-- The OLD 911oz Forum (Read Only) --

[Von Curtis]

The shareholders have voted against the board to break up AWB . Smaller wheat farmers have thumbed their noses at bureaucrats and beaten the reformers by over 2000 votes at an AWB meeting in Melbourne yesterday. The reformers wanted to take away control of the company away from the growers and give control to shareholders. The growers have decided they don't want to lose control of their company. The whole AWB UN Iraq oil for food scandal smells to high heaven and small farmers are suspicious it has big US wheat trading companies dirty hands all over it.
( I am very happy small Australian wheat growers are standing up to the big US guys)

[Von Curtis]

According to Landline today on ABC TV there are huge opportunities and jobs in agriculture for young people now and years to come. The bush is fighting back after being portrayed by bureaucrats as a sunset peasant industry for the last two decades so most young people know nothing about agriculture in this country.

[Von Curtis]

This morning on the regional ABC news National Party Senator Barnarby Joyce suddenly states that the bill in the Senate to abolish the Australian single desk marketing Wheat Board should be blocked because abolishing it will only benefit American farmers and is bad for Australian wheat farmers. He and other National party senators had all the time in the world to stand against it when Howard was pushing to abolish it after he and his US mates cooked up the Iraqi Food for Oil scandal but Barnaby happily threw us to the wolves then.

[able]

i take it von that the Wheat Board is set up to look like a coalition of farmers trying to get the best deal for there hard earned work....

but instead is a hungry middle man giving less for product and charging more at the other end and filling there own pockets all the way?
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what if i say i will never surrender?

[Von Curtis]

During the Howard years they got rid of the farmers off the board because it was supposedly better run by corporate sharehoders pushing the free trade agreement with the US and breaking up our marketing monopoly.( I know monopolies are usually bad but in this case it is the only way we can compete against the huge US wheat marketers) But now at the Melbourne meeting the farmers managed to get three growers back on the board who are dead against the break-up. I'm hoping the bill can be stalled or defeated in the senate to stop the break-up which the US wheat growers want.

[Anita]

If the wheat farmers manage to keep the AWB intact does this increase or decrease the chances of GM wheat being approved here?

Have been horrified (altho not surprised) by Labor govts allowing GM crops lately. Labor/Liberal here seems to be going the same way as Democrats/Republicans in the US - all for big business.
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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

[Von Curtis]

They have allowed GM canola into NSW and Victoria , SA still bans it . More and more farmers are now very much against GM crops so I don't think we will see GM wheat I hope.

[able]

they only have to get it (g.m) into one farm in each area von and it will take over...

that is the beauty/horror of the plan....

then companies like Monsanto can let there lawyers lose on farmers.

the copyright infringements costs (even from wind carry will still be viewed as infringements) will wipe out what is left of our already drained farmers and will lead to all food growing land being corporate owned.

you control energy you control countries...

you control food and you control individuals.


in my opinion they like to keep the g.m argument in the "is it good for you" spin to steer it away from the trade mark issue at all costs....

i do believe that that is the real agenda of g.m.
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what if i say i will never surrender?

[Von Curtis]

Yes that appears to have been the plan alright, I think there is a chance for us that their plan won't work though. I'm noticing farmers all over the place waking up and realizing that the plan is to sell us out to corporations and we will not be moved. I have never heard of GM wheat in this country. We keep seed from the crop from the previous year. Barnaby Joyce must be suddenly feeling the pressure from farmers and board members not to sell us out to the US.

[able]

they have been concentrating on India's wheat growing belt as the poor farmers are offered free bags of wheat to replant their fields and they take the seed so they can sell all of there stock to feed there families...

Australian wheat farmers would learn a lot from looking into what is going on in India.
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what if i say i will never surrender?

[Von Curtis]

Yes I saw an hour program on SBS about Indian farmers suiciding . it made me angry, its so terribly unfair. Most of them got into trouble growing GM cotton. Bl##dy schocking I found it too upsetting to watch it very well.

[Von Curtis]

Yes Able these corporate properties sure have got a lot of money to splash about , my son has gone to work in his gap year on one of Packer's Consolidated Pastoral Company's properties in the NT. They paid him and 39 other young men and women , some from Sydney and Victoria to do a whole lot of training for 10 days at the Katherine Pastoral College. They look after them really well . He said they have all new Toyotas , new saddles and other equipment etc on the property he is on. The rising costs kill off us little farmers. Maybe properties will have to get bigger and bigger.