[Pil-pc-oceania] NFF wishlist: Climate grants to help farmers

[Deb Guildner]

 Breaking Rural News : AGRIBUSINESS AND GENERAL

     Election '07: Drought recovery grants top NFF wishlist
      By LUCY SKUTHORP - Australia
      Thursday, 20 September 2007

      Climate grants to help farmers prepare, manage and recover from 
drought underpin a swag of rural policy proposals released by the National 
Farmers Federation as the road to the Federal election shortens.
      While the lobby group will continue to push for continued and expanded 
drought support to help farmers right now, it believes drought preparedness 
is the key to future drought assistance.

      NFF chief executive officer, Ben Fargher, says it is smarter to invest 
in more drought-resistant practices today and, over time, reduce the need 
for drought relief.

      "If you don't start talking about preparedness, and if climate 
variability is with us, the community might start asking what we are doing 
to get in front of this situation," Mr Fargher said.

      "We have done a lot, with new genetics, new technologies, new water 
infrastructure and we can do more, but we need to in partnership with 
government."

      NFF wants grants based on mutual obligation, where eligible farmers 
match the Federal Government's funding with either cash or in-kind support 
to better drought-proof the sector.

      And it says the grants should not be restricted to those farmers only 
in drought declared areas.

      Mr Fargher says the grants could cover activities such as trialling 
new or different farming systems, improving fodder storage capacity and soil 
mapping.

      NFF says it is "broadly supportive" of a national emissions trading 
scheme and insists farmers must be engaged in its development.

      It wants all parties to publicly commit to providing just-terms 
compensation for any reduction in reliability to actual entitlements as a 
result of any future plan for the Murray Darling Basin.

      But NFF's Federal Election Policy Platform paper, released yesterday, 
doesn't just focus on drought, climate and water, with policies for other 
thorny rural issues like quarantine, genetically modified crops, access to 
skilled labour and telecommunications among the proposals.

      In its policy proposal, NFF says farmers must have the opportunity to 
adopt the method of production best suited to their, whether it is through 
conventional, GM or organic farming methods.

      "NFF maintains that the production decisions of one farmer or groups 
of farmers should not unreasonably impinge on the ability of other farmers 
in meeting the requirements and expectations of the market they chose to 
meet," the policy paper said.

      On quarantine, NFF said a seamless continuum of careful 'pre-border', 
'at the border' and 'post-border' quarantine operations are essential.

      "The recent outbreak of Equine Influenza demonstrates just how 
damaging and resource intensive an incursion of disease can be."

      SOURCE: Rural Press National News Bureau, Parliament House, Canberra.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/pipermail/pil-pc-oceania/attachments/20070923/be8ec6ea/attachment.gif