestration, he says.

Garnaut has gone for a bolder figure of 250 million tonnes from a combination of soils, pastures, woodlands and forests.

I don’t think that is outrageous or unreasonable in terms of its potential for Australia. At a carbon price of $10 a tonne, that is $2.5 billion going to rural Australia each year.”

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One of the major stumbling blocks for Australian farmers to realize this potential is that the Kyoto protocol does not recognize carbon sequestration from soils, pasture, woodland or forests established pre- 1990.

The second impediment is a globally accepted accounting method for sequestration by soils and pasture.

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