Agmates

Ben Rees - Farmer & Economist writes:

Some extracts from a terrific article that Ben wrote as a perspective for the Courier Mail.

INTERNATIONAL discussion on the food crisis has more balance than the blatant environmental agenda pushed by Australian commentators.

Ethanol production is only one factor influencing United States and European Union food prices.

Other factors are speculators trading commodity futures, energy prices and farm input costs.

Like all policy changes, environmental policies carry opportunity costs. Land transfer from agriculture to forestry carries costs of forgone food and energy production. A land clearing ban at the expense of food production were acts of political opportunism and ideological extremism. Agmates article - Grow Trees or Grow Food.

Future food security for our growing population has become hostage to environmental extremism.

Food inflation originates from failed market economics, environmental extremism, escalating farm costs and high energy prices…………

To read Ben’s Courier Mail Article online Click Here.

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Have your say!

Read the article and come back and leave us your thoughts.

Editors Note: Below is a small exert from Julian Cribb’s article. This is a must read for every farmer and rural policy maker in Australia. Fantastic and well done Julian. Agmates has been saying this for ages, but it takes a world food shock for others to realize it.

Julian Cribb (pictured below) is an adjunct professor of science communication at the University of Technology, Sydney. He writes:

Farmers will be the Hero’s of the Coming Food Crisis.

Most people think of farmers as the people ‘out there’ who grow the food and, occasionally, gripe about the weather. The farmer of the 21st century, however, may be the person who rescues civilization.

International agencies, like the World Bank last week, are belatedly recognizing the global food crisis is much closer than the climate change crisis or even than the next oil crisis – as a string of food riots and disturbances round the world already suggests.

And only farmers can get us through it. Australian governments, it is almost redundant to say, have not yet woken up to it.

It is also a challenge for which Australia is singularly well-qualified ………… It is a task we cannot, in conscience, ignore - either in our own country or in the wider world.

It is also an opportunity like none other, for renewal of the natural world, for economic and rural growth, for the relief of human misery and for developing a sustainable basis for civilisation as a whole.

Read the whole article by Clicking here.

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Have Your say!

Once you have read the article come back here and leave other Agmates your opinion of the article!

Leave your comment below or click on the blue word Comments and the text box will pop up.

Northern Territory Grazier John Khan (pictured) writes:

Regarding the media release by Garnett and McFadyen on March 31st demonizing Gamba Grass, and the subsequent announcement by Minister Mulherin a few days later that Gamba would be banned, I make the following statements.

Garnett and McFadyen may know something about environmental science, but it is clear that they are so engrossed on their own idealism that they are either ignorant or contemptuous of everything else. They claim their opinions have been proved correct by scientific research and experiment.

Environmentalism is an inexact science, based on personal opinions, with the concepts very open to debate, and the conclusions and teachings almost devoid of economic values. The experiments are easily tailored and fabricated to support the scientists own beliefs and aspirations.

Photo of Brahman Cows grazing Gamba pasture, note the diversity of species, with trees and other grasses present.

The Charles Darwin University and the Tropical Savannas CRC have not produced any plausible plans for control or eradication of Gamba. They have not succeeded in controlling Gamba on Crown land. They have not come up with any alternatives for the farmer. All that they have said implies a determination to eradicate farmers from the savanna and reduce the population. They have turned a blind eye to the scenario of farming co-existing with the natural environment.

The world is not growing any larger but the population is increasing, and 80% of the people do not get enough to eat. Global Warming may worsen the situation. If we do not grow more food, we will not survive to enjoy the savanna. Our national security depends on populating and using the North of Australia.

Most Asians see us as “Dogs in the Manger” who are either too lazy or stupid to use our resources or else so wealthy that we don’t need to. Either way we are sitting on land that they would like to use, as their population grows and they get hungrier they will probably decide to change the situation.

Instead of banning Gamba, Minister Mulherin would be better employed helping the agricultural industry to survive and grow, rather than pandering to a small group of radicals who have no logic or reasoning to back up their call.

The photo below is of Pure Spear Grass gone to seed and useless in March. Note there is no other grasses growing in the pure stand of spear grass.

The Gamba Declaration is full of mistruths, exaggerations, and impossible predictions and if we had been given the time we could have pulled it to pieces. It questions the sincerity of the architects and shows the gullibility of those who support it.

Banning Gamba is only another Slice of the Salami, if you want to keep farming or as a consumer, you want to keep eating and buying imported goods you will have to make your voice heard.

DEMAND A STAY OF EXECUTION SO THE FACTS CAN BE PRESENTED TO AN IMPARTIAL COMMISSION.

Have your say!

Should the Northern Territory Government listen to graziers and  hold an Impartial Inquiry into benefits / impacts of Gamba grass before deciding to follow the WA & QLD governemnts in declaring it a Class 2 weed?

Leave your comment below or click on the Blue word Comments to bring up the reply box.

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

I just don’t get the whole plastic bag thing. I don’t know about you but my humble little plastic shopping bag is bloody useful. A recent survey show that I, like 93% of people responsibly reuse them.

My plastic bag sock in my pantry that Sue bought me. Just about everybody I know has one. It’s great you can stuff about 20 of the little shoppies in there and they just poke out the bottom, ready to use.)

But the other day my newsagent Rick (the Plastic Bag Warrior) bailed me up. “No more” he told me, “we have to do something about plastic bags, there destroying the environment.”

But don’t worry for just 70cents Rick could solve the problem - “A re useable bag” (but hang on I reuse all my shoppies).

Rick would have have none of it. He shamed me into buying his 70 cents environmentally friendly, save the planet bag.

Rick was very pleased, he was doing his bit to save the planet.

(I’ve got to say I miss my old bag sock. Oh but maybe I’ll get use to the colour)

I’ve felt OK about being environmentally responsible, (I know Rick was happy with me) although imagine my confusion when I found out my new save the planet bags are made of “plastic”. Hmm. Not until I started to run out of my little shoppies did I realize how many of them I depend on.

Running out of Shoppies and concerned about what to do now with my kitchen food scraps I went back to my “Plastic bag Warrior” and part time News Agent Rick for the solution to my problem. After all he’d shamed me into this.

“No worries Mate” he told me, “just buy a composter. Throw all the scraps in there and then straight into the vegy garden, its great.”

After pricing a composter at about $500, I’m starting to become a little wary of Rick’s logic. I use to get my plastic bags for free, now I have to pay 70 cents for a thicker plastic bag, spend $5oo on a compostor and build a vegy garden.

(Ah the good old days when life was simpler and I just pulled a “free” shoppie out of the sock and put it in my kitchen bin. When it’s full of scraps pull it straight out, tie the tops and straight into the wheelie bin.)

I seem to be collecting a heap of these horrid red bags. I don’t know about you, but I’m lucky to remember to take my mobile phone and glasses when I got out the door, now I have to remember the red bags in case I stop off at a shop.

Not wanting to have to spend 70cents on a re usable save the planet shopping bag (Rick assures me I’m getting a bargain, those bloody big supermarkets are charging $1) and also having to buy plastic bin liners (to replace shoppies I use to get for free), I tried the solution below.

This is what my office waste bin use to look like. So simple, paper in plastic shoppie liner, when it’s full, tie it up and then straight into the yellow topped recycle bin.

Just look at it now.

This is not working.

So back down to Ricks for more advise. “No worries mate”, say Rick, ” just slip down to the supermarket and buy some bin liners” (but hang on a minute Rick, there plastic, how is that any different, except I’m now paying for all my plastic bags.)

Rick smiles at me all knowingly, as only someone who is on a crusade to save the planet can.

He assures me, “Yes mate, I know, but we’ve got to do something about all these plastic bags, their destroying the environment you know.”

Dumbfounded and confused I just left Rick to his crusade of saving the planet from plastic bags. He knows and I now know I’m just too “thick’ to work it out.

For some strange reason this whole ban “free” plastic shopping bags crusade has me thinking of that old fable “The Emperors New Cloths”.

Have your say! To leave your thoughts / opinion’s or comment click on the blue comments link below.

Northern Territory Cattle Produce John Khan in a follow up to last weeks article, writes:

After the Batchelor Gamba Meeting which I wrote about last week a committee called Gamba Action Group - GAG- was formed in our local council area Coomalie Northern Territory. An experienced weed control man was employed as project coordinator.

An ‘expert’ had told GAG “Gamba seed would not travel more than four meters and it was spread by motor vehicles.”

Personally I have seen the seed rising in smoke columns during bush fires and it would have traveled for many kilometers. Wallabies and other animals would certainly carry it in their fur.

The GAG’s first project was to spray and burn the road verges. This was not successful.

It killed the native grass but the Gamba re-shot soon afterwards. The spraying continued. Below is an example of the road side spraying. These photos were taken just a few days ago in and around the Coomalie district. The Gamba Grass is growing from the spray line back into the trees.

I spoke several times to the Project Coordinator about the waste of money the spraying is  and the damage it’s doing to the environment. He agreed with me that herbicide was not the answer and that Gamba could be controlled by grazing cattle.

When his contract expired, GAG did not renew it.

The new Project Coordinator was the local Greening Australia rep and the level of herbicide spraying increased. Water catchment areas and river banks were now included and trees near the roads were killed too. The overall amount of Gamba has not altered. Below is a photo of Gamba sprayed on a water way on a road.

Below is an area sprayed. Notice there is now a multitude of worthless weeds growing back.

The radicals are hoping to completely eradicate Gamba. If this is attempted, they would have to do it from the air, as a lot of the terrain is too scrubby and rough to access with vehicles. To try and kill all of the Gamba the strength and amount of poison would affect every living thing in the area.

The photo below shows how the herbicide they use kills everything including the young trees.

Half of Coomalie is suitable for Gamba and would support a herd of cattle which would control the Gamba, open the local meat-works which is currently closed, and bring additional income to landowners and service providers.

This concept horrifies the radicals who hate cattle for no logical reason.

Below is a photo of Gamba growing up a hillside. Grazing cattle would easily control it.

If the Government brings in legislation to outlaw an excellent pasture grass because they have been influenced by a mob of radical loonies, they will bring financial hardship to a lot of farmers and damage the economy.

I’d suggest that people calculate the personal losses from government sponsored attempts to eradicate Gama.

They include the loss of good pasture, cost of spraying herbicide, and the damage to soil biota, the cost of establishing new pasture (and it may be next on the list), loss of income while all this is happening and the loss of native biota.

When we have calculated the total dollar cost of attempting to eradicate Gamba I suggest we send this to the Minister with our bank details for the compensation cheque to be deposited.