Where is the SUPPORT?

I’M in my twenties. I’m the next generation. I look at the committees and industry bodies making decisions for my future. We, the generation taking over the family farms or buying them, are not represented. I am scared, and I am sure others feel the same. The future does not look good. If it keeps going as it is, we are stuffed, and I can’t see anything being done to make that change. My feeling is that if a young person ends up with a farm, they might as well just divide it up and put homes on it.

I constantly research what farmers are doing in other areas around the world. When looking at what the Europeans are doing on their farms, I have always been surprised to see their new machinery and equipment. I’ve often thought that they must just be doing well. Otherwise, how could they afford it? However, having looked into it, the answer is in government funding. Here in Australia, we aren’t supported by our government in that way. Farmers are valued more internationally. Why is that?

I feel our role in feeding Australia is undervalued and not supported. Government ministers and representatives will come onto our farms, have their picture taken with us on the land and say they understand our struggles. However, they don’t experience our day-to-day and they don’t offer any practical financial support. If they really cared, they would actually come out, take off their suit and tie, give us a hand for a day and go, ‘Jeez, that’s bloody hard work’. Rather than interrupting our day for a photo, perhaps they would sit down with us, away from the cameras, and talk business.

Another issue is how we operate as an industry. We don’t come together as one. We don’t support each other. We don’t share information. Instead, the industry is full of farmers struggling on their own and acting like sheep. One person sees that another is making money from a certain crop, so takes on that crop to chase the money. That person may have more investment funds, so kills off the farmer who first had the idea. And that happens throughout the agriculture industry. It’s sad because in Australia – and it doesn’t matter if you are organic, horticulture, aquaculture, livestock or whatever – I think everyone should be working together. As farmers, we all need to talk to each other and ensure we make our farms and our industry viable. Copying what everyone else is doing is unfair and the result is that the industry erodes itself.

This even happens with planting cycles. One farmer may plant for the early market. Another farmer may see this, so bring their planting forward. Why can’t one farmer chase the early market and another chase the late market? Doesn’t that make more sense in terms of sustaining the industry and individual farm viability?

I would also like to see growers talk more to each other. A farmer may say, ‘I’m in a bit of a rough patch here’. Well, we have probably been in the same boat, so let’s talk and work through it. One farmer may say they have a disease or problem. Another farmer may reveal they have also had this issue. . Help each other solve problems through shared experience. Work together. That’s how the whole farming community should be. And it shouldn’t just be Australia-wide, it should be worldwide. We work now in a global marketplace and we have the technology to be a global industry.

So, what would I like to see the government do? Invest in machinery; invest in new crop lines; work with us on what types of crops are needed to fill demand; and subsidise insurance and other costs.

And talk with us. We are feeding Western Australia, Australia and, some of us, the world. We are at the mercy of the weather, we are doing it tough and some are just hoping to break even. I have also seen that phone numbers to suicide prevention organisations are now on farm chemicals. That is concerning for the industry. We need support.

When consumers put food on their plates three times a day, they should thank a farmer. The transport industry should also be thanked, as without them they wouldn’t receive their food.

We are service providers to the government. We should be on the government payroll. Instead we experience a lack of support ; we feel undervalued; our produce is sold at high prices in retail environments (of which we receive a small percentage for growing it); and we struggle with rising taxes, labour costs and insurance, among more that’s necessary to produce food. Something needs to change.