Archive for Carbon emissions

Is The Time Ripe For True Bush Independence?

September 1, 2010 at 5:41 pm · Filed under broadband, Carbon emissions, election, farming, meat industry, politicians, rural australia, Rural business, rural issues, Uncategorized

Apparently the Greens can see a way for Australia’s farmers to be rewarded for good farming management. That stands to reason, most of Australia’s carbon-soaking trees live on farms. However, as far as I can find, the Libs and Nats haven’t addressed this issue other than to say they won’t tax farm carbon production.
Like protectionism which has no practical hope of re-implementation in a globally connected World, simply saying farmers are not going to be carbon-taxed at some stage just won’t hold water in the long term if other groups are being taxed -the other groups won’t stand for it. So, we have to address the issue in commercial terms or end-up with a Howard and Costello, “Read my lips, there will be no GST!”, -type situation where it is done without rural involvement and lands on us like a bag of bricks. Which makes reward from the Greens not sound too silly, doesn’t it.
In addition, farmers have been campaigning to keep miners off their good farm land. Have the Libs and Nats addressed where this sits with the Mining tax?
As for Mr Abbott claiming that Australia’s rural producers would support processing of their product overseas rather than here, hasn’t he ever heard of “Buy Australian Made”!? My guess is that unless we address the adding of value pre-export, our production is going to continue to be compared to the labour forces of Brazil and China, whether quality is involved or not!
I think in 2010 we need to be a bit smarter and look at just how Australia’s producers really will be affected by each of the parties.
Tony Abbott says Labor and the Greens, “..will introduce a carbon tax, and mining tax and there will never be offshore processing.’’ After many, many years of not looking after the bush, it seems Mr. Abbott is relying upon the good ole support of the good ole boys yet again!
Perhaps this latest political hiccup is the wake-up call we needed to think along truly independent lines for the good of the bush and Australia in general. Perhaps if we can act a bit smarter than the old knee-jerk vote along party lines that has become expected over the years without the Bush ever achieving anything significant like true broadband access, we might actually achieve something.

What do you think?
Please comment below.

Comments (3)

A Bit Of A Round-Up

August 10, 2010 at 1:17 pm · Filed under Carbon emissions, election, farming, livestock, Livestock issues, meat industry, MLA, rural australia, Rural business, rural issues, supermarkets, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Huge Beef Consumption Decrease With No Light In Sight!
July 2010 MLA forecasts over the next 5 years beef consumption is expected to fall 15% from 34 kilograms to 28.9 kg while lamb and pork consumption will remain steady. Annual chicken consumption is expected to increase 9.7% from 38 kilograms a person to 41.7 kilograms.
This is despite MLA spending $700 million of producers taxes on R&D since its inception in 1989.
Hard to believe the MLA’s new $5million ad campaign will solve this challenge.

Producers Present Alternative Beef Industry Plan
A major producer meeting says a meat quality grading system like that in the USA should be introduced that grades carcasses rather than cuts of beef. It said this would help capture more of the domestic market beef for grading (and thus add value and revenue to producers), while a restructure of MLA and research and development bodies was planned to reduce costs and duplication. It claims MLA’s existing MSA QA system has been around for years without any significant uptake or consumer affect, and that most R&D funds allocated by MLA benefit individual applicants rather than the Industry in general.
Read more here

Labour, Liberal Coalition Or Gasp! Shock Horror…Green?
Apparently Minister Burke has snubbed the Australian Beef Association and the various producer forums regarding concerns about issues vital to the industry such as a lack of democracy and general producer input.
The Liberal Coalition Opposition would also have to change significantly to provide any benefit here too! It was Deputy PM Anderson who over-saw the implementation of MLA and its associated lack of transparent democracy and subsequent Minister Truss, MP Heffernan and former stock agent Joyce similarly didn’t provide much joy either while in power.
So what are we to do? Perhaps a left-field option could be to get on the Green bandwagon and participate in the balance-of-power through a deal with Bob Brown where Land rights and care for the land by producers are recognised, coal mining on valuable farm land is cast away in favour of sustainable food production and producers are given a democratic vote on the direction of their industry that is not watered-down by processor votes (just like dock workers and construction workers)? Wonder whether we could throw-in the massive NLIS waste as well?

What do you think?
Please leave your comments below.

Comments (1)

How Will You Cut Carbon Emissions?

July 15, 2009 at 1:39 pm · Filed under Carbon emissions, farming, livestock, Livestock issues, rural australia, rural issues ·Tagged , , ,

It seems that Carbon emissions trading is on the way.

The, “Global warming is/isn’t” debate (between environmental scientists and various ‘weather watchers’) seems to have been by-passed by the old-fashioned ‘dirty pollution’ should be cleaned-up-whether-it’s-involved-in Global-warming-or-not perspective.

The Leader of the Coalition was once one of emissions trading’s most vocal supporters so even with allowances, it is highly likely that farms will need to address how they are going to cut emissions – otherwise they will be taxed/charged for their role in ‘Carbon poisoning’.  (The primary food production industry can realistically hope for allowances but these may well be tied to proof of emissions decreases as distinct from removal from the ‘program’).

With cattle farms in the spotlight, I guess information on strategies such as dietary supplements to reduce belching, seem the most obvious options.
However, what else can you think of that might assist. Two come immediately to mind:
Gaining credits for the carbon fixing properties of trees on a per farm basis (tree plantations are apparently getting them), and direct sales as distinct from ‘yards based sales to cut down on freight.

What do you think?
Please leave your comment below.

Comments (1)

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.