There's an old 'hippyism' that vegetarians love: the image of a cloven hooved devil stems from our understanding of the negative environmental impacts of hooved creatures, particularly in the very ancient and fragile Australian landscape.
This is one of many issues around the environment and food production in Australia to be covered in future blogs like One Coat of Arms with Chips, Thanks: Saving Australia By Eating It, protecting Australia by eating roos, emus, etc, and particularly ferals like camel, goat, etc.
Given discussions (more blogs) on land clearing and usage, and methane, etc, and lactose intolerance and possible allergies, etc, etc, if we have a dairy industry, then it is ideally suited to the South East, or vice versa, eg, relatively stable climate and environment, good ground water (emergency back-up), etc.
My minimal personal dairy intake (coffee and occasional cheesecake) is not making any dairy farmer rich but still relies on them, and I've never owned and/or worked in a dairy, but I know enough people who have and/or do to understand the basic issues, and like many people I get upset if I miss the Country Hour on ABC Radio.
Even if your operation is large enough that you can employ managers, etc, dairy farming is a wholly consuming occupation that requires a little bit more than trotting them little doggies in and out the shed twice a day; pasture health, parasite control, husbandry, machinery maintenance, staff rosters, prices and distribution, etc.
A similar regime can be applied to other products, eg, citrus; oranges don't just grow on trees, they require full-time attention - they don't plant, water, harvest, and then roll themselves onto supermarket shelves.
Orange juice is a case study in the inherent lunacy of commitment to Free Trade rules that make Australian producers vulnerable to often heavily subsidised imports, with obvious and predictable results; the collapse of Australian producers, eg, the impacts of imported subsidised Indonesian toilet tissue on local producers.
I don't need to explain what is happening with 'milk' because it has been thoroughly covered if you're of a mind to see it; like many industries/aspects of food production, the major supermarkets effectively control the entire process, dictating milk prices at the 'farm gate', often paying at or even below cost to help subsidise suburban price wars, petrol vouchers, and fly-buy cards.
Unfortunately, the reality of what is happening across regional South Australia is life for those people (us), but a brief news item on page 17 of the Advertiser that Adelaide skips over, eg, thousands travel for forestry protests and there was literally one paragraph.
There is a definable agenda to keep Adelaide blissfully ignorant of what is happening, of what is being done to regional South Australia to pay for Adelaide, eg, again, the forestry sale is to pay for the Adelaide Oval - literally selling a lung to pay for a face-lift.
I can't help feeling that we do a great dis-service to our farmers with un-realistic notions of stoicism partly forced on them by our commitment to the ideal that they are tougher than us 'metro-sexuals', and can and therefore should just deal with it all; its grossly unfair and unrealistic.
Is this template of stoicism, rooted as it is in the often very harsh realities of rural existence, a 'guilt sink' for self-indulgent suburbanites like me (there I said it) so that we can conveniently stuff our faces completely isolated from the stresses of food production?
I hesitate to suggest that we should all go out and hug a farmer today, but as many commentators like Dick Smith identify, responsible and educated food purchasing can achieve a lot; reach out and hug an 'Aussie' farmer with your purchase choices.
It is not jingoistic or nationalistic to embrace the reality that buying Australian products works for Australia on many levels, eg, creates employment whilst producing food with hopefully stringent environmental and health regulations close to where it is used.
It is obvious; grow what you can (that's several blogs) and buy seasonal produce sourced as locally as possible. Why are we being sold (and obviously buying) Peruvian asparagus in Mt Gambier?
It's a little bit difficult when your local supermarket stocks only 'homebranded' corn from Thailand or 'New Zealand corn' that is actually bulk shipped to NZ from Thailand, China, etc, then packaged in NZ so that it can be called 'Produce of NZ'.
That is decision making by the supermarkets that conflicts with claims that there are motivators other than profit; that they care about 'Aussie farmers' as being part of a group effort.
Try to buy what you know helps those around you; charity begins at home, but supporting our farmers is far from charity, it is acknowledging often very hard work in an often very hostile marketplace.
Tomorrow: The CFS Strategy for Combatting Turbine Fires - RUN AWAY!
(with attached apology to those on the firelines, tankers, etc; this is a direct attack on those individuals within the CFS whom feel it is appropriate to go on the ABC and say 'water bombers are un-important and we'll just fly round turbines' whilst stating CFS policy is 'to stand way back (1.5km?) and let it burn out because we can't put them out and its too dangerous to get closer' - disgraceful.
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