With many fruit trees in full bloom at the moment, it’s quiet on most orchards.
But in the Goulburn Valley of northern Victoria, the sound of tractors and farm machinery can be heard, as volunteers gather to push over unwanted fruit trees.
Peter Tuohey, the president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, has rallied farmers and tractors to a number of properties to start the process of removing trees on farms which have lost contracts to supply their fruit to food processor SPC.
There had been concern that if the trees weren’t removed they would cause a biosecurity issue for the remaining neighbouring orchards.
Earlier this year, SPC announced it would be cutting contracts with 61 growers, who had in the past provided plums, peaches and pears to the cannery.
Cheap imports of fruit from China, sometimes via New Zealand have devastated the horticultural and vegetable industries. Another large and suffering horticultural district is the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. It has a perfect climate for tropical fruits, mandarins, lemons, limes, avocados, watermelons and other temperate fruits, but cheap imports have put most producers on the breadline.
Farmers are of course their own worst enemies, great whingers and this time around, by-and-large supporters of the Liberal and National Party. Cairns News has no sympathy for these free trade sycophants and those in the parties they support.
These long-suffering farmers had the opportunity to support Katters Australian Party at the election but were too ignorant to do their own investigation of the Liberal’s dishonest and illegal advertising campaign claiming ‘a vote for Katter is a vote for Labor.’
Family farmers will soon be extinct under the free-trade, free market, Liberal and National ideology. It is now open slather for China to purchase these farms and grow their own food as Indonesia has just announced, naturally welcomed by the traitors in the producer groups supposedly protecting farmers.
Coles and Woolworths, along with coal and coal seam gas companies, in the next three years will have torn up what is left of our Downs and brigalow belt world’s best soils, sanctioned completely by lying and traitorous Liberal and National parties.
Cairns News finds it extremely hard to believe the naivety of farmers in the struggling Burnett region who again blindly voted for the country’s foremost free trader, Warren Truss, leader of the National Party, an intellectual pigmy who killed the dairy industry.
Then we have Warren Entsch, another Liberal freeloader from Cairns who has just woken up with his statement in the Cairns Post, “there may be some issues in the dairy industry.”
Wakey! Wakey! Warren your farm and that of your nearby neighbor Treasurer Joe Hockey at Milla Milla is surrounded by former dairies, which 20 years ago numbered some 700 now there are just 40 left and diminishing by the month.
If Bob Katter goes, so too will our food producers.
Cairns News’ new policy will be to support only those primary producers who can see the forest for the trees.
Well said.. When will they put farmers on the agenda and start looking after the real issues..
Its time that the Australian Federal government woke up to the fact that we can no longer afford to keep losing sections of our farming industry . My proposal is that the Australian Government firstly sets up an Australian peoples bank owned by the taxpayers , That all government superannuation funds are used to finance the bank and that the bank then finances processing factories to process our fruit and vegetables . That the federal government sets up retail outlets to market our fruit and vegetables and processed / manufactured goods that are brought straight from our farmers and manufactures at a contract price , That the government also sets up finance for industries that will manufacture products that can and will compete with products that are currently being imported from overseas ,That we value add to our own mineral resources and our produce . That the retail out lets take on the major current retailers head on and that the savings from farm gate / manufacture to consumer are passed on to the consumers . Any profits from the government owned retail out lets can go back to the peoples owned bank to finance future industries and to create a working bank for the upgrading of our roads and railways systems . We need to stop supporting overseas aid any aid we give is to be in products or services and this includes Australian grown and processed produce ,And why are we supporting over seas manufactures that cry poor and get billions of dollars in subsidies , the Question needs to be asked as to why we are supporting the car manufacturing industry in Australia if they are not competive on world markets , Why are we subsidising GMH when they only manufacture two models in Australia THE CRUIZE and the Commodore and the rest are imported at great cost to the Australian public , Why are we not manufacturing farming equipment and trucks in Australia value adding to out iron ore ,Why was our steel works closed down and why has our ship building industry been shipped of to South Korea . Why are we still allowing companies from over seas to manufacture in Australia and pay little or no tax under the duel taxation agreement Why are we exporting our base metals only to buy them back , Why are we exporting our wool and cotton when we could value add to them in Australia , Why are we allowing goods that could be manufactured or supplied to our own peoples owned retail outlets to be imported from overseas whilst our farmers are being forced to push their trees over and plough their small crops back into the ground .We have a work force that is under utilised , We have thousands of people that are on the dole or on pensions that should be drafted into the work force to work for their money No one should get a free ride whilst others have to work their arses off to make a living , Unmarried mothers should also be put to work to earn their pensions . Enough is enough .. Why should the hard working tax paying farmers and workers pay for the sex life’s of these people . No work no pay .
Peter Schuback 0408458232 Australia First party