REGIONS FEELING EFFECTS OF EXCESSIVE TREE REMOVAL
The saying goes, ‘every picture tells a story’, and the front page of the Stock Journal on November 1 brings that truth home.
After hearing Peter Bennett speak in 1971, I realised we had cleared too many trees.
Trees give off a mist that helps make rain. They also make good wind breaks, especially if bush is included in the break.
North Africa was once the bread basket of the Roman Empire. Now it is a desert.
Some people believe the whole earth was tropical once with a heavy mist over it. Are all the deserts in the world man-made?
Federal and state government financial policies are not helping either. It is time government subsidies were used to lower the cost of production and revegetation.
Tom Dolling,
Port Lincoln.
AUSTRALIANS UNIMPRESSED BY POLITICIANS’ BEHAVIOUR
It is often said that ‘if you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys’.
By any stretch of one's imagination, the salaries and conditions of our federal politicians could not be remotely considered as ‘peanuts’. And yet the behaviours exhibited – verbal abuse, disrespect, self-centred acts, treachery, deceit, ignorance, tantrums and disloyalty – are akin to those of a ‘barrel of monkeys’.
Unfortunately, very few Australians find themselves immersed in laughter at the ongoing sagas, which have little to do with the realities of daily living, presently emanating from Canberra.
Hopefully with an election imminent, ‘the party’ will be over for most of them!
Ian Macgowan,
Ceduna.
FARMERS’ VOICES UNHEARD IN UNBALANCED ARGUMENTS
Farmers have been taking it on the chin for far too long because of the “just get on with it” characters they are.
They don’t complain, they don’t argue, they just get on with the job. And that’s the problem.
The anti-livestock movement, vegan movement and environmentalists have had a lot of airplay in the news and online.
The problem is this is a one-sided view! It’s not balanced.
Farmers are not being heard.
They don’t have a collective voice. And when the general public sees frequent campaigns against livestock farming, live exports, cruelty to animals, and land clearing for farming as the biggest threat to our environment, everyone quietly nods their heads, because perception becomes reality.
What about hearing what the farmers and agribusinesses have to say about this? Why don’t we have a balanced view?
For example, protecting our $60-billion agriculture industry that puts premium quality food on the table of every Australian, that is safe and creates thousands of jobs at the same time.
What about balancing the perceptions of land clearing in the context of how to feed an ever-growing population that requires more land for housing, leaving less land for farming to feed them?
This is what needs to be looked at.
Our farmers have been taking it on the chin for far too long and it is time we got off the ropes and hit back to put things into perspective.
If farmers don’t speak up, our politicians will bend to public perception and before you know it cheaper foreign imports of substandard quality (compared with Australian grown) will be increasing on our supermarket shelves, export revenue will start to drop, farms will start to close down, and a whole industry will start to go into decline.
I am not an activist. I just have the courage to have the hard conversations and challenge public perceptions for the betterment of farmers and our nation as a whole.