Mike Bolan
Government programs that are destroying our food production systems …
LOOKING at the patterns of recent events, there appears to be an extraordinary attack on our food production systems stimulated by various programs that support large area pulpwood plantation establishment.
At the federal level the tree plantation MIS schemes have no cap on them. There is no limit or constraint on how much of our productive farmland will be converted to low value trees. The large amount of water that trees consume (1.5 Ml/ha/yr over and above agricultural cropping) is neither measured, paid for or available to others. As the plantation estate grows, so our water supplies diminish as thirsty trees with massive roots (up to 15 m deep) lower water tables, stop creeks running and prevent shallow root food crops from growing at all. Despite recent MIS program tweaks, plantation companies are still paid from taxpayer funds for growing their crop, food producers get nothing. This is not a level playing field.
At the state level we have various extraordinary subsidies and relief from legal requirements (e.g. disclosure laws) that give loggers substantial advantages over other industries. As rural community cash flow dries up with the conversion of farms to plantations, rural centres lose services and more farmers are driven from the area. Water charges for the Meander Dam are extreme and many affected farmers have no way to earn back the $1,000 Ml up front fee forced on them by Dam operators. The state government’s location for a ‘world scale’ pulp mill also threatens other food production industries like fishing, wines, fine foods and organic growers in any area that might be affected by mill pollutants.
At the state and local levels is the offensive PAL scheme (Protection of Agricultural Land) which prevents farmers from building on their own land and turns huge areas of their land into spray drift exclusion zones to facilitate tree plantation management. The scheme also defines trees as an agricultural crop thereby perverting the supposed purpose protecting agricultural lands. The PTR (Private Timber Reserve) scheme locks up land ‘in perpetuity’ for logging and removes the land from local planning schemes. Many councils contain a majority of loggers so protests are usually ignored.
The key driver for the logging industry is their choice of committing to a low value, low margin commodity business (chips and pulp) that is fiercely competitive with huge countries like Russia, China and Brazil flooding international markets with low cost products. Having invested in this marginal business, they now want to grow and the only way for them to do that is at taxpayers’ expense and with lots of concessions. If they operated to the rules of the free market they’d change their business methods very quickly as they cannot compete on equal terms in world markets.
From a commercial or social point of view, our government programs make no sense whatsoever. The loss of food production capacity is a major strategic and economic blunder, particularly given the demand for foods by world markets and mainland sensitivity to major droughts. Plantation establishment drives down rateable income for Councils, lowers vital water tables, seriously cuts earnings in established food farming areas and deters tourists who don’t want to drive through endless plantations to see clearfelled forests and napalmed animals.
ABS reports that Tasmania’s farm production area had dropped to 71,000 ha by 2005. Tree plantation areas stood at 225,000 ha for the same period although this is increasing rapidly to feed the pulp mill. As more farmers come under pressure, so they sell to the plantation industry which is funded by our tax dollars, or they cave in to taxation pressures and grow trees themselves to avoid their tax debts.
Meanwhile the logging industry only contributes a tiny fraction to Australia’s GDP, and employs many less than tourism and agriculture. In Tasmania, tourism alone employs nearly 30,000 people, logging employs about 7,000.
In fact, it is the logging industry that is the noisy minority. By having themselves declared ‘agricultural’ they have become a modern day cuckoo, pushing out the other chicks until they finally take over the entire nest.
If we value our food production systems and our water supplies, we need to start helping our farmers to succeed. We need to stop the conversion of good quality farms to tree plantations and we need to act to assure our water security. Unless we do these things the impacts of changing rainfall patterns could bring us to ruin very quickly.
People need to demand that their politicians and councillors start to act as if they understand how our world really works and support food production and water conservation as a top priority. The insanity of placing the economy above essentials like food and water is just that…insanity.
Good luck to you all.
