Jacqueline Rowarth: Emotions rule in debate over farming and conservation

Who wants to be a millionaire? Many people, judging by the popularity of the eponymous television games show on both sides of the Tasman.

At the beginning of the month, the programme ran a competition in which only farmers competed in a "New Beginnings Special".

It acknowledged the dire straits of farmers because of the ongoing Australian drought.

Hardly a day passes when there isn't a headline identifying some sort of agricultural issue in the press.

In May, Australians were invited to take part in a poll through the daily newspaper The Age on whether farmers should get off the land.

The article prompting the poll suggested that instead of throwing a multimillion-dollar drought rescue package at farmers, the money should be used to find a dignified way for some to leave their properties.

Climate change has made about 10 per cent of farming land unsustainable in Australia.

Professor Peter Cullen, the Prime Minister's 2001 Environmentalist of the Year, said Australia should stop hoping for rain in those areas and realise that, with climate change, farming was going to get tougher.

The popular vote was for departure. In June the major issue was the national parks.

Six hundred mountain cattle men and women mustered on horseback outside Victoria's Parliament, in scenes reminiscent of the misnamed "fart" taxation demonstration in Wellington last year. The protest in Australia was against a ban on alpine grazing which the farmers say will end their traditional livelihood.

The Government will not be renewing licences (which expire over the next two years) to graze 8000 cattle, because scientific evidence suggests they are doing considerable environmental damage to the national parks.

The debate on the social and cultural heritage of the farmers versus preservation of the national parks included an appearance by the Man from Snowy River. Matilda did not appear. Last month the Australian Government Productivity Commission produced a research paper on trends in Australian agriculture.

Media releases concentrated on the changes in the past few decades, attempting to reveal the value of the sector to the public.

Real agricultural output has more than doubled over the past four decades and agricultural exports have almost tripled in value (in real terms) since the mid 1970s.

Productivity growth has accounted for the entire increase in output by the agriculture sector.

Advances have been supported by research, as they are in New Zealand, but in Australia levy money from the farmers is matched (to a limit) by Government dollars.

The report from the Productivity Commission did not attract as much attention as the drought poll or the muster on Parliament. The debate boils down to engaging the emotions.

The Australian public, only 4 per cent of whom are classified as part of the agricultural workforce, can feel sympathy for those suffering from the drought, and for the national parks, in exactly the same way that the New Zealand public, again of whom only 4 per cent are classified as part of the agricultural workforce, felt sympathy for those affected by the February floods, the "fart" tax, and the orange ribbon on access.

Yet the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board report at the end of last year, underlining the importance of primary production to the economy, and stressing the critical nature of research to create advances, received little attention.

With a common assisted-passage ancestry, it isn't surprising that both countries now have the same attitude to the land, and that it mirrors that of Britain: the countryside is important in terms of heritage, but should not be exploited. For farmers the challenge is to keep sustainable production and, in Australasia, to continue to contribute to the economic development desired by both countries. The big differences are that in Britain subsidies assist the farmers directly, in Australia the research dollar is large, and in New Zealand it allows some choices.

* Jacqueline Rowarth is the director, Office for Environmental Programmes, University of Melbourne.