Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Crisis on the land — again

The propensity of farmers to grumble is well known. Pont devoted one of 
his famous cartoons for Punch to this very subject. But right now in 
Australia they have every right to grumble.

Large parts of Eastern Australia (including 80 per cent of NSW) are now 
affected by drought. Suppliers of hay are rationing the quantity each 
customer can have.

My wife and I are dependent on deliveries of hay from the Upper Hunter to 
feed our alpacas and our deer and to augment the natural feed of our horses 
and goats. Lucerne hay prices however have jumped from around $7 a bale to 
$14 a. bale.

The prices of all other forms of fodder, grain, etc, have also jumped 
dramatically. (Capitalists like to call that "the law of supply and 
demand", but it's really nothing more than usury.)

But even as the price of fodder climbs and the available supply plummets, 
we can count ourselves among the lucky ones. We have only a relatively few 
animals so hopefully will be able to get enough fodder of one sort or 
another to scrape by.

But what of farmers who are dependent on their livestock for a living? 
(Real farmers as opposed to hobby farmers.)

Large flocks need a lot of hay if there is no grass, and right now there is 
no grass. Even if they can get sufficient hay, the cost will be crippling.

All superfluous stock has been or is being sent to the abattoirs in haste 
but, not surprisingly under capitalism's chaotic market system, stock 
prices have plummeted.

The ABC reports that "for the cost of a pack of cigarettes, people can now 
buy up to 20 sheep". But, of course, they have no grass for them.

Two weeks ago, the NSW Government announced a "drought assistance package". 
The package is one of the things farmers are justifiably grumbling about.

Instead of offering drought-affected farmers some cash to tide them over, 
to be spent as the farmer wished, the government offered two very specific 
subsidies: one for the transport of domestic water (i.e. for people, not 
for stock) and the other for the transport of stock to the abattoirs for 
slaughter.

But farmers and graziers want help to keep their breeding herds and flocks 
alive, not help to kill them. The NSW Government's approach echoes that of 
John Howard, that paragon of humanity: let the religious charities take 
care of it.

Last week NSW Agriculture (the body that in less corporatised times was 
known as the NSW Dept of Agriculture) was given the task of holding talks 
with major charities to find out "what assistance they will need to help 
people in drought-affected areas of the state".

Even the Salvation Army, normally an enthusiastic supporter of the Howard 
Government's right-wing social agenda, knew that the answer to that 
question was simple: "the best thing the Government can give is money", 
said their spokesman.

The Sallies' rural chaplain Bill Sweeting told the ABC: "There hasn't been 
a lot of demand on us yet but it [the drought crisis] is about to kick 
right in, to put people under extreme stress."

The Carr Government in NSW got such a serve from country areas over the 
"drought assistance package" that Bob Carr has had to convene a drought 
round-table in Dubbo. This will presumably be "after" NSW Agriculture's new 
official drought coordinator, Geoff File, gives a "drought briefing" to a 
full meeting of state Cabinet in late August.

The Cabinet meeting will be at Cobar, in the West of the State, so rural 
people will know their interests are being taken care of. Won't they?

Carr now acknowledges that the subsequent round-table will have to consider 
such things as breeding stock, fodder and water for stock purposes. It will 
presumably also have to deal with the crucial question of farm debt.

Farmers live on credit and blind Freddy could see that a moratorium on debt 
would be the single most effective and helpful measure the government could 
initiate. It doesn't look like Carr is keen to go down that route, however.

In fact, Labor has left it to the Liberal-National Party opposition in NSW 
to meet the heads of the major banks to call for a moratorium on interest 
as well as delayed interest repayments for farmers.

Nevertheless, the banks will be included in the round-table, together with 
small business, local government and various rural lobby groups.

The banks, as you would expect of such bastions of capitalism, have already 
indicated that their assistance is limited to measures that do not impact 
adversely on their bottom line.

The Australian Bankers Association (ABA) announced that a number of banks 
would provide special drought "concessions", such as delaying loan 
repayments and increasing credit card limits. (Which I assume means that 
people who can't pay off their existing loans can go further into debt via 
their credit cards.)

The ABA's Chief Executive, David Bell, said "Generally speaking the bank 
and the farmer or rural business can work very closely together to see, for 
example, if a short-term loan can help with cash flows, to see whether debt 
repayments can be rescheduled in the short term or making interest only 
payments for a short period of time". Big of them, don't you think?.

"We will also identify if the farmer or rural business has any other 
financial reserves or investments, [on] which they can call." Presumably so 
that they, too, can be put at the disposal of the banks when the drought 
crisis is over.