Editor
I am having difficulty trying to understand why the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) would undermine efforts by agricultural communities to increase farm production for the benefit of national prosperity.
I appreciate that it may not fully support the approach taken by frustrated Southern Riverina farmers, as highlighted on the 60 Minutes program. However, it seems all these farmers are trying to do is convince Governments that water is needed to grow food. If the water is made available for this purpose the farmers in this region will benefit, and as an extension to that, so will national agriculture production. Isn’t that what NFF should be supporting?
Instead it supported the Federal Agriculture Minister’s claims that Australia is producing enough food for 75 million people, three times our population.
What the Minister and the NFF are not taking into consideration is the dramatic reduction in agricultural production in recent years, as has been made clear in the latest ABARE figures.
My theory is that the Minister made his ‘we can feed 75 million people’ claims before this ABARE research was released in what was a genuine attempt to discourage the wider community from panic buying at the start of the pandemic. Politically, it was probably impossible for him to retract that statement after the ABARE statistics showed it was no longer the case
I suspect the NFF, beholden to its National Party mates in preference to a section of its membership, decided it needed to support the Agriculture Minister. However, I firmly believe this was an incorrect decision.
It also seems to contradict the NFF goal, a “bold vision” is its description, to exceed $100 billion in farm gate output by 2030.
If anyone can explain how this is going to be achieved without a vibrant irrigation sector in the food bowl of southern NSW and northern Victoria, I’d like to hear it. And we cannot have a vibrant irrigation sector if we do not have water.
So may I suggest the NFF spends more time supporting this sector so our nation can return to past days when we produced enough food for 75 million people.
We all know there is enough ‘divide and conquer’ mentality within agriculture; we do not need it being exacerbated by the national organisation that is supposed to be working in the best interests of the industry and food production in general.
Yours faithfully,
Jodie Hay
Cohuna, Vic
