From the Farm

with Craig Huff

NSW Farmers - Far North Coast Branch

OVER THE past 20 years North Coast farmers have faced a raft of new regulations and compliance requirements to contend with as part of their day-to-day operations.

Many requirements seem to be dreamed up by academics with fashionable ideologies and very little real world commercial experience.

A development application (DA) is now being required to perform numerous activities which were once standard practice.

Tweed Shire Council’s requirement for a DA for the poisoning of more than 20 camphor laurel trees is one that springs to mind.

One old farmer in the Tweed recently came up to me and said: “Ya know, the way things are heading we will have to get a DA to take a .... each morning.”

To which I replied: “Well you better learn to hold on because it’s taking two years to get a DA approved.”

In the recent census farmers were identified as having the longest hours of any occupation. Most farmers have become very aware of the benefit and need to be good custodians of the environment and feel the burden of compliance creates even longer days and is for the most part unnecessary.

As another farmer who has been actively planting large areas of fauna habitat said: “We need governments to support farmers and reinforce the viability of their farms and not create further obstacles for them to achieve their incomes. I believe farmers are the better curators of their country as its in their long-term interests.”

Ultimately the burden of compliance is a cost for anyone who buys food.

The more burdened our local farmers are the less competitive our local foods are compared to imports.

I was trying to buy Australian frozen blueberries at our IGA the other day and no luck!