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RE: Veggie Thread v2.0 ...all stuff regarding food production
February 21, 2014 at 11:50 pm (This post was last modified: February 22, 2014 at 12:20 am by KichigaiNeko.)
Farming Fish
Broadcast: 15/02/2014 8:38:13 PM
Reporter: Sean Murphy
Quote:PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: Australians aren't eating enough fish. As a nation, we consume about 40 per cent less seafood than recommended for a healthy diet.
The reasons for this are partly due to cost, but also perhaps a reluctance to eat farmed fish from Asia.
Seafood importers have now launched a campaign to correct what they believe are misconceptions about Asian aquaculture.
SEAN MURPHY, REPORTER: Every weekday, about 50 tonnes of mostly Australian seafood is traded at the Sydney Fish Markets. Only Japan has a bigger marketplace. But the reality is that most of the fish and shellfish eaten by Australians wasn't caught or farmed here and won't be sold at places like this.
It's more likely to arrive by refrigerated container to cold storage owned by about 50 major seafood importers. This load is from New Zealand, but it could have come from anywhere.
HARRY PETERS, MARINE PRODUCT MARKETING: The majority of our seafood is coming out of South-East Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, also from South Africa, Norway, South America, the US, Poland, Spain, the UK and New Zealand, of course - New Zealand being one of the largest suppliers to our market.
SEAN MURPHY: And that's no bad thing, according to veteran importer Harry Peters. He says imports are more affordable at a time when budgets are stretched and Australians are eating 40 per cent less seafood than recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
HARRY PETERS: I'm extremely concerned that we're not eating enough seafood, particularly our children, and we need to educate families to get seafood back on the diet. And if Mum's just careful with her shopping, she can pick up some pretty good product at pretty good prices.
SEAN MURPHY: But even if it was more affordable, Australia cannot supply its own seafood needs. Local wild-caught and farmed fish accounts for just a quarter of national consumption and Australia now imports about 210,000 tonnes a year.
NORM GRANT, AUSTRALIAN SEAFOOD IMPORTERS: The vast majority of seafood overall comes from South-East Asia.
SEAN MURPHY: What sort of product?
NORM GRANT: Shrimp is the number one species consumed in Australia still, but we eat a lot of basa, which is the Mekong catfish, from Vietnam predominantly, and we eat a lot of barramundi. A lot of people don't realise that barramundi's prolific throughout South-East Asia and it's growing in popularity as one of the main species eaten in Australia.
SEAN MURPHY: Norm Grant says cheaper doesn't mean poorer quality. But unfortunately, according to the executive chairman of the Australian Seafood Importers' Association, there's still market resistance in Australia to seafood farmed in places like Thailand and Vietnam, even though they've become global seafood producers.
NORM GRANT: There's been concerted campaigns in some quarters to destroy the reputation of the imported seafood. That partly comes from competitive interests, that is, people supplying other species into this market. A little bit from local producers who fear competition from imports.
And I think too some people just get the wrong idea. They visit countries like Vietnam, as tourists they see the small cage operations owned by family interests that are not built to any standard at all and assume that must be the export industry. And of course, plenty of people saying, "Well that's where your fish comes from," but of course that's not the case.
SEAN MURPHY: The Seafood Importers' Association is trying to educate Australians about sustainable aquaculture in places like Vietnam where companies are often vertically integrated, controlling breeding, feeding, processing and cold chain distribution.
Pangasius, more commonly known as basa, is now the second most consumed fish in Australia after Tasmanian Atlantic salmon. 20 years ago it was a staple for the poor throughout the Mekong Delta. Now Vietnam sells basa to more than 130 countries.
NGUYEN HUU DZUNG, VIETNAM SEAFOOD EXPORTERS' ASSOC. (subtitles): But after we can do the hatchery of Pangasius, the farming of Pangasius in 10 years increased very fast from 10,000 tonne a year to 1.4 million tonne a year and exports start from US$60 million per year to come to last year US$1.8 billion per year.
SEAN MURPHY: At last year's Vietfish Expo in Hanoi there were buyers from around the world. Vietnam now produces seafood worth close to $4 billion. Australia accounts for just 2.8 per cent of sales.
JEFF PETERSON, GLOBAL AQUACULTURE ALLIANCE: I would say that products from Vietnam, the ones that are from reputable companies, are without doubt among the best you'll find anywhere.
SEAN MURPHY: Jeff Peterson is the director of quality control for the Global Aquaculture Alliance. It's one of the world's biggest sustainability certifiers. He says Vietnamese companies have been keen to adapt best practice standards to satisfy markets in America and Europe where sustainability is a key demand.
JEFF PETERSON: Sustainability to some people means environmental responsibility so that you don't damage the environment where you work. We have strict metrics on effluent, water quality, for example. That may satisfy some people, but in others, sustainability means proper treatment of workers, that they're paid fairly, that they're given the proper training and so on and so forth.
To other people, food safety is all about making sure that the product is consistently not only wholesome and nutritious, but safe - no antibiotics, no hormones, no additives of any kind.
SEAN MURPHY: Vietnam is aiming to have all of its seafood exports third-party certified by 2015. Companies like Australis Barramundi, which moved to Vietnam five years ago, are now aggressively marketing their sustainability credentials.
DAN FISK, AUSTRALIA BARRAMUNDI: We have 150 hectares at this site, 750 metres wide and two kilometres long. So, right now we're only harvesting on about 10 per cent of the water that's available to us and we can produce over 2,000 tonnes per year from this site.
SEAN MURPHY: The one-time Australian company is aiming to produce about 6,000 tonnes by next year. Its main market is the US, but it's now also selling to Australian supermarket chains.
DAN FISK: Obviously we have discerned the difference between performance and sustainability and not only do we want to be a high-performing company, but we have to be here for a long time, and in order to do that well, we have to take care of our environment, obviously.
And so part of what we do is to minimise the waste. We have cameras at eight metres below the surface, so that when we feed, we can see clearly when the fish have had enough food and they get a stop signal and so we can minimise the feed wastage that goes into the environment. On top of that, we have a fallowing system that basically allows us to use - only about 30 per cent of the water that Australis has here in our operation is used for farming at any one time. The rest of the water is used for fallowing and for resting those areas.
SEAN MURPHY: Australian seafood consultant John Sussman has been working with cobia farmers in Vietnam and has been introducing their product to some of Australia's best restaurants.
JOE PAVLOVICH, GLASS BRASSERIE: I think it's a fantastic fish. I honestly, you know - the perception of, you know, Vietnam and getting fish, it's all crap, look, this is just blowing it out of the water for me. It's consistent fish daily for me. Look, I run a 220-seat restaurant. I go through 10 to 15 kilos of fish a day of one type. You know, it's consistent and comes like this every time. You know, obviously, the sizes change a little bit, you're saying now.
JOHN SUSSMAN, SEAFOOD CONSULTANT: There are opportunities and I think that being able to come to the top end of the market, this is where the opinion leaders and the opinion formers are. People are looking to the likes of Joe and the guys working in the three-star restaurants to actually tell them what are the next trends and if these guys are using quality products, then it sort of - it really augurs well for broader markets.
JOE PAVLOVICH: So now it's just a taste test, I guess.
JOHN SUSSMAN: Alright, let's have a look.
JOE PAVLOVICH: So beautifully cooked.
JOHN SUSSMAN: Ooh, look at that.
JOE PAVLOVICH: Just slightly under.
JOHN SUSSMAN: Yes, that's perfect, isn't it?
JOE PAVLOVICH: Beautiful, look at that.
JOHN SUSSMAN: That's gorgeous.
JOE PAVLOVICH: Slightly under, so it should just be warming through now.
JOHN SUSSMAN: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
JOE PAVLOVICH: Alright, there you go.
JOHN SUSSMAN: Alright. Here we go.
SEAN MURPHY: John Sussman says there are big opportunities for Australians to help develop aquaculture in Asia.
JOHN SUSSMAN: I actually think that that's probably one of the big futures for our aquaculture industry is not necessarily growing product, but providing intellectual property through the chain, both from a production, post-harvest and marketing perspective. We definitely have the skills here in Australia to be able to provide to farmers throughout Asia to bring products into the Western markets.
SEAN MURPHY: While most of the fish brought into Australia is by big players such as Harry Peters, the Seafood Importers' Association says the growth of aquaculture in Asia has seen a growth in part-time operators importing product. The association is calling for a licensing system.
HARRY PETERS, MARINE PRODUCT MARKETING: If you want to become a bricklayer or a builder or an electrician or a plumber or a real estate agent, you have to be licensed, yet in our industry, anybody can import a container of prawns or a container of fish without any licence and nine times out of 10 the backyarders have no idea of the health controls required. And this is something that as an industry, we need to police very quickly.
NORM GRANT: Yes, we think the rules ought to be tightened for importers. To be an importer you need a lot of experience. There are a lot of rules in terms of the food safety requirements we have to meet and also the quarantine requirements and whilst most of the large companies can comply with that easily, we see an increasing number of new entrants into that market, particularly for small family businesses that may have relations overseas and we really are concerned that those people may not be completely knowledgeable about the rules.
SEAN MURPHY: And while the Government has no immediate plans for licensing importers, it says all seafood imports are subject to a range of tests at approved laboratories like this one. It's part of a two-tiered surveillance system managed by the Department of Agriculture.
RONA MELLOR, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE: Health specialists tell us to look at high-risk foods, which we do 100 per cent of the time, and then there are other foods, which we call surveillance foods, where we generally check them to see whether or not they contain anything that's harmful to human health.
IAN ECKHARD, ANALYTICAL CHEMIST: We test for a range of different contaminants that are present in seafood and it could be marine biotoxins or antibiotics or anything that can poison people in the food chain, including, of course, microbiological contamination.
SEAN MURPHY: That's things like sewerage contamination?
IAN ECKHARD: That's right, E. coli, salmonella and the same sort of things that you find in fast food shops.
SEAN MURPHY: The Department of Agriculture says better than 99 per cent of imports are deemed safe. Seafood importers say the public should have faith in their products because they're tested more than Australian seafood.
Quote:Recipes courtesy of Chaxiraxi Afonso Higuera
Talking out loud about how I would track down a chef to prepare and talk about mussels on camera, Spring Bay Seafood boss Phil Lamb said, "Oh there's a Spanish chef up the road who uses our mussels, and the Spanish know how to cook mussels better than anyone, maybe she's worth a call?"
Chaxiraxi Afonso Higuera proved up for it.
Chaxi (pronounced Sharsi) cooked a range of Spanish dishes showing mussels can be hearty or summery, part of a dish or a star on their own.
Spill the Beans
Broadcast: 2/02/2014 11:43:01 PM
Reporter: Kerry Staight
Quote:PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: They may be the butt of many jokes, but baked beans have been a staple in people's pantries for generations. However, while the market has remained steady, the local industry that produces the classic toast topping has faced many challenges since it was established during World War II. But, as Kerry Staight reports, with the owner of SPC Ardmona, the country's only baked bean cannery, threatening to shut down its Australian operations, this year could deliver one challenge too many.
KERRY STAIGHT, REPORTER: The tropical Burdekin region in North Queensland is classic cane country. But it's not the lush, elegant-looking crop Barry Breadsell has his sights on today. Instead, he's heading for the less attractive shrivelled-up patch of navy beans tucked in between.
BARRY BREADSELL, DONGAMERE, NORTH AYR, QLD: Didn't know much at all about navy beans, but, yeah, I was interested in giving them a go. They're very similar, really, to just the green bean like you'd grow in your garden at home.
KERRY STAIGHT: The difference is these less familiar beans are turned into a very familiar product: baked beans. A no-fuss food on the table, but in the field, it's another matter.
BARRY BREADSELL: You have to harvest them about 15 per cent moisture. They will, if the sun comes out - with the wind we do have here, they will dry out fairly fast. If they get too dry, they'll crack in the header and crack the shell on them. But if they're too moist, they'll end up - they'll get a bit musty. So, yeah, we've got to wait until they're just right.
KERRY STAIGHT: With harvest up here coinciding with the start of the wet season, Barry Breadsell is keen to get the beans off before the heavens open. And it's not just maintaining the right moisture in the mature beans that's crucial. The crop also needs to be kept damp, but not drenched while it's growing.
BARRY BREADSELL: They're a bit fussy, so they don't like to be too wet at all. If they suffer water logging, they won't get over it' it'll set them back and they'll never recover, really. But they haven't got much of a root system, so they don't like to be too dry as well.
KERRY STAIGHT: Barry Breadsell has been growing the beans under centre pivot irrigation for three years, and after a bit of a learning curve the first season, the last two have been more successful, with yields of between two and 2.5 tonnes a hectare.
Another Burdekin grower, Mark Goos, will be hoping for a similar change of fortune.
This is his first go at navy beans, and with a fast-growing season of 12 to 14 weeks, they potentially fit in well with his rotation.
MARK GOOS, BURDEKIN NAVY BEAN GROWER: We're after a break crop from our corn, um, corn on corn and a millet crop grown over the summer. We don't change the monoculture, so we're just after a break crop. So, the opportunity arose, so we grabbed it and have learnt a few lessons from it.
KERRY STAIGHT: The trial crop has been planted on a block left fallow for three years, so weeds are more of a problem than normal. A lack of water after the irrigation system broke down has also taken a toll.
MARK GOOS: We had our issues with the irrigator at a very critical time which held the beans back. They were without water for 10 days. At that point we'd given up hope on the beans. We were just going to leave them there and treat them as a cover crop and plough them in, but once we got the water back onto them, they had recovered somewhat and I held a bit of hope.
KERRY STAIGHT: What do you reckon you actually have to get yield-wise to make a decent margin on this crop?
MARK GOOS: Oh, I think we need to look towards 2.5 tonnes to the hectare.
KERRY STAIGHT: Will you get that this year?
MARK GOOS: No, we won't get that this year, no.
KERRY STAIGHT: While navy beans are relatively new for some Burdekin growers, farmers near Kingaroy are more familiar with them. It may be known for its peanuts, but the South Burnett town is also considered the country's baked bean capital and this paddock at Kumbia just down the road is where the first crop was grown.
GARY TRUSS, KINGAROY NAVY BEAN GROWER: Well these are I think probably the first pictures that we ever had of harvesting navy beans on our property.
KERRY STAIGHT: Gary Truss owns that paddock. The 63-year-old whose brother is the National Party's leader, Warren Truss, has been in the beans business his whole farming life, taking over where his grandfather and father left off.
GARY TRUSS: There was no sort of hydraulics or mod cons like that in those days. It was all manual labour. ...
... Navy beans were grown firstly in Australia at the time of the Second World War. There was a lot of American troops in Australia, servicemen, and part of their staple diet was baked beans and so somebody had the idea, well, we should try and grow them here.
KERRY STAIGHT: The US Army provided the seed, the Federal Government contracted growers and production was controlled under the National Security Act. It didn't get off to a great start. The beans grew, but farmers hadn't worked out how to harvest them, so they were ploughed back into the soil. But after that problem was solved, the industry expanded with more than 100 growers in Queensland in the mid '40s.
GARY TRUSS: I admire the pioneers of the industry. The fact that they were prepared to tackle something that they knew nothing about, they really sort of had a tenacity that you can only admire.
KERRY STAIGHT: While today's navy beans may look like stubble from afar and can at times be tricky to get the header under, this is child's play compared to what farmers used to contend with.
The original Californian small white variety spread out over the ground and had to be windrowed, or cut out, before it could be picked up.
GARY TRUSS: The real turning point for the industry was when the upright variety came in and we could direct head them with our harvesters that we use for wheat, corn - all the other things.
KERRY STAIGHT: Unlike many of their neighbours, Gary Truss and his son Stephen, a fourth-generation navy bean grower, have not pursued peanuts, staying faithful to and good-humoured about the crop with a blustery reputation.
GARY TRUSS: People don't associate baked beans as being navy beans and usually once they do find out that they're baked beans, well then they give you a hard time! (Laughs) Either you love baked beans or you hate them. You know, there's sort of no middle ground. Very nutritious food and generally they're a cheap food and they keep as well, so they've got a lot going for them.
KERRY STAIGHT: Including a decent farm gate price that hasn't fluctuated in four years.
GARY TRUSS: The price at the present time is the best it's been for a while. All through the '70s and '80s, the price was in that $500 or $600 a tonne, which comparative wasn't bad at that stage as well. But $1,100, yeah, the price is really quite good.
KERRY STAIGHT: Unfortunately, many dry land farmers around these parts can't take advantage of the price this year.
While the Truss’s have planted some corn, they've ruled out sowing navy beans as Queensland's big dry continues to sap much-needed moisture from the soil. Still, despite two shocking seasons in a row, the family remains committed to the legume.
GARY TRUSS: Some say we're slow learners (laughs), but the industry's been very good to us over the years. There will be years when you lose them, like last year we lost our entire crop because of the wet weather, but then other years have been very good, so you've got to look at them over a period of time.
KERRY STAIGHT: When he does grow them, Gary Truss's beans are cleaned and colour sorted at this processing plant in Kingaroy. And, ironically, the local red soil creates something of a challenge.
LLOYD NIELSEN, BEAN GROWERS AUSTRALIA: In years gone by we actually had two qualities: we had a pink canning quality and a white canning quality and that was to fit the growers locally. But over time the pink canning quality has gone out of vogue, it's a lot harder to manage, although the product does go into, obviously, a red tomato sauce.
KERRY STAIGHT: Lloyd Nielsen runs Bean Growers Australia, a former farmers' cooperative turned company that has been at the heart of the industry for 50 years as the major navy bean supplier in the country. While it used to source most of its beans from local producers, it's now cast the net much wider to reduce the risk of running out, contracting growers in mainly irrigated areas like the NSW Riverina and the Burdekin. Even so, Australia's annual navy bean production is only about 3,000 tonnes - a third of what it was at its peak and a drop in the bucket compared to the world's biggest producers, the US and Canada, which together average more than a quarter of a million tonnes.
LLOYD NIELSEN: Their weather is much more suitable. They start off with maybe a metre of snow, so they have significant amount of subsoil moisture, so droughts are very rare for them. On top of that, because of their severe cold, they don't have the insect problems. In Australia, obviously, we're challenged with our water and our irrigation and also with our insect and our climate, which we're trying to grow a temperate crop in generally a semi-tropical area.
KERRY STAIGHT: The climate hasn't been the only challenge the supplier has had to weather. The company has also been forced to diversify into other legumes like mung beans after major navy bean buyer Heinz moved its canning operations offshore in the late '90s.
LLOYD NIELSEN: It became essential that we looked at other bean crops. Obviously that's our expertise to try and survive because you cut your production by two thirds and it has a significant effect on your bottom line. At one stage we really only had one or two customers, whereas now we have a customer base of many hundreds.
KERRY STAIGHT: But when it comes to navy beans, it's putting pretty much all its faith in a company that's in danger of going under.
LLOYD NIELSEN: We're wholly and solely fully supporting SPC. We want them to succeed in what they're doing.
KERRY STAIGHT: SPC Ardmona owns Australia's largest remaining fruit and vegetable processor at Shepparton in Victoria, which employs between 800 and 1,200 people, depending on the time of year. While packaging fruit is the main game here, baked beans and spaghetti account for 15 per cent of the business. And it's no secret this business is in the red.
PETER KELLY, SPC ARDMONA: In 2011 and 2012, we bought $100 million worth of stock and wrote it off. So, massive - two massive losses, $200 million in those two years and an operating loss this year. So, it's a severe problem.
KERRY STAIGHT: The company is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Amatil. The food and beverage giant was prepared to spend more than $90 million upgrading the old factory if the federal and Victorian governments contributed $25 million each. This week, cabinet ruled that out. And Coca-Cola Amatil isn't throwing the ailing company any more lifelines until a review into SPC Ardmona has been carried out.
PETER KELLY: I've got to show that we can turn the business around, that we can start to improve the performance, the bottom line performance. So there's no strict deadline, but I can tell you, making a bigger loss would be a bad thing. I've got to get things turned around quickly.
KERRY STAIGHT: If SPC does shut that plant down, what does that mean for the navy bean industry in Australia?
LLOYD NIELSEN: The reality is that the navy bean industry would close, would finish.
KERRY STAIGHT: This is one of SPC's strategies to stop that from happening. In the middle of last year it launched a 100 per cent Australian-grown baked bean line, boycotting cheaper imports from North America. It costs more to produce, so the shelf price has also gone up around 10 per cent. Sales haven't shot up, but they've remained steady, despite the price hike. And the company says it is heading in the right direction.
PETER KELLY: I think the consumer will appreciate what we've done. They understand that we're promoting more jobs in Australia, more jobs in agriculture in Australia, stronger growers, stronger food industry in Australia and they'll give us some loyalty for that. We think that it's a good formula for success, actually.
KERRY STAIGHT: Producers certainly hope he's right and that Kingaroy won't have to cross out one of its claims to fame.
With all the challenges ahead, is it still worth pursuing?
LLOYD NIELSEN: I think it is from a historical point of view. I guess you ask yourself in business if something's still relevant. It certainly fits into our system, fits into the growers' systems and I think that's something that we'd really like to see continue.
A Dry Debate
Broadcast: 8/02/2014 2:46:11 PM
Reporter: Pip Courtney
Transcript
Quote:PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: This story is about the crippling drought over most of Western Queensland and parts of New South Wales. As farmers become increasingly desperate, the Federal Government is under pressure to deliver billions of dollars in drought assistance. But the Government is also keen to rein in what it sees as unsustainable welfare, with the Treasurer declaring the age of entitlement is over.
In the middle of this debate about drought and dependency is Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who hit the road to see and hear for himself what's going on.
Historically low rainfall and searing summer temperatures have hit Queensland farmers fast and hard. The drought is now so bad, a staggering 69 per cent of the state is drought declared.
JOHN MCVEIGH, QLD AGRICULTURE MINISTER: You know, this is almost a perfect storm, this particular drought. It's gripped Queensland fairly quickly, particularly hot in the recent weeks; you know, the heatwaves that have been around the country have sort of landed on top of the developing drought. Severe water - surface water shortages, which is a bit different to previous droughts where we did at least see occasional rainfall. So this is particularly, I think, unique, this drought. Of course here we are looking down the barrel of a second failed wet season.
PIP COURTNEY: Sheep and cattle producers in the north and central-west were affected first, and when crucial summer rains failed to arrive, cotton growers in southern inland Queensland were hit too.
BEN SUTTER, QLD COTTON: During this summer there's been basically no rainfall event, no in-crop rain. So, normally the cotton growers bank on getting one or two rainfall events that will help the crop along, but there's just been nothing since - basically nothing.
PIP COURTNEY: A month out from harvest and the cotton around Dirranbandi and St George is suffering as growers run out of water. Ben Sutter says more than a third of the crop might not make it.
BEN SUTTER: As every day goes by at the moment, there's crops running out of water and there's cotton fields that won't get through to maturity and stuff that has been already ploughed in.
PIP COURTNEY: Hamish McIntyre planted 1,300 hectares of cotton, but has had to turn the taps off to 150 hectares as he's run out of water.
HAMISH MCINTYRE, ST GEORGE COTTON GROWER: We had budgeted on growing approximately 20,000 bales of cotton, our family, a year, and this year, I'll be very happy if we grow sort of 12,000 to 13,000.
DONNA STEWART, BALONNE SHIRE MAYOR: Normally this time of the year there'd be ski boats going up and down and people really enjoying themselves, canoes and kids jumping off the trees into the river and just generally enjoying water sports.
PIP COURTNEY: Farmers aren't the only ones running out of water; so has the Balonne River. Mayor Donna Stewart's never seen it this low.
And this is the town water supply as well?
DONNA STEWART: This is the town water supply. Yeah, this is what we pump out of it.
PIP COURTNEY: Looks pretty prim.
DONNA STEWART: Yeah, it doesn't look too good, does it?
PIP COURTNEY: Donna Stewart's been surprised by the speed and severity of this drought, now hitting a region that was fighting floods just two years ago. She's hearing more stories of desperation than ever before.
DONNA STEWART: They're financially and physically and mentally running on empty. Yeah, nothing left. I think something's got to be done immediately and I'm hoping that's the message that we can spend back through to Barnaby to Canberra that there's got to be measures in place immediately to put some family payments in and then put some long-term plans in that we don't have to be going to the Government all the time. No-one wants to go to the Government for handouts.
PIP COURTNEY: Sadly, that story is state-wide. Queensland rural lobby group AgForce says 70 per cent of drought-affected producers rate this drought as more financially severe than previous droughts.
Queensland's Agriculture Minister, John McVeigh, has overseen a record drought spend of $31 million. He fears farmers will need more help soon.
JOHN MCVEIGH: We've seen a cyclone now just in recent days not deliver, it seems, the rain that we'd hoped for throughout the western parts of the state. Reports of further cyclones forming. We need to see how the normal period of a wet season ends up in - by the end of say, February, obviously, and then we can look at more.
PIP COURTNEY: The Federal Government's been sympathetic, with Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce visiting, listening and fighting for millions in drought aid. He's watched with dismay as the dry has crossed the border into NSW.
BARNABY JOYCE, AGRICULTURE MINISTER: Same there: no water, no feed, no money, the bank's unhappy, can't pay for the groceries, what are you going to do? ... People start losing hope and that causes a real sort of emotional crisis with people. There's only one cure in the end and that's rain. The role that we have is to listen and then to go into bat to try and come up with programs that mitigate and deal with the issues.
PIP COURTNEY: While assistance ranges from cash to fodder transport subsidies to counselling, Barnaby Joyce worries farmers are self-assessing or deciding they won't qualify.
BARNABY JOYCE: There are paid financial counsellors. We put the money on the table to pay these people to help you out. Go see them and make absolutely certain there are not government programs currently in place that you can help yourself with such as a farm finance package at 4.5 per cent. We've got $420 million put aside for that. We got money to get bores in and a lot of people are really happy about that because it's giving them greater coverage on their place.
PIP COURTNEY: Rowell Walton says the Government could help straight away by cutting the amount of paper work farmers must fill out to get drought aid. This is his application.
ROWELL WALTON, RURAL CRISIS MEETING ORGANISER: I find it extraordinary, to be frank with you. I mean, obviously, you know, the authorities have got to do the right thing and follow it through and make sure that we're not trying to knock them off, but I'm sure you don't have to go quite as far as this, at any rate. So I imagine for people that are in a much more stressed place than I am, it would be very, very hard. I think they would abandon it, Pip. I don't think they'd even do it. I think they'd walk away.
PIP COURTNEY: Frustration in the bush is growing. A rural crisis meeting in St George last week pulled a big crowd. The star attraction?: Barnaby Joyce, the man with the influence and hopefully the money to help.
ROWELL WALTON: He needs to do some things to fix up the human catastrophe that's unfolding right here in eastern Australia and he needs to do it next week. He cannot afford to wait. He needs to go into the cabinet and say, "Guys I'm getting a lot of pressure. This is real pressure, this is a real human catastrophe and we need to do something about it. We can't just wait by."
PIP COURTNEY: To ensure expectations weren't too high, the minister repeatedly warned he was but one of 19 in cabinet.
BARNABY JOYCE: So we've got to try and make sure that what we do here today has the capacity to influence people, not just in St George. If the noise just stops in St George, that's where the program finishes. It's got to have the capacity to resonate on 4BC, on 2GB.
PIP COURTNEY: For his consideration was a proposal for a reconstruction and development board to be run by the Reserve Bank.
MARK MCGOVERN, QUT ECONOMIST: And that is a way to build a financial solution to financial problems and sort out financial issues without involving all sorts of government interventions and all this sort of stuff. It's to set up and deliver financial packages which have got a chance of working.
PIP COURTNEY: Mark McGovern says the board would deal with what he called Australia's systemic and serious rural debt problems.
MARK MCGOVERN: They need to be addressed through a financial arrangement. And we need some sort of organisation to do that. The banks by themselves, the commercial banks aren't in the position to be able to do this sort of thing.
PIP COURTNEY: A private members bill to create the board is before Parliament.
BARNABY JOYCE: I have no major philosophical problem with that. That's - but it's - the endeavours that are required on a political format to get to that spot are immense and long-term.
PIP COURTNEY: He couldn't say yes to the development board, but Barnaby Joyce was able to say he's asked for relief payments paperwork to be simplified, and what the audience wanted to hear, that he'd fight hard for more money.
BARNABY JOYCE: I have informed people that I intend to take the next step in trying to pursue some sort of outcome with the immediate issues of drought. We've had a range of battles in the past - I suppose GrainCorp was one, where we won - but there are - this is another mighty battle and we're going have to mount up for this one as well.
PIP COURTNEY: It won't be easy, as all government programs are under financial scrutiny and Treasurer Joe Hockey says he wants to see greater efficiency and sustainability in agriculture.
JOE HOCKEY, TREASURER: The answer to the problem of debt is not to have more debt and interest rates historically now are at all-time lows. So if people are having problems coping with interest rates now, then there is a bigger systemic issue at play. Barnaby Joyce is absolutely right: we need to have a proper debate about sustainable agriculture in Australia, and importantly, you can't divorce that from water management.
PIP COURTNEY: Federal cabinet's recent decision not to give financial help to the SPC Ardmona cannery in Victoria has raised the prospect of cabinet applying its tough new "Businesses should be more self-reliant" philosophy to agriculture. But Barnaby Joyce argues agriculture is different.
BARNABY JOYCE: You can never plan for a crisis. You can't plan - you can't have a total, perfect plan for bushfires. You can't have a total, perfect plan for floods and you can't have a total, perfect plan for droughts. They're the vagaries of the weather. One of the Government's role is to help when you can't help yourself, when you've taken all reasonable means, but it's - then there's a role for government.
PIP COURTNEY: If you go back to ask for more drought relief, is cabinet going to say no?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well I can never second guess what cabinet does or doesn't do. What I can understand is the general sentiment of people who are in politics is one of empathy and one of trying to assist. And you'll find that on both sides of the political fence, and, you know, I don't think there's any points to be scored by ...
PIP COURTNEY: But it's going to be tough for you, isn't it, to get money out of cabinet?
BARNABY JOYCE: Oh, of course. Yeah. Yep, yep.
PIP COURTNEY: During his trips to Queensland and NSW, the minister was repeatedly asked to restore interest rate subsidies, a system that cost the Federal Government more than $2.5 billion during the Millennium Drought and which the Productivity Commission criticised as being ineffective and encouraging poor farming practices.
BARNABY JOYCE: I'm not going to say exactly what my intentions are because I'll be completely frank: until I've got round to enough people and talked to enough people, I don't really know where that one's going to rest.
PIP COURTNEY: A new drought policy designed to encourage farmers to be more self-reliant and better risk managers starts in July. Developed by the previous government, it includes a household support payment and improved social support services, but no interest rate subsidies.
Queensland's Agriculture Minister, John McVeigh, says it's bad timing for a major change in policy.
JOHN MCVEIGH: But you can't transition from the old scheme to a brand new scheme overnight, and I fear that's the current attempt. We need a better transition. We do need to have the assistance in place. I know that. Barnaby Joyce knows that. And I think this event will help us pull together a far better and more long-term resilient national drought policy.
PIP COURTNEY: The Prime Minister's reaction to growing pressure on the Federal Government to do more was to bring forward the start date of the new drought relief scheme.
TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: I certainly want the farmers of Australia to understand that this is a Government which feels what they're experiencing at the moment. We know what's happening and we are moving to address it.
PIP COURTNEY: What that means for those who need immediate help in the form of cash and fodder is unclear, as is the cost. Lifeline says an indication of how bad things are is the rising suicide rate.
DERECK TUFFIELD, LIFELINE: We have high-powered rifles, it's part of the way of living and also we have insecticides out here as well. So, these are a couple of things that are available and when there is a sense of loss, financial stress, no way out, a sense of really getting to a dark spot, people are tending to say, "I can't do this anymore".
PIP COURTNEY: Mr Tuffield confirmed a shocking report of a farmer who, in recent weeks, ran out of feed for his 400 cattle and booked a truck to take them to the saleyard.
DERECK TUFFIELD: The cattle were deemed to be too emaciated to travel and so they wouldn't load them, and after he was told they wouldn't load them, he actually at that point of time decided to shoot the cattle and then unfortunately and very sadly shot himself.
PIP COURTNEY: Barnaby Joyce says stories like this are driving him to come up with both immediate help and long-term solutions.
BARNABY JOYCE: It is at the forefront of my mind. I'm extremely aware of these issues. They drive me, they worry me, they keep me awake at night worrying about how we deal with issues like this. And, as I go along, I am texting Tony Abbott and Tony Abbott is texting me back. So, there is a purpose and a reason and a mechanism of trying to do your job. Basically to - Tony says, "Well, get out there and find out what on Earth's going on," and that's exactly what we're doing.
PIP COURTNEY: The National Farmers Federation says it's not afraid to have a debate about sustainability and drought relief.
BRENT FINLAY, NFF PRESIDENT: I've never heard that in my 30 years in agriculture, (inaudible) we been propping up farmers that aren't viable. Again, even around the farm finance package, there's the viability clause in that and I notice that's up for a lot of debate at the moment. We have to try to support the strong businesses and then we have to actually be able to help people exit the industry that need to exit the industry.
PIP COURTNEY: One farmer who believes he has a viable business and has planned well is beef producer and cotton grower, Hamish McIntyre. His property at Dirranbandi received a pitiful amount of rain last year, so many of his 3,000 cattle have been sold or sent for agistment or lot feeding. The breeding herd has been moved to his second property at St George where Hamish and his staff are kept busy mixing and feeding them drought rations.
Have you prepared for this?
HAMISH MCINTYRE: Well from the point of view, yeah, we have. We decided to bail all of our pigeon pea hay, our trap crop from cotton, bale some barley and wheat straw and obviously keep the cotton seed. So - and if things had've improved, we would have sold those products. So, yes, you can say I suppose we prepared for it, but in a normal year we would have marketed all those commodities, but in this sort of situation, we're feeding into our own livestock.
PIP COURTNEY: Hamish applied for fodder freight subsidies during the last drought, but has no plans at this stage to apply for help.
Should governments pay farmers when drought's are on or should farmers be prepared and be more self-reliant?
HAMISH MCINTYRE: It's a tricky one. I mean, people can handle drought for a certain period, whether that's 12 months to two years. And then when it goes on up past two years, I mean, I think we all have a duty of care to maintain those operations. It's - if it happens every - if it's a short-term thing all the time, I think we have got to manage it ourselves. But in extreme situations when it goes on for a couple of years, where people can't be diversified, I think we all need to do our share to help them, yes.
A Sheep Called Alice
Broadcast: 24/11/2013 12:57:24 PM
Reporter: Pip Courtney
Very interesting discoveries by a Tasmanian wool grower
Transcript
Quote:PIP COURTNEY: Every now and then an outsider comes along and questions the accepted way of doing things.
Marine physicist, Nan Bray, is doing just that on her superfine wool property in Tasmania. The way she runs her 1,600 Saxon Merinos may seem radical but she says it works, as wool production and quality is up and her costs are down. The 'Nan Bray way' combines old fashioned shepherding skills, ground-breaking research from the US and the knowledge and wisdom of an 87-year-old wool industry legend.
TITLE: A SHEEP CALLED ALICE
PIP COURTNEY: When it comes to being taken seriously as a farmer, Nan Bray jokes that she's got a few strikes against her. She's American, a woman and a city slicker, and to further cement her outsider status, her Merinos have tails. It's taken a while but the shearers are now used to her unusual methods.
CAMERON WILSON, SHEARER: She's proved me wrong every time. I didn't think she'd be able to grow superfine wool here and she's done that so I don't doubt her anymore. I'll just go along and if she says she's going to do something, I believe it, so...[laughs]
PIP COURTNEY: Recently a book profiling eight women successfully running their own farms featured Nan. So word's spreading about her unorthodox methods.
(Nan talking at a conference)
NAN BRAY, WOOLGROWER: A lot of my colleagues in CSIRO looked at me and said, 'you're doing what?!'
PIP COURTNEY: Nan grew up in the city but never forgot the tales she heard as a child about her grandpa who was a cattle rancher.
NAN BRAY: I didn't know my grandfather; he died before I was born. So I grew up with those stories. And I wanted to farm, but I was pretty much told unequivocally that I would have a profession. I would go to university and farming was not a way of making a living.
PIP COURTNEY: So she became a marine physicist. The job took her around the world. But 13 years ago while heading up CSIRO's marine division in Hobart, she bought Lemon Hill at Oatlands in central Tasmania and became a wool grower.
She had no experience with sheep or wool, just shopping.
NAN BRAY: I came across these wonderful suits made out of Australian wool, very expensive, St John knits, and, but they were beautiful, and they were lovely to wear, and I basically lived in those for six years as chief of division and travelled in them, slept on aeroplanes in them, and they always looked good.
So I thought, 'Hmm, hmm' - and they were really expensive, so in my little tiny brain I thought, 'There must be a profit in this somewhere, you know.'
PIP COURTNEY: When you found this place was it clapped out? Did it need help?
NAN BRAY: [laughs] Yes, in a word. I think there's only one run down farm in anybody's life, you know, that you have the energy and the heart to do what you need to do. So, I mean, for the first two years probably every weekend I took a trailer load of rubbish to the tip.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan needed advice and local Davy Carnes agreed to help.
(Nan talking to Davy Carnes)
NAN BRAY: So, Mr Dave, you'll do the gates for me?
DAVY CARNES, STOCKMAN: Yes.
PIP COURTNEY: The 87-year-old started in the wool industry when he was 13, and like his father, has worked for many of Tasmania's best wool growers.
DAVY CARNES: I said to her one day, 'Nan, you're throwing in a' - she gave her job up - I said, 'you're throwing in a good job that, a lucrative job.' I said, 'on the land it won't be half as lucrative as what it is now.' And she give me a grin and said, 'Mr Dave, with your knowledge and my science we'll make this work.' [laughs]
PIP COURTNEY: When you first came and worked with her what did you think about her ideas?
DAVY CARNES: Well, she had no ideas of the land. She just left it entirely to me.
PIP COURTNEY: But a few years into the renovation of Lemon Hill, the first of Nan's new ideas emerged, prompted by her recall of a book by ecologist Aldo Leopald she'd read as a student. It hadn't meant much to her then, but 30 years later it did.
NAN BRAY: He was really thinking about actively trying to work through what, what would it mean for farmers to have a production system that worked with the ecosystem that underlies it. So, yes, so when I found the book again years and years later it was like, it was like coming home. It was just great.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan started managing her land differently and then a sick sheep called Alice turned her approach to farming on its head.
Unable to stand, Alice was in a sling. Nan became her grazing assistant and would take her out to a paddock near the house to feed. Fortuitously it had a lot of weeds.
NAN BRAY: I started watching and she was eating in the same order, so there was chicory, plantain - which is another exotic plant that works for intestinal parasites - lucerne, clover and a couple of kinds of grass. Chicory, plantain, lucerne, clover, get to the grass she'd look up at me, 'Can we move now?' And then dawned on me she was very specific about which plant. I thought, 'Oh, OK.' So, I mean I basically just watched that and went, 'Well, there's something here. I don't know what it is.'
PIP COURTNEY: Nan realised Alice's eating pattern tied in with ground-breaking work done in the US by Professor Fred Provenza about the link between plant and animal behaviour.
NAN BRAY: The animals are trying to balance their diets and the plants are trying to not be eaten to death. And so what the plants have developed in their ecological system is a whole set of - a range of defences, most of which are chemical. Some of them are mechanical like spines and things, but mostly they're chemical compounds that the plant manufactures, that when an animal eats too much of it, it makes them nauseous. So then they stop eating that plant and move to another plant. So that the plant that was being grazed goes, 'Oh, phew, thank you,' and gets a chance to regenerate.
I learnt from Alice that sheep are incredibly specific about what they eat. They know what they want to eat, that a diversity is really important to them, that grass is the last choice in the forage list. I always just thought she ate grass, you know - what do you think.
And then from Fred's research, what I learned was why. Why are those broad-leaf plants so important in, for sheep nutrition - nutrition generally. And then that allowed me to start changing some other things.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan stopped fighting weeds. Alice taught her they're a medicine chest that sheep will use when they need - what Fred Provenza calls nutritional wisdom.
(Talking to Nan in a paddock) You've just bought the mob through into this laneway area and they've immediately put their heads down and they're absolutely going for it. What are they eating?
NAN BRAY: I reckon they're eating a bit of chicory. This is chicory. It's an exotic plant and it has properties that help the sheep deal with worm burden and they love it.
DAVY CARNES: We have not drenched a sheep for years and years. When they look as if they're not right, they tell you more or less - once you know them - we put them in what we call the chicory patches. They eat the chicory and they get right, no worm. And that's a big expense.
PIP COURTNEY: This dam paddock is the farm's pharmacy but how do the sheep know what to eat and when? Well, Nan says farmers have to help them learn.
Now there's no forced weaning. Nan lets the lambs wean themselves and then stay with their mothers who then teach their young what to eat.
(Davy and Nan talking)
DAVY CARNES: That means bringing the rams in first.
NAN BRAY: We've got to bring the rams in first.
PIP COURTNEY: Davy said the pair have had a few arguments as new management practices, which challenge everything he's seen and done, are introduced. But he's now a convert.
DAVY CARNES: She's got some very radical ideas, I might say, but they are all to me, they're sensible ideas, they can work.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan's sheep aren't divided into age groups. They live in multi-generational flocks. Again, not what Davy was used to.
DAVY CARNES: I like it. It's as simple as that, I just like it.
PIP COURTNEY: Why?
DAVY CARNES: I think the animals themselves get more contented, they are more contented doing that sort of thing, yeah.
PIP COURTNEY: Do you think that a mother and its baby - even two years after she might have had that lamb, do they know each other?
DAVY CARNES: Oh yeah, oh, yes, my word they do. Oh, yes, they know their family groups, mind you, they do. Oh, yes, yes.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan says allowing a family social structure to exist has transformed flock behaviour. She's seen a family group surround and protect a sick ewe from crows.
NAN BRAY: It's like there's this strength of the social fabric that supports all of the animals in the flock. They don't run away, you go into a paddock, even with strangers about, the sheep may move away, but they invariably will turn and look at you and go, 'Well, would you like to state your business because you're on our territory.'
So it's not the kind of stuff that you're used to associating with sheep.
PIP COURTNEY: But perhaps the biggest change at Lemon Hill was Nan's decision to keep the tails on her sheep. She says it's an animal welfare issue. She says lambs with tails grow faster and weigh more and because of their varied diet don't get daggy and at risk of flystrike.
The shearers were shocked to see tails but Nan pays them more.
CAMERON WILSON: It's very different. I don't think there'd be no shearer would actually say they enjoy doing it. Shearing them is actually not too bad; it's probably the crutching that's the problem. I think Nan's got a fairly stringent crutching routine where she does it a lot more regularly than perhaps you would with normal sheep, which makes it probably a lot better.
NAN BRAY: It's a little tricky at the end of the tail because, you know, up to a point you can hold the end of the tail, it makes a nice handle, but then you get to the end of the tail and you've got to do something. And in fact we've kind of agreed that it's OK if they leave a little sort of poodle pompom on the end.
DAVY CARNES: It took me a little while to get used to that one, it did really, but one day we had an agent here, John Denham, he remarked on how heavy those lambs were that had their tails on, compared to the others. So that convinced me to leave their tails on then.
PIP COURTNEY: The changes here might sound all very nice but do they make good business sense? Nan says yes, as wool production is up 40 per cent, fertility and lambing percentages by nearly 30 per cent and wool quality has improved.
DAVY CARNES: The wool is better if the sheep are contented. I've seen that repeatedly in my lifetime. And here they have been very, very contented. Yes.
PIP COURTNEY: Can wool producers learn from what's being done here?
DAVY CARNES: Yes, straight away, no... yes, they can.
PIP COURTNEY: She's not a crazy American?
DAVY CARNES: No. Well, I'm a crazy Australian. That's worked in the industry all my life.
End result, it's the wool, that's what I'm here for, to see that we can grow and if we can grow good wool.
NAN BRAY: (calling out to dogs) OK, in you go.
PIP COURTNEY: No matter what the shearers or scientists she's based her methods on say, Nan knows some locals say she's crazy and Davy's gone senile.
NAN BRAY: Mostly there's this lovely Australian thing of 'Mm...' (Laughs) So it's not, you know, to your face anyway, it's not you're as mad as a cut snake, it's, 'Mmm, that's interesting...'
PIP COURTNEY: But this year's clip is where the evidence is.
CAMERON WILSON: This is probably some of the best wool in the world to be honest with you, this is, it's quite incredible. Normally this superfine wool has got to be run in more bush sort of country. So once again it's quite incredible she's been able to get this sort of micron with running sheep in a paddock in Oatlands and not half starving them like they do normally to get them this fine, it's quite incredible.
DAVY CARNES: To me it's very, very, very good. 17 microns - it's as good as I've seen for a long time.
NAN BRAY: And you don't know until the first fleece hits the table or the first few fleeces hit the table, you just don't know. Oh yeah, it's a really good clip this year and it was a tough season. It's been a really pretty hard year. So it was nice, for there not to be a lot of tender wool, there's hardly any, so it was unusual, and nice long length, and colour's good, and so, yeah, very happy with it.
(Talking to visitors on farm) Alright, guys, this is the end of two years of waiting.
PIP COURTNEY: And just as people were getting used to Nan Bray, wool grower - she surprised them by becoming Nan Bray, wool retailer. The Lemon Hill 17 micron wool was delivered back to her as hand knitting yarn, her new local mates helped celebrate.
(Nan unpacking wool)
NAN BRAY: Oh, wow.
WOMAN: That's fabulous.
NAN BRAY: So this is, this is maybe a world first.
You understand there is no - as far as I know, there is no 17 micron knitting - hand knitting yarn made. How do you feel about it, Mr Dave?
DAVY CARNES: Oh, it's lovely. Lovely.
NAN BRAY: The sheep faces, that's Alice herself. Some of Alice's wool is in this, I'm sure of it.
PIP COURTNEY: She's already sold a third of her yarn and has just sent two tonnes of fleece to New Zealand for another run.
NAN BRAY: When I started farming, I can still remember thinking, 'Oh, you know, watching sheep graze, how hard could that be?' So 13 years later I think I kind of know how to grow sheep and I have to say that the processing end of it is at least as - there's at least as much depth to learn in that as there was in the farming side itself.
(Nan and group having lunch)
GROUP: Cheers.
NAN BRAY: Thank you.
PIP COURTNEY: Nan Bray's glad she ignored her parents' advice not to go farming.
DAVY CARNES: Good work.
PIP COURTNEY: She's not missing the corporate world and has no regrets.
But she says she couldn't have done it without Alice or Davy.
NAN BRAY: He's the one that taught me that sheep are not just little wool growing machines that eat grass. I don't think I would have as much, or it would have taken me longer to have the connection I have - both with the animals and with the property if it hadn't been for Davy and his example.
DAVY CARNES: We're good mates, real good friends. Oh, yes. Definitely so. Oh dear.
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
