Agmates

Open letter to Leaders of the State Based Farming Organizations.

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I’m writing to you as President’s, Chairperson’s, executives and members  of commodity councils and Farming organizations, about a matter of the gravest importance and Urgency.

In just 16 days time the Federal Parliament with sit again. The Rudd Government will be presenting it’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation for passage through the Senate into Law.

The very survival of the Australian farm industry and our rural communities depends on the Senate blocking this legislation in its current form.

Two very important and significant things have happened over the past 48 hours.

1. The Climate Sceptics Party have announced that they are Coordinating a rally of Australians against the governments Emissions Trading Scheme to be held on the front lawn at Parliament House Canberra on the 13th of August . This is the first day back from the Parliaments 6 week winter recess and is the day that the ETS will be introduced into the Senate.

2. Yesterday Senator Barnaby Joyce launched his Agmates Group site. He has published an excellent post in his groups topics showing among other things that this legislation will wipe out Australian farmers and massively increase the cost of food to every Australian consumer. Click on linked headline below to read it.

GET TO KNOW YOUR ETS, TAKE IT OUT TO DINNER

Senator Joyce is urging every farmer in Australia to be at the rally at which he is a speaker.

Senator Joyce  says that we must put 1,000’s of people on the lawn to show the politicians, and mainstream media that we will not accept this new tax that will bring no benefit to the environment, but put 100,000’s out of work and cripple our farm industry.

I’ve spoken to the President of the Climate Sceptics Leon Ashby and he has agreed that we can invite farm organizations to march in the Rally under their own banner. The rally is for all Australians, be they from  mining, industry, farming , workers and everybody adversely affected by this flawed legislation.

We are urging the leaders all  the commodity councils and farming organizations to rally their members and March on Canberra. We expect you to lead your members to Canberra.

So now your challenge.

We are calling on each organization to hit the phones, email whatever and firstly explain that this is the most important issue to farmers (them) in our lifetime. We want you to rally as many members  as you possibly can to attend and get them to rally their friends.

No time to lose. We have just 16 days to save our industry. Once the legislation is passed its to late.

Yours in anticipation

Steve Truman

Agmates Founder

Central West New South Wales farmer Rob Wass writes:

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Things are quite wet down in this neck of the woods. We have had about 50mls in the previous 24 hours and about 100mls for the previous 10 days.

Interesting to note from Today’s Australian Bureau of Statistics  – GDP growth figures.

The second paragraph immediately below the first graph says this:

“On the production side, the strongest contributing industries to GDP growth (in trend volume terms) over the past four quarters was Agriculture (0.5 percentage points). The biggest detractions have come from Manufacturing (-0.8 percentage points) and Property and business services (-0.5 percentage points).”

From todays Australian Newspaper - World’s best exports may hold off recession.

AUSTRALIA has defied the collapse in world trade, achieving a growth in exports that may allow the economy to stave off recession.

China’s demand for iron ore and agricultural commodities gave Australia the world’s best export performance in the first three months of the year.

Trade has made its biggest contribution to Australia’s growth since June 1961 and may lift the March-quarter GDP into positive territory.

Agricultural exports are also doing well, rising by 18.2 per cent, with a big jump in wheat exports and strong sales of both meat and wool.

So the question is:

If “Agriculture” has kept Australia out of recession amidst the biggest global recession since the “Great Depression” then why is it that our politicians, in searching for preferences, along with the greens, why are they kicking agriculture to death ?

Of course, this is assuming that there is any life left in agriculture after having been kicked about for so long with the list of atrocities against farmers and their land bigger than the Nullarbor Plain.

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Agmates member and Australian Protectionist Party National Chairman Andrew Phillips writes:

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I condemned the Rudd Labor Government for diverting Australian taxpayer’s funds from Australian needs to use the money to shore up African support in the United Nations for a seat on the organisation’s Security Council.

At a time when many of our primary producers are struggling to stay on their farms when faced by drought and increased imports , not to mention the estimated $60 Billion annual deficit provided by Mr.Swan, it is nothing short of obscene for Mr.Rudd to be playing politics with our taxes.

The role played by our nation’s primary producers in the area of export revenue and the provision of jobs in regional Australia is invaluable. Australian taxation must be used to provide for the critical needs of our country-health, education, pensions for the elderly and infrastructure.

For the Labor government to slash $60 million from the agriculture Budget while boosting foreign aid to 4 African nations to the tune of $464 million is economic lunacy in today’s financial climate. When one considers the timing of this increase when added to our Governor General’s recent 3 week, 10 African nation tour, Australians have every reason to suspect the motives of this government.

It is no secret the government desires a return to a seat on the UN Security Council, but while Rudd plays international politics our nation’s debt continues to climb, our pensioners and farmers continue to struggle and the Murray continues to die.

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Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, John Cobb writes:

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Farmers will go broke and food prices will rise, are the main findings of ‘official’ Government modelling into the cost of the Rudd Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme on farm production released today.

The Rudd Government’s ETS would be an expensive folly which will lead to higher food prices, less farmers and more imported food, with no net benefit for the environment.

The ABARE report, Effects of Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the economic value of farm production, finds that agriculture will be hit hard from day one under the Rudd Government’s ETS.

The ABARE report states;

‘Even if the agriculture sector is not a covered sector under the CPRS, agricultural producers will face increased input costs associated with the use of electricity, fuels and freight and may face lower farm-gate prices for their goods from downstream processors. These will have implications for the economic value of farm production’.

Graziers will be hit particularly hard and producing beef will be next to impossible with returns expected to drop by 22 percent. Producers of wool, mutton and lambs are also set to take a whopping 17 percent cut to their income.

Grain growers aren’t missed either with their income predicted to fall by 14.5 percent.

The dairy industry, already struggling because of low export prices will lose another 1.9 percent off the bottom line because of the Rudd Government’s emissions tax.

I am dismayed that the Rudd Government was ignoring the cost of Global Warming and Government policy on the food security.

Without viable productive farmers, food will become prohibitively expensive.

Every family needs a farmer to survive, but no farmer can survive a Rudd Government cut of 22 percent to their bottom line.

We are finally starting to see some figures on the cost of the ETS to food production and even the Government’s own modeller can’t hide the shocking affect its ETS will have on farm productivity.

Where does the Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd think their food will come from?

Far from helping our food producers cope with global warming and the Government’s ETS, the Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke has slashed research and development which is needed to increase food production to feed the worlds growing population.

You can read the ABARE report for yourself here.

Addition reporting from today’s Australian Newspaper – Rural income to be cut by a quarter

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Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

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Steve Truman

It has just emerged that the Rudd Labor governments silent  ‘jihad’ against Australia’s food and fibre producers knows no bounds.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke must have scored maximum brownie points with Prime Minister Rudd by sacrificing 32% of his departments funding ($908 million) in the budget as a means of  clawing back some of the Rudd / Swan induced sea of deficit and debt.

Whilst those unprecedented cuts in funding to the department and Agricultural research are a ‘kick in the guts’ for Agriculture there is worse in store for Australian farmers.

Buried in the budget papers is a tax change that will fundamentally strike directly at the viability of 1,000’s of family farming operations.

Farming families whose land is owned by a family company and who operate their business through a partnership or trust using the company’s land will most definitely be caught up in the changes , unless the business, or farmer, starts paying rent to use the company’s farmland.

Many farming family companies were set up years ago as a means of minimising the blow of death duties.

But business lawyers Jim Main and Brendan Cockerill, from JMA Legal, say the changes are a “tax bombshell” for many Australian farmers.

There are tens of thousands of family farmers who have had their businesses structured in this way on advice from accountants and business advisers. The budget changes mean that these farmers will be burdened with enormous annual tax payment increases, even though they have earnt not one cent more of income.

Under the new changes, soon to come into effect, if a family has a farm valued at $1.5m with a market rental value of, say, four per cent of its sale value, the operating entity (or farm business managers) will have $60,000 a year added to their assessable income, or deducted from their carried-forward losses.

If the farmer wanted to solve the problem by paying rent then, based on the example above, the company would still pay $18,000 tax regardless of business profits or losses.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has scored many more Brownie points with his Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Not only has he gutted his own Agricultural department to cut costs, he has also served up farmers to the grasp of the tax office to raise more revenue for his cash strapped government.

Minister Burke 18 month reign as Ag minister can be viewed as nothing more than a ‘Jihad’ on Australia’s Food and Fibre producers. No doubt this has put him in good stead for a much more prestigious portfolio as one of Kevin Rudds golden haired boys.

Tony Burke’s unrelenting attack on Australian Farmers is unprecedented in modern Labor governments. Certainly farmers fared much better under both the Hawke and Keating governments.

Its almost as if we are back to the class wars that existed between Labor and the Farming community in the first half of the 20th century. Producer group the Australian Beef Association call for Minister Tony Burke’s removal yesterday is entirely appropriate.

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Tom & Robyn Aisbett graziers and Agmates members from Mundubbera Qld have made the following submission to the QLD governments moratorium on clearing regrowth:

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Submission –

The message is – We want the right to manage our property the way we know it should be.

Reasons:

No 1 - The regrowth moratorium is theft and broken promises made by the current Minister. If Big Bureaucracy must stick their nose in where it doesn’t belong – Let them fund real research into increased food production – not the Margaret Thatcher kind that says you will get big money if you make it look the way we want it to.

No 2 - There is a serious world food shortage coming, and to stifle food production is criminal, and makes certain people somewhere in the world starve. Basic food security for Australians and others.

No 3 - On our place we only want to develop one third for food production. This has been taken away from us on the first round of tree clearing laws. We were hit hard and did not apply for compensation as this could not be compensated. It means our business will shrivel and die like so many other farms have done.

No 4 – The whole legislation is stupid. There have been burping, farting, grass eating animals much longer than cars, planes and power stations, and it is a natural part of the carbon cycle – see “Carbon Grazing” by Alan Lauder

No 5 – This will mean the end of another business that feeds a lot of people, even though we are small fry. Lost jobs – lost production – and export income.

No 6 – The cities need farmers, as you cannot have large scale food production in cities and forests.

No 7 – The mapping is inaccurate and wrong.

Optional extra!! Lets try to avoid the next Bligh Mutiny and Rebellion caused by excessive flogging (Farmer and Truckie Bashing!!)

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Below  is National Party Leader in the Senate – QLD Senator Barnaby Joyce’s speech to the National Press Club in Canberra today. I call this the speech the National Party Manifesto. A brilliant piece that succinctly sets out the future role of the National party in Australian Politics.

In my opinion this speech is proof that Senator Barnaby Joyce is a once in a life time Politician, blessed not only with an extraordinary intellect but an enormous dose of common sense. The following is a 4,500 word essay / commentary of Australian politics, political party’s, the demise of State governments,  and commentary of Labors handling of the Australian economy and our national indebtedness, the ETS, the ACCC, and much more. An fascinating, enlightening and enthralling read.

You’ll want to email this onto everybody you know.

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Senator Barnaby Joyce
Leader of the Nationals in the Senate

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB OF AUSTRALIA

ADDRESS : MONDAY 11 MAY 2009

After the last election – and I believe for the 16th successive poll going back to the 1969 Coalition victory – learned opinion-writers commented on the twilight of our Party.

And the time-honoured retort from a National Party politician in that circumstance is of course to note that we’re still here, and that one ought to check the pulse before pronouncing on the corpse.

Well, I’m not going to do that. The 2007 Federal election loss was a devastating event for the Federal National Party, not only because it saw us out of Government in every single jurisdiction in Australia, but because it underlined the drift from our Party’s history and traditions that we permitted for a decade or more in the name of unity.

It is also a low ebb in terms of our representation, exacerbated by three key features of our electoral performance since the end of the Fraser Government:

1. the loss of long-term strongholds to independents who in some cases express our traditional Party values better than we have;
2. the departure of Members to independent status, on at least one occasion because of a feeling that we had betrayed our heritage;
3. the concession of core seats to the Liberal Party, from who we had become insufficiently distinct or losses of blue collar conservatives who prefer Labor to a mute National or suburban Liberal.

In Australia there is a highly powerful political force. It has no name but it is instrumental in the determination of every election result. It has no policies but its desires are analysed and reanalysed and mused over and assumed and purported. It runs no candidates in elections nor does it have a party machine, yet everyone aspires and claims that they represent it.

In fact, this political force is the epicentre of our Nation and it lies at the heart of our system of government. That force has been brought about by the right and obligation of all to vote in elections.

In a country where voting is compulsory you do not have to inspire people to get out of bed to vote – they have to or they get fined. The trick is to somehow harness that vote, particularly the swinging voters. The swinging voters are the key to electoral victory.

The challenge for a major political party is to cultivate that centre group so that they swing to your beliefs or swing away from other’s mismanagement and put you and your political associates into Government.

In seeking to capture those swinging voters promises are made to win Government and then broken once elected where expedient to do so to stay in Government.

Playing only to the centre however has its dangers. In the desire to be opaque, lukewarm, inoffensive and passionately politically tepid, there are flanks that open up to the left and to the right of the centre.

The Labor Party strategy is very adroit in that their flank is covered by their able lieutenant, the Greens, who orchestrate political pas de deuxs on issues where it is inconceivable that the right could outflank them on the far left.

But when it really counts, that is election time, and on crucial pieces of legislation as seen in the stimulus package and alcopops tax, the Greens can be completely relied on to support the Labor Party. Good luck to the left in that they have a very clever political formula – this formula helped the Labor Party get 43% of the vote and win an election.

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America’s giant Monsanto corporation is currently lodging patent applications in 159 countries to patent the Pig.

Unbelievable I know, but if Monsanto is granted the patent in the USA every other country may follow. That means farmers across the world will have to pay Monsanto a fee every time they sell a pig.

Patenting living organisms is already settle case law in the USA.

They already have this sort of control with genetically modified seed and plants. Patenting is all about control. Monsanto wants to own the world wide patents for our food. The patent is not just for pigs it is for their offspring. Every time a pig has a piglet it is a ‘patent violation’ and the farmer has to pay Monsanto for it.

Here is the first of a 5 part video series  that documents Monsanto’s ambitious plan to control food from the seed and field to the fork.

I will publish the next 4 videos over the next 4 days. Or you can watch them now here.

Thanks to Agmates member PhonyID

Monsanto Patent for a Pig (Pt.1 of 5)

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If you watched the video and were as alarmed as I was, please email this article onto every farmer on your contact data base. We need to inform farmers everywhere.

Here is a tiny URL for copying and pasting a link to this page into your email for sending onto your friends.

http://tinyurl.com/dm3qo7

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How did this happen? Just two decades ago it was a badge of honour to say that you were a farmer.

The pride of being a landholder who fed and clothed a nation and indeed a fair portion of the world was worth boasting about. Indeed  even if you made the transition to the city to work it was ’something’ to tell others that your family was on the land.

Not so today. If your in the city and someone as what you do, and you mention the words farm or farming, you can see it in their face,

“Environmental vandal, destroying the environment to make your grubby money.”

By and by the Green movement have propagated this myth with such success over the last two decades that urban Australians now believe it to be true that:

“(Farming): has exhausted the soil, and yields of crops have collapsed; it has caused massive erosion; it has polluted some rivers, made many others salty and used all the water from the rest; its animals make methane, a main cause of global warming; clearing the land has made too many species extinct; put simply, we shouldn’t have come here – we should have left it to the Aborigines who were so much more in harmony with the land than we are.”

What Australian farming and its farmers need is an ongoing and long term public relations campaign to turn this around.

But who will do it? None of the National farmer organizations can or will.

There are a reported 130,000 farmers in Australia. If they all chipped in $200 that would raise $26 million a year for such a campaign. You don’t need to use that money on great offices and buildings full of people. You don’t see the Greens, the Wilderness Society, Greenpeace with great office towers.

No it just needs to be used on the PR campaign. Farming and farmers are in a life and death struggle with the Green minority. As long as the Greens win the PR war, farmers will lose.

It could be done. What do you think?

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Agmates member Eye On The Outback writes:

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This yarn in the SMH is a ripper and sums up the problems facing farmers very well when it comes to perceptions vs reality.

I strongly believe the only way we can turn around the argument is to state the simple fact agriculture is food security – without it you will starve.

Was at a Press Club lunch yesterday (yep am living it up) were Kate Carnell the CEO of the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) was the guest speaker.

The AFGC represents food and grocery processors and manufactures.

She made during her speech a very frightening observation.

At any one time Australia only has enough food and groceries in shops to last 8 – 10 days. If any thing went majorly pear shaped any where along the production and logistical chain this country would go hungry very quickly.

I strongly believe that ‘food security’ is the only way that we can get the message out that farmers are vital and not environmental vandals hell bent on the destruction of the globe.

If it were an easy message to sell it would have been done by now – the biggest problem is there are so many chefs in the kitchen (read farm organisations) that the messages tend to get confused.

Farmers fighting farmers whether it is over water or any other issue is self defeating – we need farmers to unite and unite behind one voice.

I take your point that some SFO’s do not seem to be up to the task but it is pointless to reinvent the wheel – we just need to get farmers politically aware and motivated and off their butts and attending those annoying meetings on a cold winters night.

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Source: Eye On The Outbacks Comment on this forum

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