AUSTRALIAN FARMERS - Take ACTION NOW of suffer the Consequences

Gy'day,

This is a copy of an email that has been sent out to about 650 farmers across Australia. It has also been sent to 67 AgForce executives and delegates in QLD, 54 NSW Farmers Association exec's and delegates, 4 NT Cattlemans Association delegates, the President of the WA Farmers and Graziers, the President of the SA Farmers & Graziers, The President of the Victorian Farmers association, The Tassie Farmers and graziers, and the NNF.

I have also emailed it to the editors of the Land Newspaper (Andrew Marshall), the Queensland Country Life (Mark Phelps) and Lucy Skuthorp at the land who has did a great full page story in the Land newspaper (it was only given 1/4 page in the QCL) 2 weeks ago.

What are these organizations that are meant to be representing you doing about this?

I'm getting heaps of phone calls about this and I appreciate the encouragement and support.BUT please either place a comment or email me on trumanlivestock@bigpond.com and we can begin to get something happening to right this disgraceful situation.

Contact me - As a large group making a noise we can get something to happen. FARMERS must be heard on this issue.

Your Agmate - Steve

_______________________________________________________________
From: Truman Livestock [mailto:trumanlivestock@bigpond.com]
Sent: 05/03/2007 9:50 PM
To: 'trumanlivestock@bigpond.com'
Subject: Read This - Take Action - or Suffer The Consequences

Agmates – Alert: Breaking News

Bob Dylan wrote this and it has never been more applicable to farmers-

“ for he that gets hurt
will be he who has stalled
there’s a battle out side raging
it will soon shake you’re windows
and rattle you walls
for the times they are a changing!”

Now I’m going to go into something here and you can choose to click off right now, but when it comes and “shakes your windows and rattles your walls” (which it without a doubt will) just remember you have lost the right to complain that you weren’t told.

So if you have lost interest, see you and good luck.

Now for the rest of you, here’s why ‘the times they are a changing”:

As farmers you had better get use to operating your business for the next 50 years in a “CARBON CONSTRAINED WORLD”.

If you have not heard that term before, you’ll be saying WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Our political leaders have decided that the planet is warming (0.6 degrees in the last 100 years) and we as humans are emitting more Greenhouse gases. Now no one can say for sure the two are linked.

But in case they are our leaders are not prepared to take the risk. So we now have a huge raft of policy being formulated to RESTRICT the amount of CARBON we as Australians emit.

The National Emissions Trading Scheme (NETS) has been worked on and developed since January 2004. This is the “battle that’s outside raging”. The reason it’s outside raging is that farmers have been totally left out of the process. Just about every powerful business, industry and environment lobby group in the country has had input into the formulation of the NETS. EXCEPT FARMERS.


“ for he that gets hurt, will be he who has stalled” Farmers are completely stalled (at a dead stop) when it comes to any input into the NETS and without their interest represented, FARMERS will be hurt.


The basics of a NETS and the impact on farmers:

 Carbon Emission Taxes will be legislated into State & Territory Laws within the next 12 – 18 months

 The Nation Emissions Trading Scheme will commence in 2010 (3 years)


 All Stakeholders to the NETS agree that if a business emits Carbon, they will pay. (Farmers as an industry are the 2nd biggest emitters of Carbon behind the power industry).

 Farmers as the 2nd biggest emitter of Green House gases will be forced, by Law to pay.

 Farmers in accordance will Kyoto protocol WILL NOT get paid Credits for land based (soil) Carbon Sinks.

 Farmers will be hit with triple whammy.

 Firstly through increased costs of Electricity, Fuel, Fertilizer, Chemical etc. These industries will pass on the cost (by way of increased prices) of the CARBON TAX they pay to State Governments

 Secondly, Grazing livestock, farming soil, clearing land all emit huge amounts of Carbon. Like the Electricity industry you will have to pay a CARBON TAX to your state government to continue these activities. Unlike the electricity industry you will not be able to pass the cost of the TAX onto your customers.

 Thirdly there will be genuine moves to restrict / cap the number of livestock grazed, the amount of country farmed, the amount of irrigation water used (already happening), the amount of land cleared (already happening). For example if you want to increase the number of cattle / sheep grazed or land farmed you will have to get a permit to do so. Which you will be able to, but you’ll have to pay for the permit and the extra Carbon you are Emitting.


The National Greenhouse Office (set up in 1997) has developed the most sophisticated land monitoring surveillance system in the world. The Greenhouse Office can already tell you with incredible accuracy how many tonnes of Carbon YOUR FARM emits each year.

To add to this - now with the implementation of NLIS the National Greenhouse Office can accurately tell how many livestock you are running on your property and how many tonnes of Carbon they are emitting a year.

Now if you are still with me click on this link to AGMATES and read my article Australian Farmers – Are they second rate citizens?

I’ve done an enormous amount of research to pull these facts together for you. To the best of my research FARMERS have been deliberately denied any input into the formation of the NETS. As Senator (and former Minister for the Environment) Ian Campbell has said, “there is nothing in it for farmers”.

The AGMATES article gives you all of the facts to back up what I’m saying plus links to the source material to check it out for yourself.

Once you have read the article and see what I’ve found you like me will find it just INCREDIBLE to believe that we have not heard our Agripolitical groups ABSOLUTELY KICKING AND SCREAMING about this. To my knowledge they are not.

I invite ANYBODY to contact me if I’m wrong. Go to the Agmates article by CLICKING HERE.

P.S – If you do nothing else about this, do yourself a favour and email it to everybody you know and ask them to do the same. You do that by clicking on the envelope below this article.

P.P.S. - I’m emailing it to everybody at the NNF, and to each office holder in the State and Industry association and council that the NFF represents.
They are –
NSW Farmers Association, Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association, Pastoralists’ and grazier’s Association of WA, South Australian Farmers Federation, Tasmania Farmer’s and grazier’s Association, Victorian Farmers Federation, Australian cane growers Council, Australian dairy farmers Limited, Australian Dried Fruits association, Cattle council of Australia, Cotton Australia Limited, Grains Council of Australia, Ricegrowers Association of Australia, Sheepmeat Council of Australia, Wool Producers Australia. I’m also emailing it to the Network Of Concerned Farmers who are not covered by any of the above groups or the NNF.