Agriculture/Horticulture

The Ag/Hort industry has long been a forgot part of our community. Minister Ludwig is just not getting it that poor policies and deplorable decisions are having a disastrous effect on our industry and our communities as a whole.

The latest assault of the fruit production industry is detailed here in an interview on radio.
http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/growers-fight-fruit-fly-madness/20120926-26kg1.html

This follows from the crippling of the cattle industry recently, now another primary sector is facing a bleak future.
This is going to be an Australia wide issue. The result of this will be the loss of safe Australian produce on our shelves, sky rocketing prices that are estimated to rise 300-400% and the only option of imported produce, from God knows where.
Imported 'fresh' produce is only tested at a rate of around 5%. Some still use chemicals banned here 20 years ago like DDT, and fertilise with raw human excrement. Most do not have the safety regiments we have in place here.

We are raging against it in the West, and it has made 6PR morning program 3 days in a row, on the ABC mid week, as well as an opinion piece from Paul Murray in Saturday's West Australian. Please spread the message around the country.

There is a facebook page you can like.
http://www.facebook.com/KeepImportedProduceOffAussieShelves

It is important you raise your concerns to Joe Ludwig at senator.ludwig@aph.gov.au
Every email counts, we need the communities help.

Please like the FB page and share it with everyone, and write to Ludwig and make every person you have met in your life write too, then make them pass it on. Our situation is critical, we only have 5 weeks to resolve this before harvesting starts.

Relate your imported produce concerns back to our potential fruit fly pandemic, that will affect us if the Minister does not intervene.

:thankyou:

springhill said:

The Ag/Hort industry has long been a forgot part of our community. Minister Ludwig is just not getting it that poor policies and deplorable decisions are having a disastrous effect on our industry and our communities as a whole.

The latest assault of the fruit production industry is detailed here in an interview on radio.
http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/growers-fight-fruit-fly-madness/20120926-26kg1.html

This follows from the crippling of the cattle industry recently, now another primary sector is facing a bleak future.
This is going to be an Australia wide issue. The result of this will be the loss of safe Australian produce on our shelves, sky rocketing prices that are estimated to rise 300-400% and the only option of imported produce, from God knows where.
Imported 'fresh' produce is only tested at a rate of around 5%. Some still use chemicals banned here 20 years ago like DDT, and fertilise with raw human excrement. Most do not have the safety regiments we have in place here.

We are raging against it in the West, and it has made 6PR morning program 3 days in a row, on the ABC mid week, as well as an opinion piece from Paul Murray in Saturday's West Australian. Please spread the message around the country.

There is a facebook page you can like.
http://www.facebook.com/KeepImportedProduceOffAussieShelves

It is important you raise your concerns to Joe Ludwig at senator.ludwig@aph.gov.au
Every email counts, we need the communities help.

Please like the FB page and share it with everyone, and write to Ludwig and make every person you have met in your life write too, then make them pass it on. Our situation is critical, we only have 5 weeks to resolve this before harvesting starts.

Relate your imported produce concerns back to our potential fruit fly pandemic, that will affect us if the Minister does not intervene.

:thankyou:

Click to expand...

+1 ...well said!

springhill said:

The Ag/Hort industry has long been a forgot part of our community. Minister Ludwig is just not getting it that poor policies and deplorable decisions are having a disastrous effect on our industry and our communities as a whole.

The latest assault of the fruit production industry is detailed here in an interview on radio.
http://www.6pr.com.au/blogs/6pr-perth-blog/growers-fight-fruit-fly-madness/20120926-26kg1.html

This follows from the crippling of the cattle industry recently, now another primary sector is facing a bleak future.
This is going to be an Australia wide issue. The result of this will be the loss of safe Australian produce on our shelves, sky rocketing prices that are estimated to rise 300-400% and the only option of imported produce, from God knows where.
Imported 'fresh' produce is only tested at a rate of around 5%. Some still use chemicals banned here 20 years ago like DDT, and fertilise with raw human excrement. Most do not have the safety regiments we have in place here.

We are raging against it in the West, and it has made 6PR morning program 3 days in a row, on the ABC mid week, as well as an opinion piece from Paul Murray in Saturday's West Australian. Please spread the message around the country.

There is a facebook page you can like.
http://www.facebook.com/KeepImportedProduceOffAussieShelves

It is important you raise your concerns to Joe Ludwig at senator.ludwig@aph.gov.au
Every email counts, we need the communities help.

Please like the FB page and share it with everyone, and write to Ludwig and make every person you have met in your life write too, then make them pass it on. Our situation is critical, we only have 5 weeks to resolve this before harvesting starts.

Relate your imported produce concerns back to our potential fruit fly pandemic, that will affect us if the Minister does not intervene.

:thankyou:

Click to expand...

Springhill, I'm not at all conversant with the issues, but is there a chance this is all being orchestrated to force small producers out and let the multinationals in?

By the way, expecting the labor government to intervene, may be a case of be carefull what you wish for. I haven't seen many intelligent outcomes from this government.

sptrawler said:

Springhill, I'm not at all conversant with the issues, but is there a chance this is all being orchestrated to force small producers out and let the multinationals in?

By the way, expecting the labor government to intervene, may be a case of be carefull what you wish for. I haven't seen many intelligent outcomes from this government.

Click to expand...

I hope to not get political on this issue, I would bash either side who stabbed food producers in the back, but I do believe there is an agenda of sending our dollars off overseas. A kind of 'foreign aid' program.

We have a serious food security issue coming on the horizon.

Why else would we allow NZ apples in with Fire Blight and NZ potatoes with Zebra Chip Disease? So much for biosecurity.

springhill said:

I hope to not get political on this issue, I would bash either side who stabbed food producers in the back, but I do believe there is an agenda of sending our dollars off overseas. A kind of 'foreign aid' program.

We have a serious food security issue coming on the horizon.

Why else would we allow NZ apples in with Fire Blight and NZ potatoes with Zebra Chip Disease? So much for biosecurity.

Click to expand...

Why, when you know the world is facing a food shortage, would you spend $50billion on faster internet?
When it was stated that it would cost $12billion to bring water down the west coast to Perth.
Obviously it would cost a similar amount to bring water down from north queensland to melbourne. So that would be $24billion to supply endless water to the east and west of australia.
What do we do? spend $50billion to let people sit on their ar$e with faster internet, while at the same time spending billions putting in desalination plants.
Also we spend billions trying to get the people sitting on their ar$e on the internet to get off the internet and excercise.LOL,LOL
I must be missing something. or I'm not in the backhander loop.LOL

sptrawler said:

Why, when you know the world is facing a food shortage, would you spend $50billion on faster internet?
When it was stated that it would cost $12billion to bring water down the west coast to Perth.
Obviously it would cost a similar amount to bring water down from north queensland to melbourne. So that would be $24billion to supply endless water to the east and west of australia.
What do we do? spend $50billion to let people sit on their ar$e with faster internet, while at the same time spending billions putting in desalination plants.
Also we spend billions trying to get the people sitting on their ar$e on the internet to get off the internet and excercise.LOL,LOL
I must be missing something. or I'm not in the backhander loop.LOL

Click to expand...

well said! the total lack of vision by pollies from both sides is disgusting! i was working in mackay qld a few years back and read in the local paper about a consortium of businessmen putting forward a fantastic plan for industry growth in australia... it was very simple... put a railway line across australia linking mackay and port hedland... coal goes west, iron ore comes east and build 2 new 'state of the art' steel mills, one at each city. they had costed it out and had investors/finance for a majority of the venture... they just needed govt approval and a bit of assistance for the railway... instead THEY GOT NOTHING AND WERE TOLD IT WAS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!

so say goodbye to an australian steel-making future! such vision! agriculture will go the same way... its like 'atlas shrugged MKII' ...the 'looters' are getting the upper hand again

This release is 2 months old but recently came to my attention again and raises a couple of points Australians should be concerned about.

1. Labelling Laws in this country and others are currently unacceptable. Does anyone know exactly where the fresh/preserved produce they buy at any given time comes from. Research shows that 80% of consumers dont know the difference between 'Made in Australia', 'Product of Australian' or 'Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients'. Or even what each of them mean.

2. Brand 'New Zealand' has a lot of currency worldwide as being clean and green. Australian consumers, if an Aussie option was not available, would readily choose NZ produce over most other worldwide products. Yet does the Aussie consumer actually realise that selecting NZ produce may in fact mean selecting Chinese produce?

I am not having a ping at the Kiwis but am saying that Labelling Laws are a sham.

Consumers have the right to know exactly what they are putting in their mouths.

An article that appeared in The Countryman on the issue in previous post.

springhill said:

This release is 2 months old but recently came to my attention again and raises a couple of points Australians should be concerned about.

1. Labelling Laws in this country and others are currently unacceptable. Does anyone know exactly where the fresh/preserved produce they buy at any given time comes from. Research shows that 80% of consumers dont know the difference between 'Made in Australia', 'Product of Australian' or 'Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients'. Or even what each of them mean.

2. Brand 'New Zealand' has a lot of currency worldwide as being clean and green. Australian consumers, if an Aussie option was not available, would readily choose NZ produce over most other worldwide products. Yet does the Aussie consumer actually realise that selecting NZ produce may in fact mean selecting Chinese produce?

I am not having a ping at the Kiwis but am saying that Labelling Laws are a sham.

Consumers have the right to know exactly what they are putting in their mouths.

Click to expand...

We have seafood labelling in the NT. It works really quite well.

A couple of shops got done for selling incorrectly labelled products.

And enough is done to keep them in line.

It seems that K Rudd will be appointing Joel Fitzgibbon as Minister for Agriculture, so I decided to look into his background to see if he had any connection to Agriculture/Horticultutre.

Obviously, with his seat being in the Hunter region there is the direct link to fresh food production, farming, viticulture & winemaking. He also has some experience in operating a small business (source Wikipedia) which is a rarity in the Labor Party. Other than that his working experience seems to revolve around being an automotive electrician, electorate officer and part-time technical education lecturer.

However, he did resign as Minister for Defence on 4 June 2009 after admitting that meetings held between his brother, the head of the health fund NIB, and Defence officials concerning business opportunities had breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

Personally, I am a little concerned that someone who resigned of his own accord for the MCC breaches is in charge of the portfolio that covers my industry. Is this a sign of the low level of importance that Kevin Rudd places on this nations food production, that a person with a self admitted history of Ministerial misconduct can be handed the Ag portfolio?

With live exports in a shambles and the sectors of the fruit production industry reeling, there needs to be a steady, reliable and untainted hand at the wheel of this one. There are going to have to be some tough decisions made and plenty of policy pressure on Rudd & Fitzgibbon in the lead up to the election.

Coles fined for misleading customers on country of origin of fresh produce.

http://www.brw.com.au/p/business/made_fine_coles_the_mistake_that_YG99m6c684Uw5k6GenOJsK

Mistakes happen, there is no doubt about that, but country of origin labelling is a subject I am very passionate about, as an Australian stone fruit producer.

The public have every right to know what they are putting in their mouths, where it is grown and the associated risks (or benefits) that come with eating produce imported from any given country.

I have no problem with fresh produce imports when that line of fruit/veg is out of season in Australia.

I have been told, and bear in mind this is anecdotal at this point, that when comparing the big 2, Woolies and Coles, that Woolies have the stronger 'unofficial' commitment to buy local.
I mean that firstly and foremost in a state v state basis. Woolies stores based in WA are more likely to try and source their produce in WA first, rather than import wholesale amounts of produce from interstate sources. The same applies to the Wooloies stores in each individual state.
Coles, I am told, are a lot more lax and consider large scale supply a higher priority than sourcing local produce first.

There are a couple of factors that are important when considering importing foreign/interstate produce. Some consumers may think, "What is the big deal we are all Australian?"
Correct, but the travel time and fluctuating temperatures during transport and loading/unloading affect the quality, risk bruising, reduce the shelf life and nutritional value of the item.

There is also the large risk of bio-security being compromised. Diseases, insect, bacterial and fungal matters contain a massive threat, which is being brought directly to the doorsteps of local growers. Eg, a destructive fungus called Brown Rot was not present in Western Australia until cherries began to cross the border from South Australia into our market system. Brown Rot is now endemic in WA and if left unchecked can easily destroy 50-100% of a crop. I saw it happen this year on another orchard in the suburb next to mine.
The only way to control is multiple applications of a control agent like Rovral, Tilt or numerous other fungicides.

I could list quite a few, but am a little time poor at the moment.

Fruit fly is another pest, topical as it is at the moment, that is transported interstate via importation of produce interstate via various methods, with the big chain supermarkets being one passage of movement.

There are measures in place to minimise the risk of all potential threats no matter the classification, but these measures have loopholes and sometimes rely on human honesty.

I am not advocating a banning of international/interstate produce importation but what I am saying is that all produce should be sourced locally first and only when that option is not valid then an appropriate amount of produce importation, that balances out the demand, becomes the viable option.

springhill said:

It seems that K Rudd will be appointing Joel Fitzgibbon as Minister for Agriculture, so I decided to look into his background to see if he had any connection to Agriculture/Horticultutre.

Personally, I am a little concerned that someone who resigned of his own accord for the MCC breaches is in charge of the portfolio that covers my industry. Is this a sign of the low level of importance that Kevin Rudd places on this nations food production, that a person with a self admitted history of Ministerial misconduct can be handed the Ag portfolio?

Click to expand...

Springhill, K.Rudd explained this as His Ruddness being sufficiently magnanimous of character to give a bloke a second chance.
Translation: He simply didn't have enough potential candidates to fill ministerial positions so was forced to fall back on someone he once would never have considered.