Why I support our farmers

Why I support our farmers

It’s the same journalistic story told again and again: ‘greenies’ and ‘farmers’ scowling at each other across the paddock fence. Both groups eye the other not only with suspicion, but with disrespect and sometimes a deep-seated loathing.

Like many city-born environmentalists, I know I have sometimes fallen into the same trap: unfairly branding all farmers as uncaring about the environment in which they work, and terrible custodians of the land. For that I apologise.

Muriel Dunne, Kilala Station

 We need farmers more than ever. 

In the next couple of decades, food production across the world will need to double in order to feed everyone, as our tender globe plunges faster and faster towards a frightening population of 9 billion people.  Many countries won’t be able to increase production, and so places like Australia need to become an even bigger producer and exporter of food. Some predictions say that Australia will need to quadruple its food production in order to satisfy demand.

Thankfully, many of Australia’s farmers are already exhibiting world’s best practice. Using advanced technologies, many produce maximum tonnage of crops time and time again, and although some animal husbandry practices have been rightly called into question of late, Australia’s humane farming methods are on the whole some of the best in the world.

Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying Aussie farmers are perfect. Far from it. In my 20-year journalism career I have often reported on some of the long-lasting, extensive and extremely detrimental impacts of agriculture on our environment. There has been irreparable widespread clearing, sometimes illegally, the degradation or decimation of entire ecosystems, pig-headed greed, and pollution, such as the fertilisers running off into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef. Generally a conservative bunch, the agricultural community has in many cases been slow to adopt changes that could have made a difference. And as owners and operators of often very large businesses, with vast overheads, they make primarily economic decisions that can have negative effects on the environment. So do city folk.

However, on the whole, I think today’s farmers do see themselves as caretakers of the land. Often highly trained in everything from agronomy to botany, these savvy farmers are trying to right the wrongs of the past: to re-establish wildlife corridors, to use less water – and use it more effectively – to rescue soils, and all the while produce copious amounts of high-quality fruit, veggies, cotton, meat, wine, grains, wool etc, despite seasonal turmoil or the effects of climate change.

Brian Campbell, Ilkadoon

Consumers

As consumers, we can make choices that will help the sustainability of our agricultural industry. Nearly every environmentalist in the world will tell us that one of the best things we can choose to do is to eat less meat. (For the record, I am NOT a vegetarian.) They say that if everyone ate just one meal less of meat a week it will make a substantial difference. We can choose to pay more for groceries that we believe are produced more sustainably: whether free-range, “organic” or from farmers who we know are endeavouring to do a great job with the environment – those who are winning environmental awards or who are taking steps to be more sustainable.

John Dunne, mustering feral goats

Although I have made efforts in my own suburban backyard to be more sustainable, I am under no illusion that my chooks and paltry veggie garden will feed even my own family, let alone anyone else. Sure, my neighbours might get the odd bit of excess produce, but I am not going to feed the world.

Many urbanites simply haven’t spent enough time with Aussie farmers to hear their stories, or endeavoured to understand their struggles and find out why they make the decisions they do. I encourage all, especially those of us who call ourselves environmentalists, to take one of the many opportunities to listen to an Aussie farmer. Choose a farmstay for your next holiday. Unfortunately FarmDay didn’t happen this year, but its aim is to give city families a farm experience for a weekend, and build bridges over the urban/rural divide.

I hope that as this proud urban greenie spends more time over the next few years hearing, investigating and telling the stories of Aussie farmers, that I can support those who are trying to do the right thing by the environment, and encourage some of the others to do the same.

kensbigbackyard.com.au

Rossmore Station