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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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AUSTRALIAN YEAR OF THE FARMER

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:13): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes that 2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer, and

(b) acknowledges the contribution that farmers and all others involved in primary production make to both feeding our nation and to sustaining Australia's economy.

Following last year's official launch of the 2012 Australian Year of the Farmer, this year we are celebrating the contribution primary producers make to Australia to raise public awareness of the importance of agriculture to our nation. I declare, at this point, that I am a farmer in my other life, and—

The Hon. R.B. Such: A gentleman farmer.

Mr VENNING: A gentleman farmer, the member for Fisher reminds me; that is correct. I only do occasional chores, but I do like to keep my hand in and try to keep up with technology. I have to say that I am losing the race.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: Well, you cleared a fence line on a fire ban day—very responsible.

Mr VENNING: I did. That is my love, and when I leave this place that is what I will be returning to, not to get in my son's way but to finish my life the way I started it, that is, on the land. That is appropriate. I hope members will appreciate that I speak as a farmer and support this idea of recognising them.

The chairman of the Australian Year of the Farmer, Mr Phillip Bruem, AM, said that the idea to have a celebration for farmers came about in 2006 following discussions with a colleague, lamenting the fact that recognition of the importance of agriculture and farming was slowly eroding. In my time in this place I have made many speeches, and this was a fact that I and my colleagues have highlighted. I note the member for Stuart. The previous member for Stuart was a very strong advocate and it is great to see this movement where we saying that it is time we all took time out to consider.

Australian farmers contribute approximately 93 per cent of our daily domestic food supply, and supply at least 40 million to 50 million people overseas. The National Farmers Federation estimates that if farms and their closely related processing sectors—meat and dairy, wine-making, and oil seed crushing—are combined, they generate $155 billion per annum for the economy and approximately 12 per cent of gross domestic product. The contribution our farmers make cannot be understated, and I believe the parliament needs to recognise that 2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer and acknowledge the contribution the agricultural sector provides to our nation generally.

It is fantastic that farmers and all others involved in primary production receive recognition and that we are able to celebrate the role farmers play and appreciate what they do and take this time to recognise that. It is about time that farmers received the recognition they deserve, especially from their city and metropolitan counterparts. Many take for granted that fruit and vegetables, grains and meats, are readily available on our supermarket shelves, without giving a thought to from where the product originated.

You only have to take time to speak to the younger generation in the supermarket. A few weeks ago I spoke to a young fellow of about seven or eight years, who had a bottle of milk. I said, 'Mate do you know where that comes from?' He said, 'Yeah, off the shelf; made in a factory.' He had not clicked that it had actually come from a cow. He looked at me as though, 'I don't know where you're coming from mate, but mine comes off the shelf.' A lot of people wonder how wool gets off the sheep. A lot of our city folk come on to the farms and are amazed to see what happens there. It is all education, and they do not realise where products actually come from.

The Patron of the Australian Year of the Farmer, Australia's Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, reminds us that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the wine we drink (and I do my share), our shoes, our office stationery, the timber in our houses and indeed on the kitchen table, are connected to farming. How many essentials of daily life are there for us because of the efforts of our farmers?

Today's reality is that cities have burgeoned at the expense of country towns, and there is now a disturbing disconnect between the residents of both, with research telling us that nearly a quarter of city dwellers never make it to the countryside and even fewer go on to a farm. Madam Speaker, I know you are not one of those because you actually drive through all it time and keep an active eye on what happens on the farms, particularly around your home town of Whyalla.

It is hoped that this year's concentrated focus on farming throughout the Australian Year of the Farmer will establish closer ties between the Australian rural and urban communities and promote a better understanding of that role that our farmers play, not only as providers but as environmental managers in creating and delivering sustainability through best practice land management, while they feed us all as a nation. I commend our younger generation. I am the older generation, but the younger generation are really achieving and making fantastic results because they farm efficiently and, most importantly, they farm environmentally.

Farmers do not need to be educated today. The younger generation certainly has a strong passion, a strong belief and a strong ethic in relation to doing it environmentally, and they will leave their lands better than when they took them on. Quentin Bryce also stated:

The purpose of this year is to celebrate all those who contribute—and have contributed—to our rich rural history. In doing so, it will introduce Australians to the farmer of today, and smash a few of those stereotypes in the process.

The board of the Australian Year of the Farmer represents a diverse group of prominent people from across Australia, all with the common goal of lifting the profile of farming in Australia. South Australia's own Marie Lally AM is a member of the board and has provided some excellent facts on the increase in agricultural production in Australia, reinforcing that Australian farmers are vital to our future. We have to feed more people from less land. There are some very salient facts here, and, over the years, I have expressed many of these sentiments, but here it is quite clear: we have to feed more people from less land every year.

From 1970 to 2010 the world population doubled (40 years), but the farmland certainly has not. In 2010 Australian farmers used 7.3 per cent less land than in the 1950s and produced 220 per cent more in that period of time—a staggering statistic. You wonder how that could be. Australian wheat production at this time grew by 300 per cent, Australian barley production also grew by 300 per cent and Australian sugar production grew by a staggering 900 per cent. I think that this is the quote that I really enjoy and appreciate the most:

In 1950 one farmer produced enough food for 19 people. In 1970 one farmer produced enough food for 73 people. In 2010 one farmer produced enough food for 155 people.

That is a real 'wow' factor. I think that it is fantastic. We have the reputation of being the best farmers in the world and the most environmental farmers in the world, and we grow the cleanest and greenest food in the world, and long may it be the case. However, the cost of production has dramatically increased in this time and financial returns have been severely reduced, thus also reducing the attraction of farming as a way of earning a living and also as a business venture, which I think is pretty sad.

For the future Australian agricultural farmers have to innovate in their education programs to encourage future farmers to view agricultural production as desirable, fulfilling and a viable career path. They need governments to be supportive and not to place financial or regulatory obstacles in their way. I sincerely hope that, through this year, the focus generated by the Australian Year of the Farmer helps lift the profile of those in agriculture. Governments may be reminded how important the sector is and allocate more towards research and development rather than repeatedly slashing funding.

Australia leads the world in the adoption of technology in agricultural systems and conservation, but to meet the future challenges the industry needs support to continue to maintain Australia's food security—that is a comment that we are hearing a lot more about, and, as our new members have just arrived in this place, food security is probably going to be the issue they are going to confront more and more in their political careers—and to meet the demands of population increases both in this country and their overseas markets.

I commend the Chairman of the Australian Year of the Farmer, Mr Philip Bruem, for his drive and commitment to this worthwhile initiative, and encourage all people of Australia, both city and country folk, to become involved and to support this effort to raise the profile of Australian agriculture and its vital role in our country's future. I encourage people across Australia to stay tuned for special events in their towns and cities and to actively support them. I encourage schools to promote events to their students and to encourage information sessions on agricultural careers, particularly in country areas—even to visit a farm.

I would extend an invitation at this time, for the first time, to invite any member of parliament who wishes to come to the property as our guest to view the farming operation, particularly during harvest. It is quite a spectacular thing to observe. Come up there and be my quest. I also extend an invitation to anyone—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: To have a look in the cellars?

Mr VENNING: To have a look at the cellar, too, if you wish, if you are so inclined, Madam Speaker.

Mr Pederick: Taste it?

Mr VENNING: And, of course, taste it. I am sure that there would be a lot of families just like our family who would extend this invitation to anybody who wishes to come in and observe the farm, and we will offer some good, Australian hospitality. I do encourage all members here to go back to their electorates and promote the Australian Year of the Farmer.

With my family and friends involved in agriculture across this state, in particular those residents from my own electorate of Schubert, I fully support the Australian Year of the Farmer. I do note in the Governor's opening speech of this parliament that the number one point was clean food production. Maybe this message is already filtering through.

I commend this motion to the house, and I hope the government will support it. I know there are other items on the Notice Paper, particularly the one in relation to a select committee on the right to farm. It is not to do with this, but it is allied to it. I hope that, too, will get a response. I have already spoken to some government ministers about that. I urge the house to support this motion.

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (11:26): It is a privilege today to rise and let the house know that the government supports the motion by the member for Schubert and indeed supports farmers right across our one million square kilometre state. Farming, of course, is what this state was built on, and it continues to contribute to the economic wellbeing of South Australians wherever they come from, whether it be rural parts of the state or the city. Sometimes there is a disconnect there in the fact that people in the city do not really realise where all the food comes from and where the money that makes our economy go around comes from either.

I think that by celebrating farmers this year through the Year of the Farmer it is a great opportunity for people from all walks of life to get out to promote farmers. I think we need to do it within the schools, as the member for Schubert said. Kids have lost contact with where things like milk come from or where wool comes from. It is what happens when you have a big proportion of your population based in an urban area. We need to be doing that on a daily and weekly schedule. I think the Year of the Farmer will allow things to be promoted through our schools and through other community events to draw awareness to everyone about what farmers do and what they mean for our state and our country.

I was fortunate enough to grow up on a dairy farm in the South-East, and I do not think that any form of farming is harder than dairy farming. It is such a commitment. I remember leaving home early in the morning to do the milking, and then we would get in the car and drive 50 or 60 kilometres to the beach. We would just seem to get out, get our buckets and spades out and start having a little play and a swim when dad would be getting back in the car. We would say, 'What for?' He would say, 'We have to milk.' I said, 'We just milked.' He said, 'Yes, we've got to go and milk again.' We had 120 milkers in that stage, back in 1976.

I think it was one of the things that really impressed upon me just how hard it was. I think it taught me a little bit about how to lobby. I said to dad, 'If you're looking for somebody to take over the farm, you'd better look at my sisters because this isn't going to be my caper for seven days a week for the rest of my life.' I have so much admiration for those people who continue to do it. It is just one of the toughest jobs. We could hardly afford to go on holidays because you would give away more to the person you got in to milk the cows than what it was actually worth to you.

I do not think people fully understand all that is involved in farming. I was fortunate enough to have cousins who were on sheep and cattle farms and cropping properties as well; so, to go and spend my school holidays with them and to elasterate sheep and mark calves and all this sort of stuff were things that a lot of people do not get the opportunity to do. I look back at those years as a teenager and think just how important they were in the formation of my understanding of not only how this state runs but also our entire country.

This is a $15 billion economic benefit, which is 10 per cent of the state gross product, and almost one in five jobs directly results from the agribusiness sector here in South Australia. We want to drive that that sector even further, as the member for Schubert mentioned. The number one priority as read out by the Governor of this state just a couple of weeks ago is to promote South Australia's clean, green food bowl. He is right when he says farmers do get it; farmers know their environment better than anyone else. They know how to protect it as well. They are also great conservationists because it is in their interest to be great conservationists.

There is no point going out there and doing something in this season and next season that is not going to give them a season in years 3 and 4, or maybe even longer than that. We need to do everything that we can to help our farmers preserve and protect the land, but also to promote the products that our farmers are producing. I think it is great to see farmers right across this state moving into value-adding.

I look at a company like Ferguson Australia over on Kangaroo Island and the work that they do in not just catching fish of all sorts but value-adding to it by producing olive oils that have a lobster blend and the way they package up their crayfish, crabs, abalone and other products. I think that is the way to go, rather than just farm something or catch something and then get that onto the market in its original form. The more we can value-add to it, the more we are going to have coming into our state's economy and into those businesses and more importantly into those regional towns and cities right across the state.

My great-great-great-grandfather came out on the Buffalo—the first ship here—and went down to Prospect Hill and started farming not far from where I am now, in the area I represent near McLaren Vale. The family diaries paint back to the 1830s and 1840s when my great-great-great-grandfather and his 14 or 15 kids used to walk down to McLaren Flat and go grape picking. So, the tie to the land is there and has been there ever since settlement in this state.

Towns have sprung up around this state because of farming and because of that value-adding. There is a need for silos; there is a need for train lines; there is a need for ports. When we look at much of the infrastructure throughout the state, we have had 175 years of infrastructure being rolled out because of people who went there and worked damn hard in unbelievably trying conditions.

You can only imagine, in those days before the big air-conditioned harvesters and tractors that we have now, just how hard it would have been out there with a plough being towed behind a horse and people out there with their bare hands and really crude implements trying firstly to clear the land but then to plant crops and pastures and put in fences to contain livestock as well. We must pay tribute to those pioneers who set up the farming industry in South Australia.

It is interesting to look at the carpet in this place and to see the grapes and the vines in the carpet and also the wheat. It reminds us all what an important part the agriculture sector plays in South Australia, and I think it is fantastic that we honour that agriculture sector in such a way through the interior of this place. There are windows out the back on one side of the Speaker's dining room and on the other side in the little passageway here, and in those stained-glass windows there are tributes to the farms and the farming culture of South Australia.

As I said at the outset, it is a great opportunity for me personally to be here today to support the member for Schubert's motion on behalf of the government and well may we say we salute every farmer right across this great state and may they continue to farm well into the future.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:33): I rise to support the member for Schubert's motion. I think it is very well founded and I am pleased to hear that the government will support this very fine motion, particularly in the Year of the Farmer. There are a number of members on this side of the house who are still actively engaged in rural production and will be for a long time, I suspect.

It is important, given the member from Mawson's comments, that we do not gloss over the pressures that many farmers are under from governments across Australia, and also from the federal government. They are continually under pressure.

They feed Australia and they feed the world and they can go on feeding ad infinitum. There is no question about that. Droughts come and go, wet years come and go and it is called the law of averages. We have an immense capacity to feed a greedy and hungry world, a growing world, a world with billions of people, which is ultimately going to have to come to grips with that population rise.

However, it would be remiss of me not to say that, apart from dealing with the weather, as we do on the land, from day to day and from season to season, and understanding the weather, it is the failure of the bureaucracy to understand how farmers actually relate, live and work with the land. They understand the land, and they do not like being told by shiny backsided Sir Humphreys, male or female, how to go about running their farm, what they should and should not do, and generally putting them under even more pressure. That pressure includes driving families to ruin and, in some cases, leading to tragic consequences for families in the loss of loved ones. It is appalling, and it is ongoing—it is not going away—and I know that other members on my side of the chamber understand it and are fed up with it. As I have said, it is one thing to deal with the weather; it is another thing to deal with a total lack of understanding by some—not all—bureaucrats.

Fortunately, there are some members of the government—in the Labor Party—who do have some understanding of what it is like to farm and operate. Unfortunately, minister O'Brien, who was an excellent minister for primary industries, has gone on—and good luck to him—to be the Minister for Finance. He got a good grip of the portfolio. He understood, and he had his bureaucrats in primary industries understand. But there are other departments—the EPA, within the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and other areas within there—that just totally make farmers' lives a misery.

There has been a great example of that with the NRM board in the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu, with the water plan. It was only after I took minister Caica down to my electorate and did some on-site visits at Parawa and Mount Compass and just north-west of Victor Harbor—and I thank him for coming down—that he got an understanding of the pressure that was on farmers, and there have been some changes to that nonsense, and I am grateful to minister Caica for that.

However, let me say that the nonsense continues. The member for Bragg is a landholder on Kangaroo Island, and she forwarded a letter to me this morning—and she may well speak on this motion—putting more pressure on their area in relation to water-related activities. This is after we chucked out the NRM plan for water on the island. It has gone back, and it has come around full circle. This devious, scheming mob of bureaucrats find other ways to put controls on people who know what they are doing. She will speak about that—I do not have to—but I mention Fleurieu Peninsula because it is important.

However, on top of that, particularly on the Fleurieu and down around the Southern Fleurieu, another thing that is impacting farmers is that the small hobby farmers and landholders—generally speaking from the city who want a piece of land in the bush, which is fine; I do not have any problem with that—come down there. They have no understanding of the rural way of life or how farms operate, and they want to change the world.

They do not do anything with their weeds, they let the grass grow. They have pressure put on them by councils and whatnot to undertake activities to reduce the growth. But then they do not like sprays; they do not like this; they do not like that. Well, they just need to understand that farmers need to go about their business. Just as anybody in any small business does, they need to go about their business. They need to be able to put in their crops, raise their livestock, harvest water—they need to do what they know about.

It is challenging times, particularly in my electorate, on both sides, which is high rainfall country and has the capacity to grow enormous amounts of food and fibre. It is most important that these farmers are given the latitude to go about their business as they have always done, in some cases for generations. My wife's family have been farming for six generations, firstly in the Yankalilla area and then over on Kangaroo Island. There are others there who have been farming equally as long, and they know what their business is.

Not only that, but in this Year of the Farmer, the Australian dollar is certainly impacting things. It makes it much cheaper at the moment for fertilisers and chemicals and, to a lesser extent, for fuel, probably, for people who have to buy copious amounts of fuel.

I notice today that the price of petrol in Adelaide is up to $1.50, but I can guarantee that in parts of my electorate it is probably pretty close to $1.70, and the member for Flinders can probably speak about what it is on the West Coast and the Far West Coast. These costs are significant. Equally, the high dollar impacts very effectively on the product that goes out; whether it be grains, wool, meat or whatever, it is impacted on. Some people have this image of farmers being extremely wealthy. Well, let me tell you that I can produce any number of farmers in many areas who are living on the bones of their backside.

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert.

Mr PENGILLY: No, not the member for Schubert!

Mr Venning: Madam Speaker, your protection is required.

Mr PENGILLY: Madam Speaker, you made me digress. I know farmers in my electorate who are struggling to make ends meet. They do not have enough land to produce on, and they are unlikely to get any more. I know farmers in their 50s and older who are working part-time jobs to keep their farms going.

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Will you please stop it, Madam Speaker, and don't encourage him? However, the reality in South Australia is that we have a long, long history and, as the member for Mawson correctly pointed out, the carpets in this place indicate that. The vast majority of farmers have a great history of looking after their land, of providing food and fibre to the world, and of being innovative and terrific doers. I think it is important that we recognise the farmers from the tip of Yorke Peninsula, down through to Albany, South Australia, Tasmania—everywhere—it does not matter much where. There needs to be a greater understanding by city folk of the way the farming industry operates.

Local regional communities are critical, and in many areas numbers have drifted out, schools closed, sporting clubs closed, communities closed, and it is very sad. My daughter lives near Brown's Well, which a few years ago was quite a thriving little community—they even had a local district council, that's gone; they had a school, that's gone; and they had a bowling club, that's gone. The footy club and the netball club are all that are left of Brown's Well, and they are great community activities. Right across, we are struggling to keep sporting clubs going, and we are amalgamating football clubs in the intense desire to keep rural life where it should be and enjoy that wonderful rural lifestyle.

The dairy farmers on the Fleurieu Peninsula have great difficulties from time to time, not only with drought but with prices, with supermarket chains trying to destroy their very businesses by discount milk. Wool is not too bad at the moment, but I know that the wool growers have gone through a couple of decades of absolute misery, and I know this well because I have been one. Grain growers struggle with the weather and the climate and, right at this current time, the grape producers up through the Barossa, the Clare Valley and the Riverland are getting copious amounts of rain right at the wrong time. It costs a lot of money to put in crops, a lot of money to produce livestock, and if things go pear shaped there is no way out of it.

I am sure the member for Hammond will have more to say in a minute, as I am sure he will speak on this. All we ask for is a bit of courtesy and respect for the farming community from our city cousins and a bit of understanding for our lifestyle. I could go on and on, but I am going to run out of time. I absolutely concur and agree with the member for Schubert.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:43): I rise today to support this excellent motion from the member for Schubert to note that 2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer and acknowledge the contribution that farmers and all others involved in primary production make to both feeding the nation and sustaining Australia's economy—an excellent motion. I congratulate the members for Schubert, Mawson and Finniss on their contributions, all members who have had a firsthand and longstanding association with the world of agriculture. This is about celebrating the contribution generally of the agricultural industry to Australia, to Australia's history to where it is today, and to our economy and how we base our economy. It also celebrates and recognises that farming is a profession. It recognises farmers as professional people and the contribution those professionals make to Australia.

As has been rightly pointed out, agriculture has a long and proud history in this state, dating from the very earliest settlement way back in 1836. I would assume that the first cereals were sown in 1837. It was not long before South Australia was taking the lead in agricultural development, not only in Australia but throughout the world. Within a couple of decades of that first settlement in 1836, South Australia had become the granary of Australia. We had a reasonable acreage of fertile land close to coastal regions, which made the cost of transport and the logistics involved in transport relatively easy. So, it was a natural development for farmers in this state to develop the land and grow wheat (in the first instance), then barley and subsequently other crops to feed Australia and the rest of the world. It was not long before we were exporting to other states throughout Australia and, indeed, through the clipper trade, Europe.

If I can indulge the house for just a moment. The member for Mawson spoke about his great-great-grandparents. My great-great-grandfather arrived in South Australia for the first time in 1843 and returned to settle in 1848. After having a short time at the Burra copper mine, he headed off to Victoria, along with many others in the gold rush, and although he did not make his fortune, he made a small find and enough money to take up a section at Watervale in the state's Mid North in the Clare Valley. By the early 1850s, he was growing wheat, and at one stage I understand he was growing wheat as far north as anyone in this colony.

Interestingly, he also planted vines at Watervale at a place which was originally known as Spring Vale, then was known as Quelltaler, I think Wolf Blass had it for a while, and it is now known as Annie's Lane. So, those original vines were planted there by Frank Treloar all those years ago. Not bad for a devout Methodist, member for Schubert.

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: Yes, that is right. I know you are a devout Methodist—a lapsed Methodist, member for Schubert. Frank devoted some acreage to his vineyard and, on reading some of the history of that time, he supplied a great deal of what they called harvest wine. Harvest wine was in lieu of wages to the harvest workers, which I think (probably) during the 1870s and 1880s was a big part of his production and income. Interestingly, he used to produce this wine in bulk, and those landowners who wanted to come and collect wine or buy wine from Frank were asked to bring their own cask. So, not much was spent on bottling or labels, member for Chaffey, nothing like these days—you would know all about bottling and labels, no doubt. So, that is an interesting part of my family history.

Frank's grandson, my grandfather, headed off to the West Coast in the 1920s. It was a time when the wealth of the nation was in the country and any young man with aspirations would look to take up land, often virgin land, as my grandfather did, or in newly settled areas. They had the opportunity in those days, if they were prepared to work hard, to build and establish a business, a farm, ultimately raise a family on that farm and contribute to the development of that myriad of small country communities we see dotted right around this great state of ours, the agricultural areas in particular.

That occurred right across Australia. In the first instance, the pastoralists (the graziers) and the farmers followed soon after. They built communities and achieved a lifestyle and standard of living that they would not otherwise have found, I would suggest. For 30 years before entering this place I, too, was a farmer, and enjoyed it very much. I loved my time as a farmer. I am still involved with the family farm; my two brothers now share farm our property. I am not involved in the day-to-day decisions, but I just love being out there, watching the crops being planted. I enjoy seeing the crops come out of the ground, and I enjoy the harvest, but I also enjoy that time immediately after harvest, when the South Australian countryside is at its driest, but the season has finished and—touch wood—a good harvest has been had.

There have been a lot of changes in the farming systems we have used over the years. Australian and South Australian farmers have been at the forefront of many of these changes and developments. I mentioned just yesterday, in fact, and will have another opportunity today to talk about the Ridley stripper, which was a world first here in South Australia. Then, of course, the discovery that our soils were deficient in phosphorous, and that the addition of superphosphate, which I think initially took place at Roseworthy, that great agricultural college—in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the stripper.

Mr TRELOAR: And the stripper, yes. I believe the Correll brothers, member for Goyder—

Members interjecting:

Mr TRELOAR: The Correll brothers on the upper Yorke Peninsula were the first to use superphosphate on a broad acreage, and it transformed a lot of the production in this state. However, it was not the last transformation; we had the development of the fallow system of farming, as subclovers and medics were introduced to add nitrogen to our soils a system of lay farming developed and, for a while there through the sixties and seventies, South Australia was exporting this technology and these developments to other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East. Sadly, that sort of cooperation no longer occurs, but it was a great contribution from the farmers in the industry in this state.

Our job—and we have been reminded all too often, as agriculturalists at least—is to rise to the challenge of feeding a growing world population. I put it to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we are well and truly up to that challenge. As I have said, farming systems have changed considerably over the last 150 years, they have changed considerably in the last 30 years, and they will continue to change. It will be the development and adoption of that technology that will allow us to meet the challenge of feeding the world's population. Some estimates are that that will be up to as many as nine billion people by 2050.

Historically, our ability to produce food has increased along with, and at some points in time in excess of, the growth in world population. I have no doubt that we will achieve that. Our challenge all the while in doing that, of course, will be to stay in business; that is the challenge for a farmer, more than anything else. The farmer does not feel any great obligation, necessarily, to feed the world; what he does feel is the challenge to stay in business. As I mentioned yesterday, regulation, red tape and general government policy can sometimes make that difficult.

Also, in terms of trade, with the dollar where it is and a world, at the moment, which is awash with wheat, this continually erodes our terms of trade. But, farmers are a resilient bunch, and I congratulate the member for Schubert on this motion. I fully support it, and I just hope that the whole of the Australian community embraces this year, 2012, as the Australian Year of the Farmer.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:53): I rise to support this notice of motion by the member for Schubert, that notes that 2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer, and acknowledges the contribution that farmers and all others involved in primary production make to both feeding our nation and to sustaining Australia's economy.

My great-great grandfather came out here from England in 1840, so only four years after the birth of this state. As I think I have mentioned in this house before, William Pederick was going to go down and book his passage—I think it was at Portsmouth—and his mother said, 'You're mad.' He wanted to borrow a horse, and she said, 'No, you're not riding into Portsmouth to book your passage to Australia,' so he walked the 30 miles to do it.

William and Mary came out in 1840. They settled in Plympton. They had a little shoe or boot shop, apart from a farm. We have a lot of discussion these days about protecting arable land. I suggest that Plympton and certainly where this chamber sits are probably on some of the most fertile land in this state. But that is the way of early settlement; they always settle along the rivers and that kind of thing. Some of this country would even challenge some of the most fertile country in the electorate of the member for Goyder on Yorke Peninsula. I know that is a big call, but it is good land.

They were there for quite a few years, but as the colony expanded they migrated north a bit to near the Gawler River and farmed in that area for many years. My grandfather farmed at Angle Vale near Heaslip Road. My father, who was born in 1920, farmed there as well before the compulsory acquisition of land for Edinburgh air base and the Weapons Research Establishment, after which time Dad moved down to Coomandook 51 years ago. Essentially that means I have been there all my life.

Our family, in a farming sense, have had a bit of a look around the state. I only have to go back one generation to my father, who used to walk behind horses. I find it an interesting entry in my grandfather's diary when my father was born. It goes along the line that one day he was ploughing the back 80 acres and the next day happened to be the day my father was born and my grandfather put in his diary, 'Went to Gawler'. There was no mention of what it was for, that it was to witness the birth of my father. The next day the diary entry was, 'Back ploughing the back 80 acres'. I guess it shows how committed my grandfather was to farming. It was a little odd that he did not make more recognition of my father's birth.

I certainly love hearing the stories of what happened in those early days. My grandfather initially would come into the city with horse and cart delivering hay, chaff or stooked hay. There were a lot of feed mills in the city and around the place. I remember dad telling me a classic story: being a good Congregationalist, he who would never have gone into a pub, but you had to weigh your own loads. He would go into the hotel and ask for the weighbridge keys and weigh the load for the feed.

Farming has progressed a long way from those days. Dad only stopped actively driving tractors with me 12 years ago, when he was 80. He was driving a 300-horsepower, eight-wheel tractor, and you could not lever him out of it. It was a bit of trouble getting him up there, but once he was in place he was there for the duration. This is what is happening with farming right across the state and country. We have heard that production has increased exponentially, as the member for Schubert rightly described. Farms can now feed so many more people than they used to feed. As the member for Flinders mentioned, and as I believe, we will meet the challenge of feeding not just the nation but the world in the future.

We have to make sure the right legislation and regulation is in place to assist farmers and does not hinder that growth. There are so many things people need to comply with. I saw recently after the drought that a lot of people in my electorate had to put in private desalination plants just to survive around the Lower Lakes—lakes Alexandrina and Albert. Now there is an issue where the EPA wants to license that brine disposal. They are going to charge people who have actually looked after themselves for their water, and I think that is absolutely disgraceful—capitalising on people who have invested better than $200,000 in each instance to look after themselves.

The progress of farming has been massive. We have gone from times, even in my early days, of operating tractors and putting in crops. You could work a paddock eight to 12 times before you sow it. Nowadays people spray the paddocks out over summer to get rid of the summer weeds, and then come in with one or two knock-downs coming into the season, when the season opens in April and May, to sow the crop. Many years ago we had single furrow ploughs. I know that, just in my area, we have 80-foot and 86-foot air seeders operating; and I know that in Queensland you have up to at least 100-foot air seeders operating, because it has always been about getting bigger so that you could remain viable to compete in this day and age.

But it is not cheap; it is expensive. Farming harvesters can be worth towards $800,000 or $900,000, depending on the options. Large air seeders, as I was discussing, complete with a cultivator, can be around $600,000. Tractors can be $300,000. Self-propelled boom sprays can be $200,000 to $400,000. It is a massive investment for private operators who are not just feeding this state but feeding our nation and feeding the world.

One thing we certainly need to be aware of is the issue of foreign ownership, and I think that, certainly, on both a state and federal basis there should be a register of who owns what so that we can keep track of who is owning what. Let's not be wrong here, there has been some great initiatives by foreign investment in the past. We have seen, whether or not you like it, the Burke irrigation area opened up. We have seen Esperance opened up by the Americans. However, I think that, with the issue of food security that has been touched on by the member for Schubert and others, we do need to make sure that we know who owns the land, and just as importantly who owns the water, and I think that both these markets could be tidied up.

I note that minister Gago was recently asked at a function about the foreign ownership issue and she just dismissed it, from what I understand, as a federal issue. Well, I do not think it is just a federal issue. I think that we all need to be involved and be well aware of what is going on around us with the production of clean, green food in this state of ours.

I would like to congratulate Philip Bruem and the people involved in the Australian Year of the Farmer. It is a great initiative. I believe that it has some federal government backing, but also a range of sponsors have got behind the Australian Year of the Farmer organisation, and I congratulate every one of them. I know that they have got nine vehicles—I think they are Toyotas—they take to shows right around the country. I have certainly seen them at the Karoonda Farm Fair and at the Cleve field days, apart from other shows in the state this year.

We must all remember where our food comes from, because it is so important that we nurture our farmers, put the right legislative processes in place, and that we actually support research and development in this state instead of what we have seen recently—tens of millions of dollars being pulled from the primary industry sector. It is a sector that contributes three times the gross revenue of mining in this state, and it will contribute a lot more than mining for a long time yet, and we need to support it. I support the motion.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:04): I, too, join my colleagues in supporting the member for Schubert and his very important motion. This is a very important issue, not only for the electorate of Stuart but also our state and the nation. Unlike my regional colleagues here, I have never been an active farmer. I do not have a farming background, but I certainly did grow up in a family where my father was, and still is, an agricultural economist. He has been an agricultural economist for over 50 years. I grew up with that influence and certainly the knowledge, understanding and insight of how important primary production is for our state, particularly farming.

It is important to point out that farming is a word that is used quite generally and broadly. Of course, it means cropping and grazing. Importantly, in the context of the Australian Year of the Farmer it should also include pastoralists. However, when we talk about farming in South Australia we really are talking about people who operate orchards, dairies, piggeries, vineyards, apiarists, aquaculture and horticulture.

I think our state has a marvellous opportunity in years to come with the extensive development of horticulture around our regional areas. It is certainly something that even city members of parliament would be very familiar with. It has been a mainstay of Adelaide, particularly in suburban areas, although it is now not there because the land has been taken up with housing. However, I think a large part of regional South Australia will have a great opportunity to develop horticulture.

I would also like to comment on the Seawater Greenhouse project, which is a marvellous project near Port Augusta, where solar energy is used to pump and desalinate water from the Upper Spencer Gulf. That water is then used to grow at present just tomatoes in a trial site, but it certainly can be expanded to any other fruit and vegetables that can be grown in a greenhouse. It really is a marvellous project that I understand is doing exceptionally well in the pilot stage. It has the opportunity to be developed far and wide.

I now turn to environmental responsibilities. Nobody in this house would be unaware of the fact that, as every year goes by, as we should, we are more and more aware of our environmental responsibilities. I would like to congratulate South Australia's farmers for leading in that area. There is nobody more aware of or responsible for environmental sustainability and protection of their own land than people who use it for primary production and who plan to use it for primary production for generations and, potentially, centuries to come.

I really would like to congratulate our farmers, as the member for Schubert said, particularly the younger generation that is coming along, not that the previous generations deliberately did things incorrectly. They used the best technology and the best knowledge and were as responsible as they could be and should have been at the time, but our current generation of farmers have improved significantly on it. I am very optimistic that the next generation and the one after that will be better and better again. Farmers and the farming industry as a whole need to be congratulated for that.

They are under pressure. Our farmers are feeding our state, our nation and the world while their land is put under more and more pressure. Farmers take responsibility and succeed when pressures, both environmental and space-wise, are growing, and also the demand for their produce is growing. I think they do a marvellous job in that area.

No doubt, some people find efficiency a curse. Every time a new piece of technology is available from Australia or somewhere else in the world, if you do not have it you start to fall behind, but of course it is a benefit as well. Farmers who do have the capacity to use the latest and greatest technology available in the world will be the ones who succeed. They know that far better than I do.

Keeping up with efficiency is very important. It does not matter whether you are broadacre cropper trying to put in thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands, of acres or whether you are an apiarist, who might on a weekly or monthly basis be moving beehives around the countryside, being as efficient as possible and using the best technology and knowledge available is certainly what is going to keep people successful.

As people in this house know, my great passion is regional development. I would like to highlight the fact that there are hundreds—this is not an exaggeration—of communities just in South Australia who rely upon farmers for their survival. They benefit from farming, they need farming, but they are not all farming only communities. Many of them benefit from lots of other things, some of them from tourism, some from other industries. However, without our farmers we would instantly lose hundreds of communities.

Whether you are a country person or whether you are a city person—we cannot all live in Adelaide, we cannot all work in city offices—all of South Australia benefits from having a vibrant and successful city of Adelaide and all of South Australia benefits from having a vibrant, successful and sustainable regional South Australia as well. So, thank you to our farmers for contributing to that.

Of course, in relation to exports, our state started as, and still is, and probably forever will be, a state that requires exports for the vast majority of its wealth. Of course, included in that are mining exports, but farming and agricultural exports still do play an enormous role, and that will never, ever change. Wheat, wool and other commodities sustain our state enormously.

In that vein, it would be remiss of me not to express my concern, my dissatisfaction, my anger in some stages at the state government for continually reducing the funding to PIRSA. That is a great shame and incredibly short-sighted. It hurts our state, it hurts our regions and it hurts Adelaide as well. It really is very short-sighted. We must be on the front foot of research and development in our state, and those decisions taken by our government over the last decade are completely unacceptable.

Again, just paying tribute to our farmers, people underestimate how easy it is. I know there are a lot of people in Adelaide and other capital cities who just look at it and say, 'Well, look, if you're born into a farming family and you've got lots of land and if you get some rain, it's all going to be easy.' People do not realise the risks that are involved. It is incredibly hard to grow products that rely upon overseas markets.

Our farmers are price takers. They can grow the best crops, they can do a marvellous job, use all the technology, be environmentally responsible—everything they might like to do—but if the world prices collapse it is all for nothing in that one particular year. Of course it is true as well to say that there are a lot of benefits out of their control. If world prices are fantastic, they do very well, but to have weather out of your control, and to have prices out of your control, puts an enormous strain on farming families and farming businesses that people do underestimate, and I would like them to think seriously about that.

There is also of course the enormous capital investment. It is not just the land but, as the member for Hammond mentioned, in many cases, millions of dollars of equipment is required to be at the cutting edge of technology and efficiency, and that does not come easily. You put that into the context of any other type of business you like. To be a price taker, to have volatile world prices that will determine your income in a particular year, to have weather that you cannot rely on and you cannot predict to determine your success in your year, with all of that left open, you still have to have millions of dollars, very often, invested in machinery and equipment and land. Otherwise, even if those other factors—the prices and the weather—line up, you are out of luck anyway. You are just not in the race if you have not done it.

To our farming families, to our farming communities, to farmers across our state and across our nation, we depend upon you for our economic success. I congratulate you and thank you for everything that you do for us.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (12:13): I too rise to support the member for Schubert's motion and indeed, being today the first day of autumn, that is what farming really is all about: it is a seasonal profession, and with the seasons come the different procedures in farming. Looking at farming today, I am part of a family who has farmed in South Australia for well over 100 years. Predominantly, my great-grandfather and my grandfather were very successful stud Poll Hereford breeders—dairy, dryland farmers—and along the way I have come into farming through the irrigation sector.

I really must say, looking at what my great-grandfather and particularly my grandfather and father endured over time, you really do have to be a tough breed of person to endure the hardships, to endure the ups and downs, that farming presents.

As many of the farming fraternity here today would know, we have our good years, we have our bad years, because it all revolves around having a good season. Unfortunately, we roll with the punches when we do have those marginal seasons or the dry. In some cases, what some of the farmers are experiencing as we speak today is a serious wet season, particularly within vintage, and also within some of the horticultural crops, particularly the nuts that are now floating up the rows and floating out of some people's properties.

I guess I was fortunate enough that some my ancestors chased the best land, and I guess, predominantly, most of the state's best land was used for farming in earlier days. But over time, we have come to look at some of that marginal country, particularly up in the electorate of Chaffey. It is very marginal in the Mallee and they are, with technology, able to grow sustainable crops, particularly cereals. Look at the equipment from yesteryear to what we experience today. I still have very vivid memories of sitting on my grandfather's old Twin City tractor, which was a huge tractor—

Mr Venning: Still got it?

Mr WHETSTONE: Member for Schubert, he's hunting out old vintage equipment. But I remember sitting on that piece of equipment that, back in those days, was a prestige tractor, towing a very small scarifier or cultivator plough, or a disk, something on which we would then put a box seeder, and plant up a relatively small amount of land in comparative terms to today. It was a very, very viable industry back in those days, when the farmer rode on the sheep's back, when a pound of wool was worth a pound.

Again, we look at what we experience today. I was listening to the member for Hammond talking about some of the tractors and implements that some of the farmers use today, with 100-foot wide implements and tractors with 12 wheels, tractors that would pull buildings along. It really does amaze those who are uneducated just how they can pull such large pieces of equipment over these large pieces of land.

I would like to talk about my experience sitting on the select committee on the grain handling industry, which is a bipartisan committee, and experiencing what farmers have been through over the last couple of years in particular. In 2010, we had the state's record crop of well over 10 million tonnes of grain. The diverse problems and issues that farmers faced, I guess, explains what the farming fraternity has to go through, whether it is wet weather or dry weather, dealing with the handling of their produce and the marketing of their produce, and dealing with the quality of their produce. I think that Australia is world renowned for growing some of the highest quality grains in the world and targeting specific markets and export markets that really do supply food to the world.

Just looking at irrigation, I have a very keen interest in irrigation, because that was my line of farming some 25 years ago when I moved up to the sunny Riverland and ventured into business, buying myself an orange grove. I relied very heavily on my father-in-law back then to give me some education and expertise, because irrigation is essentially different from the dryland or broadacre farming. It is essentially different from intense livestock farming, whether it is feedlotting or intense farming, or whether it is the wild game farming. There are many diverse types of farming. It is good to see that the small business minister is here today because, as he would understand, all forms of farming are about small business. It is all about small family farming. Whether it remains as a small family farm, or whether over generations they build up that empire to make it a large family farm, it is all about small business.

There is a myriad of types of farming, particularly here in South Australia. I will not mention all of them but it does not only include things 'born to the land' but also the wild fish catch. Much of the wild fish farming has evolved over the last five to 10 years, and I think that industry is on the cusp of becoming a huge industry, not only domestically but also export earnings for the state's economy will be unlimited in the years to come. We see many fish breeding programs now to suit or cater for the growing population's demand on fish. We see many issues with being able to breed not only fish but also breed animals and grow cereals and, at the same time, deal with the needs of what the world requires today. We look at much of the world's population that is now becoming more reliant on protein, and that is the way of the world of farming today; that is, we will be chasing high protein to meet the demands, particularly in Asia and in China. That will be the future of our export industry.

Again, the farming sector is underpinned by research and development. As the member for Stuart has highlighted, we continue to see government withdrawing its support for R&D, particularly in South Australia. It is a very sad exercise to think that we are world leaders in farming, yet the support for R&D so that we can remain at the forefront and continue to be world leaders in food production is being taken away. It is called being reliant on the private sector, being reliant on the suppliers of our products to do the R&D, which is really not a level playing field, because the commercial sector is there to sell products, it is not there for the benefit of anyone bar itself.

That is something that the government must give more consideration to. It must embrace what research and development does to keep us world leaders in food production and world leaders on the farming frontier. That also underpins the biosecurity that South Australia has been so reliant on over many years—particularly in my electorate, the lens coming into South Australia from the eastern seaboard with the fruit fly program, with weeds and the like. That is something we must keep at bay.

I also refer to the Murray-Darling Basin draft plan that all irrigators and farmers are about to embark on. That is something that we must embrace; and we must look at how we are going to produce more with less water.

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (12:23): I rise today to support this motion. It is very dear to my heart because many of the people I have met in the north of Adelaide around the areas of Virginia, Two Wells, Reeves Plains and up to the edge of the Mallala area are involved in primary production and agriculture, growing the crops and food for our city, and also the animals which we consume—that is, the meat we buy at the supermarket. They work very hard and are very passionate about their profession. I know that they like to be innovative and increase their productivity, as well as stay ahead of the trends that are occurring in what is an important industry to our state.

I would like to place on the record my support for the motion and for the communities that support the farmers in the north. It is important that we recognise that this is the Year of the Farmer and what a worthy contribution farmers make. It was very good that the Governor-General started the year off around Australia Day by promoting this important year.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (12:25): I rise to support this motion and thank members of the government who have indicated their support of this motion, it is very worthy. In 1836, my ancestors who arrived at Kangaroo Island were farming families. In fact, my great-grandmother, Sarah Snelling, mother of 14 children, not only made a very significant contribution to their farm on the north coast of Kangaroo Island, in addition to raising 14 children (seven boys and seven girls) she was the granddaughter of a lady who had been widowed within weeks of settlement in South Australia who herself raised young children to become good farmers on Kangaroo Island. I disclose my interest and financial membership of the Country Women's Association and as a member of Women in Agriculture and Business of South Australia, and maintain farming interests to date.

What I wish to say is this: the new minister, minister Gago in another place, covering primary industry, has spoken on a number of occasions that I have been present at dealing with primary industry. As the Minister for the Status of Women as well, she has made statements commending the involvement of women in farming. That is to be applauded, but what I find (repeatedly) is this condescending and close to insulting assumption that we as women are just starting to get in on the game. It was like a statement I heard some time ago under this government where they were talking about encouraging women to learn to become truck drivers in mining in South Australia, and there is a push for it again, which is terrific, but to suggest that they have not already been out there driving trucks for 20 years is insulting.

Members interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Just in mining development. It is important to minister Gago, or anyone representing the government on these issues (both women and agriculture and primary industry), that they understand they have been out there sharing the load for 175 years in this state, not least of which during two World Wars when a lot of our men were away, and sadly many did not return, and in those communities they ran the show. So, I want no more of this nonsense about, 'We are encouraging women to come into the world of agriculture,' because, by golly, they have been there for 175 years.

The second matter I wish to raise is the question of water. Unquestionably, farming is a gambling industry. You have to rely on commodity prices, the weather and, obviously, disease and so on which may affect the product and produce to which you are working toward. It is a high risk industry and it is hard work—you have heard from other speakers on those matters—but the rewards are there, in many different ways, not always financial, but the rewards can be there, particularly in lifestyle for the families who undertake these tasks.

Water is critical. As humans, we cannot live without water. We cannot grow anything without water. We certainly cannot keep our stock alive without water. We know the River Murray is a very important vein of life that runs through this state. The member for Chaffey has admirably covered the significance of that in the region that he represents in this state. The River Murray did not come to Kangaroo Island, the last time I noticed, nevertheless we still pay the levy and all those sorts of things and we are happy to make a contribution toward the water resources of this state.

So, when this government, in the last 10 years, has come up with ideas about how it is going to support the sustainability of water in this state, we have listened carefully and where it has been appropriate we have supported it, but it has come up with a few donkeys of ideas. One of them is to have prescription all over the Adelaide Hills, not just the western area of the Mount Lofty region but the eastern area of the Mount Lofty region (where they are just about flooding in water). On the western side, in which a number of my constituency reside, operate and produce (particularly horticulture and vineyards), they are under pressure in a one size fits all prescription proposal by this government. I have spoken on this before. While there is breath in me, I will not allow a tax to be made on rain by this government. We will continue to fight that.

Several years ago, there was an attempt by the government to introduce a prescription regime on Kangaroo Island. There were public meetings. There were concerns raised about the scientific data that allegedly supported the basis upon which that was to be done. Understand this: as I think the member for Finniss has stated on other occasions, Kangaroo Island is a rock in the middle of the ocean with a bit of dirt on it. It has almost no groundwater. It relies on heavy rainfall on the western side, from Parndana, and lower rainfall where the member for Finniss lives. He is over in crow country, we live in magpie country, and at his end they have a bit less water.

What has happened over the years to address that is that the Middle River system on Kangaroo Island has been dammed. I was only a little child when this was opened and launched, and was an important part of making sure that the people of Kingscote in the eastern end had enough water to stay alive—very happy, very proud, and it was an important piece of infrastructure for the state.

What is important to understand is at the very time that this new government came in to say that we needed to have prescription water there, it was absolutely unrefuted data at that stage that 95 per cent of the—

Mrs GERAGHTY: Point of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Sibbons): Point of order, member for Torrens.

Mrs GERAGHTY: It seems to me that the member is speaking in contradiction to the motion. This is celebrating that 2012 is the Australian Year of the Farmer. The member seems to be talking about something that is in direct contradiction to that, and almost not related to the motion at all.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Sibbons): Member for Bragg, can we just celebrate the wonderful farming community.

Ms CHAPMAN: I will, but if they're dead because they haven't got any water, then we won't be celebrating anything! That is the critical element of farming; we cannot grow anything, we cannot survive, unless we have water. So, in this project of water, which was proposed by the government, it was irrefutable that 95 per cent of that river system was flowing out to sea at Snelling Beach—named after my great-grandmother's family, I might add—and that continues today. So, when they came up with this plan, the Kangaroo Island community got together and said, 'Look, if there's a problem, let us look at how we might address it.' They said—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: The local member there is leading this as well—we had a very significant debate, and it was quite clear that the science that supported this proposal was crap and that we needed to go back to square one, and that the models that had been developed on it were unreliable, and therefore, we needed to remedy that. Appropriately, those in charge of this proposal said, 'Yes, we understand that; we will go away and we will look at it again.'

Yesterday, I received a letter from the NRM board, as a landowner, saying to me—and I paraphrase—'Yes, the information was wrong when we went to it before. We went away and we looked at it again, and we've come up with a new formula. This is the rule: you can't put any dams in unless we tell you.' None at all; not even under the 5 megalitre—is that what you call them?

Mr Whetstone: Five megs.

Ms CHAPMAN: 'Megs'—the full name is megalitre—that is currently allowed under the act. Now, I received no copy of the report, nothing—I have asked for a copy of the report, and I have no doubt that they will send it to me, but what I say is this: it is not acceptable, if we want farming in this state to survive, that we have this 'announce and defend' position of government and then through it, we have notices of what is going to happen, even without the information being provided prior to the decision being made. That is just unacceptable.

I think it is important that we understand that if we want a thriving farming community in this state, and we want it to be the bread basket for the world, and we want it to actually be the financial cornerstone, along with other primary industries in this state, then we have to make sure it has the support; not the disingenuous policies that are being emitted under the grounds that they are helping the environment or water sustainability, that they crush these other things.

Water sustainability is absolutely critical to the development of farming and anything else in this state—manufacturing, et al. But, it is not acceptable that the government comes up with proposals and crushes everyone, including the farming community, in direct contradiction of that being allowed to flourish. I support the motion.

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (12:33): Mr Acting Speaker, I would just like to speak briefly on this matter. My electorate of Light has a number of farmers; not only farmers in terms of crops, etc. (such as wheat farmers), but there is also horticulture and viticulture throughout the electorate.

First of all, I would like to make a couple of comments about the area close to where I live, and the history of some of the farming communities where I live. We arrived in the area in the early 1960s, and farming in the sixties to today has changed dramatically. I would like to pay particular tribute, in part of the celebration of farming, to some of the communities which have come and gone through the electorate.

In the early 1960s and 1970s the community where I live had a lot of people of Greek and Italian background and the farmers, who had obviously come from overseas, along with people from other nationalities as well, predominantly worked in glasshouses, as market gardeners, or chicken farmers. They were quite small farms, but they were able to make a reasonable farm income to raise their families. That has changed over time. I can recall a dairy farmer down the road who used to have a horse and cart—this was in my lifetime. He would go down the road and drop off milk.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr PICCOLO: There you go. More recently people from Vietnam and other countries of Southern Asia have come to live in the area, and they bring with them, as did the early migrants, a whole range of techniques they used in their country of birth and have tried to adapt them to Australian situations. In the main they have been very successful, predominantly for two reasons: first, they work very hard. If anybody has worked in a glasshouse—and I only do it once a year when I have to pick tomatoes for my mum—they will know it is very hard work. Secondly, they work together as families. That is one thing that is very common in rural and regional Australia, whether one is of European or Anglo background. Those rural communities have succeeded because they work as a family unit.

I also mention the important role played by women in farming communities. I agree in part with what was said earlier when we talked about women in the workforce. Women have been in the workforce since the year dot. In terms of the farming community, they have made major contributions to farming. They have not only done the work on the farms but also often had the role of raising families as well, so their life has been particularly difficult. I also pay tribute to the women: whether they have worked supporting market gardeners or farmers of different types, they have made a major contribution to our communities.

The other thing I would like to mention is that farming has changed. A lot of those small farms have now disappeared. Farming productivity and efficiency has improved out of site. Some of the most efficient farming in the world occurs in this country and this state, which helps ensure we have food security not only for our own nation but for people around the world.

One of the areas that has obviously changed dramatically is in the area of intensive farming with the changes in animal welfare law. One of the challenges farmers are facing is how to meet the increasing challenges faced by consumer and other groups' expectations about the ethical treatment of animals, and that is an area into which farmers are moving. It is interesting as I have a pig farmer in my electorate who I am working with at the moment, and he is now looking at changing his whole farm to being environmentally sustainable farming. That is good for the environment and also much more friendly for the animals. The old days of pigs being raised in closed sheds are disappearing. So, we have a number of benefits.

Farmers are adapting. We have to be mindful that they cannot adapt overnight, and people need resources and time to do that. I get a little annoyed at times with some of the lobby groups who want change now. A lot of the farming community are happy to change, but they just need time as it is not a cheap process to do that—it is very expensive.

My next point is that a lot of farming is very marginal because of the lack of competition. Whether you are a vegetable farmer, growing grapes, fruit or wheat, with the limited number of people who retail, wholesale or purchase a product, the lack of competition particularly in retailing is putting the squeeze on a lot of farmers. Something about which we need to be very mindful in this place is that competition delivers benefits, but the lack of competition or perceived competition (and I am talking Coles and Woolworths, etc.) can distort the market significantly where we could literally wipe out our small producers. We need to be mindful of that.

With those few comments, again, I would like to pay tribute to all those farmers in my electorate, those people particularly who have come from overseas and who have adapted and farmed in this area. Again, I pay tribute to those small farmers around my area who came here and not only learnt a new language and a new culture but who have also successfully farmed. I wish them well.

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (12:40): I will not keep the member for Fisher long. The member for Taylor and the member for Light have spoken very eloquently and adequately on the government support for this motion and for the International Year of Farmers and our recognition that, indeed, we do rely on our farmers for our food; and particularly the comments of the member for Light about people who came from overseas and adapted to a very different climate, a very different culture and very different soil and who have been instrumental in bringing us new products in a very challenging environment.

However, I could not allow this debate to proceed any further without responding to some of the remarks made by the member for Bragg about the minister for women and the minister for primary industries, the Hon. Gail Gago. I am absolutely confident, and from my personal knowledge am aware, that the honourable minister has not just discovered women in farming. The honourable member is well aware that women have been on farms from day dot. My family emigrated to Australia in 1838 as agricultural labourers.

Members interjecting:

Ms THOMPSON: We do not know much about the history, but, with the involvement of the Irish community and working on the land, I am pretty certain that my great, great, great whatever grandmother was also working on the land, although her occupation is not recorded as the custom then was only to refer to the occupation of the man in the household.

In my own work as an equal opportunities officer and an adviser in the area of women in the then department of labour, I was involved in organising consultations with rural women in conjunction with the then women's adviser to the premier. This was quite some years ago (somewhere around about 1988, I think), and a time when the role of women was discussed. Women in farming then usually described themselves as 'farmers' wives'. They did not describe themselves as farmers. My great aunty Kath from Redhill always described herself as a farmer's wife.

It has been in the last 20 years that more women have been describing themselves as farmers, because I am sure there always were some who described themselves that way. The minister for women has been celebrating the changed role of women in farming and the fact that they are now driving the tractors and not only doing the books—and 'only' is not really appropriate, as doing the books is incredibly important.

When I lived in the country as a young child, we ran the Cambrai pub. I often happened to be in the bar at 6 o'clock and I was very well aware of all the farmers who came into the bar at that time, or close to, usually in the middle of winter when they had been out on their tractors. It was a port and stout that they had—a very warming drink; I thoroughly recommend it. Never once did I see a woman coming in off the tractor to have a stout and port. It was all the blokes.

Women are now driving the tractors. If they are cold after spending a day on the farm, ploughing away, they would probably now be having the stout and ports, too. There is a change, and we need to note that and celebrate it.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:45): I support this motion. I have had a longstanding interest in agriculture; in fact, I left school when I was 14 to work on a farm over at Alford. I was a member of Rural Youth; I have still have the badge from those days. Farming is a very important activity. It encompasses not only grains and horticulture but the whole range of food production. It is a pretty tough gig being a farmer. We often hear all farmers are poor. That is not true; some are quite well off, but many do struggle. I am most familiar now with the Mallee. I think Mallee farmers are a breed unto themselves. I think they are fantastic. Not many of them make a fortune, but they are good, decent, honest people who toil hard.

There are a couple of issues I would like to mention whilst we are celebrating what farmers do. We need to acknowledge a lot of the cost pressures on them, the fact that we still do not have proper food labelling, and the decline of many country towns, and that means a reduction in services. I think there should be a charter which makes it quite clear that people who live in the country (obviously farmers are included) are not denied a proper level of services. I think that should be not just the catchcry of royalties for the region type argument but a basic right that people in the country, which, as I say, includes the farmers, are not denied services simply because they do not live in the big city. One of their big concerns is roads, because they are the lifeblood of rural areas. Many of the roads in country areas need attention, including some of the major arterials. I will keep raising those issues form time to time.

South Australian farmers have pioneered a lot of things, including dryland farming, and we are very much into direct seeding and no till and all those improved irrigation techniques. I commend our farming community for what they do. I think it is important that not just children in the city but everyone recognises that food does not come out of the supermarket. It might at the end, but it ultimately originates from the hard work of farmers. I know myself, trying to grow a bit of fruit as a hobby, how hard it is to produce quality produce when you are challenged by nature and minister Caica's parrots to produce fruit.

I say well done to the farmers. We will continue to support you and hope that over time the cost pressures on you are not unreasonable but ones that you can cope with and that you are not pushed out by those whose interests are other than in the best interests of this country. I support this motion.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (14:48): I congratulate the member for Schubert on bringing this to our attention. The contribution of farmers in all of Australia in the last century has been underestimated, I believe. If you look at some people when they buy something from a supermarket, they do not understand where it comes from. They just get it, go home and put the food on the table and they eat it, and they do not appreciate the hard toil of the farmers over the last century.

In my younger days I lived at Wandearah. It was a very small community but it had lots of small farming allotments. Today, they are dramatically reduced and a large number of allotments are now made into larger allotments. It makes it harder for the communities to survive. I always wanted to be a farmer when I was younger. I thought it was a great lifestyle. I always wanted to be a dairy farmer. My uncle at Bute had a dairy farm, and it was fantastic going there, as well as Greenock and the other areas down there. It was beautiful to go down there to see and milk the cows. Looking back—

The Hon. R.B. Such: Look what happened to Brokie, though.

Mr BROCK: I will not go into Robert Brokenshire; he is a very good man and he is a great farmer. Things have changed: my electorate of Frome has a very diversified unit of agriculture. We have viticulture, we have grain and we also have dairy farming, but unfortunately that is a dying phase. The dairy farming in particular is being wiped out and, before we know it, everything will be coming from overseas. Australia has the greatest opportunity to be the food bowl for Asia. We have so many challenges going forward. There are so many issues there to face and, in particular, the security of water is a big issue.

I congratulate the women over the many years who have supported the husbands and the sons who have been on the farms and looked after them, and they also looked after the shearers when they were in the shearing sheds. You forget about that because the shearers would be there, and the wives, the daughters and the girlfriends would bring the food out and certainly look after those people.

The lack of security with water is only one of the issues. Our farmers have everything going against them. They have nature, world prices and the Australian dollar all as challenges, but they are very resilient and they will not die down. They will continue on. That is why I have great pleasure in being the chair of the select committee into the grain industry, to ensure that we make everything as viable and as streamlined as we can for the grain industry in particular to be able to go forward and to secure that industry, which is very important not only to South Australia but all over Australia.

I will close on this matter but, again, I congratulate all our farmers throughout all of Australia, in South Australia in particular, and again I congratulate the member for Schubert for bringing this to the attention of the house. I certainly endorse the motion and congratulate all our farmers across all of Australia.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (12:51): I thank all members for their contributions and their encouraging words. I also thank the government for its offer of support. I hope that everybody will get involved in the various programs throughout the year. I commend Mrs Carol Schofield for taking their message to the people. I met her last Saturday at the Angaston show with the first caravan. It was great to meet her and she does great work. Again, I extend an invitation to anyone who wants to visit our farm, particularly during harvest. I urge other farmers to do the same because we know that showing is better than telling.

Motion carried.

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