ON Thursday Australia’s peak farming body, National Farmers’ Federation, launched an unprecedented campaign to try and highlight anti-agriculture policies from the Albanese Government. Unfortunately, despite its significance, the launch received limited national media attention.
Our prime minister has been dubbed “anti-ag Albo”, as his government oversees falling confidence in the agriculture sector, and inevitably short and long-term increases to the price of staple foods, because government policy is reducing the ability of our farming sector to grow livestock and crops for domestic and international consumption.
The NFF national campaign, titled Keep Farmers Farming, will focus on key issues such as water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin, the proposed ban of live sheep exports to the Middle East, worker shortages on farms and in the food supply chain, environment laws, transmission lines and competition policy.
Unless people power convinces our government that food production is important to Australians, in the near future we will have many farmers walking off the land, significant job losses in rural communities and more cost-of-living pressures at local supermarkets.
Please do not underestimate the reality of this emerging crisis and the impact it will have on your family budget. If you value fresh food at an affordable price, farmers and the country towns that depend on them need support more than ever.
Geoff Moar
Chair, Murray Regional Strategy Group
