Australian apiarists left with half a bee industry

Liz says:

08:08am | 18/02/10

This needs addressing fast.How come successive Governments don’t protect and encourage our producers?

agblaster says:

08:40am | 18/02/10

I dare say she used her brain and looked it up, FB.  The risks of foreign foodstuffs is a current topic of interest. So spare us the knowing wink, FB. Its called Curiosity.  Checking the facts.

Always worth doing when reading pieces from the alsorans and hacks puffing up their lacklustre profiles, eh Steve.

Looking things up - by crikey, there’s a nasty lefty conspiracy for you, right there. Fancy having the gall to learn for yourself. Thoroughly devious plot.

danj says:

08:42am | 18/02/10

Lunacy. I’m all for free markets but I can’t understand why Australia keeps undermining its farmers (food producers is a better term otherwise people think of Cletus off the Simpsons) by importing cheaper produce which not only undercuts the Australian farmer but puts their livelihood at risk by opening up the possibility of new pests and diseases.

Apart from tougher import regulations an effective way would be to label every food product on the market in big writing with the country of origin. They do it with seafood and it works. For example just the other day I was going to buy some scallops at the fish shop, until I saw they were from Vietnam and thought better of it. I am also very vigilant in checking labels on frozen vegies as it is common knowledge that vegetables in China are sometimes irrigated with raw sewage and Chinese vegetables are for sale here. However due to sneaky labeling ie. packaged in Australia, it is hard to get the full story. Australian consumers will reject foreign produce if the labelling laws are fixed.

Secondly why is it that Australian farmers, particularly horticulturlists are being driven out of business due to their inability to compete with imports on the domestic market? It was only 60 or 70 years back when Australia was on rations because of the lack of food. Now we have the ability to produce the food, secure our food security and certain farmers, through government policy are being forced doze fruit trees or whatever therefore eliminating the ability to produce food. This is food producing infrastructure being demolished.  Just the other day Andrew Broad VFF president was served dried apricots from Turkey on a Qantas flight to Mildura - arguably the dried fruit capital of Australia. Absolute stupidity, but what hope have we got? At least they were labelled. I wouldn’t have eaten them, I’ve been to Turkey.

Thirdly this point will contradict my previous point, but I’m a bit confused. What is all this talk of ‘how are we going to feed the world’ when wheat and milk producers - two staple foods of western society - are being paid a price that barely meets the cost of production. Surely if the world really cares about meeting the so called increasing demands of the growing population they would want farmers to remain in business. At the moment the reason cited for the low wheat price is oversupply. Go figure.

agblaster says:

09:12am | 18/02/10

Rationing, danj, was a direct response to World War 2. It wasn’t a lack of food so much as a complex problem of matching output to a suddenly disjointed market via a suddenly distorted supply chain. For example, the need to feed our (and others) armed forces, the shift of manpower to the forces, the difficulty of exporting food by ship and etc etc. 

Today we export about 60% of all the foodstuffs we grow.  Commodity prices are at the whim of the weather here and elsewhere.  And the big-chain retail cartel, who slug you $6 for truss tomatoes they then pile up 3 layers deep to rot in a bin front of store. You’re paying for their waste.

Purchasing power: exert it when and while you can. Bananas too big? Don’t buy ‘em. Oranges from California? Sorry, no thanks. Apples monstrous, blemish free, waxed and gassed to death? Leave ‘em. Asparagus fresh from South America? Nup, never.

Purchasing power. Keep it up and they will get the message. Buying fresh? Buy Aussie first, last, always.

E says:

10:06am | 18/02/10

Maybe Rudd can give them 250million to help them adjust?

Unfortunately successive governments since Hawke have been running on the idea that all Australians would be ‘service workers’ while all actual production would go on in areas without labor laws, environmental laws, product safety laws etc.

That was the plan right? Right?

The whole thing was predicated on the racist idea that brown/yellow people are ‘good with their hands’ but no good at inventing things or management, turns out they were just as good as whitey.

shockedwatcher says:

10:13am | 18/02/10

Oh gosh I never realised there was any drama at all in our honey industry. I certainly have learned here today. Thank you for that. I love and eat alot Aussie honey. I try to buy Australian as much as possible, I like to support Australia and I feel more confident the products are of higher standards

Simon Smith says:

10:55am | 18/02/10

People are missing the bigger picture here.  Bees are an essential pollinator for large numbers of plants including foodstuffs.  If the bees are decimated, particularly if wild bee populations are decimated, this will have a much bigger impact than simple monetary value.  Devastation of the ecosystem cannot be measured in such fiduciary terms.

Robert Smissen says:

11:10am | 18/02/10

Whilst our governments both state & federal are mesmerized by easy bucks from mining, Oz is becoming a cot case as to regards to food. A country that can’t feed itself is very vulnerable strategically.

Greypower says:

11:45am | 18/02/10

Needing to use pure honey for a medical contition,  I found that during the drought about 2 years ago, imported honey was diluted with golden syrup—and you’d never know by the taste.

I found this on google——
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/394053_honey30.asp
“————-In the U.S., where bee colonies are dying off and demand for imported honey is soaring, traders of the thick amber liquid are resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards in order to dump cheap honey on the market, a five-month Seattle P-I investigation has found.

The business is plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup—or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics.

Among the P-I’s findings:

Big shipments of contaminated honey from China are frequently laundered in other countries—an illegal practice called “transshipping”—in order to avoid U.S.import fees, protective tariffs or taxes imposed on foreign products that intentionally undercut domestic prices.

In a series of shipments in the past year, tons of honey produced in China passed through the ports of Tacoma and Long Beach, Calif., after being fraudulently marked as a tariff-free product of Russia.

Tens of thousands of pounds of honey entering the U.S. each year come from countries that raise few bees and have no record of producing honey for export.

The government promises intense scrutiny of honey crossing our borders but only a small fraction is inspected, and seizures and arrests remain rare.

The feds haven’t adopted a legal definition of honey, making it difficult for enforcement agents to keep bad honey off the shelves.————“

Jan Davis says:

12:15pm | 18/02/10

Domestic food security is a hugely important issue that successive governments have at best ignored and at worst wantonly connived in undermining in pursuit of the mythical nirvana of ‘free trade’.
It is not just about honey. The same double standards apply to all our unprocessed food products. Governments continue to increase compliance burdens on producers - all of which increase costs. However, because of dysfunctional marketplaces, food producers do not have the opportunity to pass these costs on to consumers - as any manufacturer or service provider would.
Many of the regulations which apply to farming businesses are not unreasonable - especially as reflections of our expectations as a relatively sophisticated community. No-one would argue about requirements for staff to have a safe workplace and to be paid a living wage; no-one would argue about it being unacceptable to use chemicals which pose a risk to human health; and no-one would argue about the need to protect fragile environments. However, there are a myriad of regulatory requirements that could be seen as rent seeking by the community at the expense of the producers - or as transferring the cost of externalities onto private enterprises with no recognition of the impacts these costs have. Nonetheless, if we as a community consider these things to be important, there’s not much a food producer can do but grin and bear it.
We hear a lot about level playing fields - most food producers would welcome a level playing field. If we consider these issues important enough to impose regulatory requirements on domestic producers, why would we accept imported food that does not meet the same standards? But we do – seemingly without question. Under our rules for imported products, we will permit imports that meet the regulatory standards of the originating country even where these standards are nowhere near those we expect domestically produced food to meet. How else do these often third world countries compete? Labour rates are much lower than ours – because often people are not paid a living wage and employers are not required to meet any OHS and workplace standards. Production costs are less than ours, because there are few requirements to protect the environment, to manage or minimise chemical use or to improve water efficiency. To rub salt into the wounds, we allow imports of food products that can potentially bring with them pests and diseases – and risks to human health – which we do not have here. And, if a producer happens to be wiped out because a decision made by a politician and implemented by a bureaucrat brings with it consequences that everyone foresaw and warned about, that’s tough. There is no recompense. Even the minimal standards applicable to the local drycleaner – all care, no responsibility - do not apply here. The position is all too often ‘couldn’t care less, and no responsibility’.
Eventually the costs of compliance become greater than the risks and returns from food production - especially when there is strong import competition - and another Australian farmer gives up. We’re losing around 10% of our farmers every couple of years - and the rate of decline is rapidly increasing. At some point, the critical mass necessary to support the infrastructure needed to sustain farming is lost. This is already happening regionally - but eventually could happen nationally.
When (and not if) there is a world pandemic declared and all countries close their borders, all transport will cease. If there were to be a serious regional war situation, transport would be disrupted. If there are food shortages in countries exporting food, they will cease exporting to meet domestic needs. And then what? What happens when we are totally reliant on imported food to meet our everyday needs?  It is already happening: ABS data shows that in the four years to 2008/09 imports of vegetable products into Australia increased by 80%.
Australians have never really been hungry so we rarely think about food, other than to wonder what to have for dinner. We take the quality, diversity and supply of our food for granted. We are the only developed country that takes the rhetoric of the free trade flat-earthers seriously when it applies to matters of national security. We are the only developed country that does not recognise the importance of securing domestic food supply; and we are the only one without a national food security policy. 
This is insanity. We have our heads firmly buried in the sand – and it will come back to bite us – sooner rather than later. Politicians of all colours need to heed the warning signs – if it is not already too late.

Fridge says:

02:48pm | 18/02/10

Geeez… This is just ludicrous and should be sorted asap. I mean common sense should prevail! Before today I thought honey was a pretty significant Australian export….?

From all accounts our local produce far outweighs the imports in quality… so why let it come in so easily and hurt the hardworking farmers of Australia / our local industries??

Next we’ll be importing vegemite from the UK which has been diluted with Marmite.

Jeff Mueller says:

03:20pm | 18/02/10

Did the Member really say or mean “to all intensive purposes”? Or did he, or the editor, really want the rhetorical device “to all intents and purposes”?

Robert Smissen says:

10:52pm | 18/02/10

despite agblaster’s rosy picture, Oz farmers are going to the wall & will disappear, then the prices will sky rocket, at the moment the average age of Oz farmers sits around 55, who do you think will step in to replace them.

eno says:

04:21pm | 19/02/10

A mate of mine was a Catholic full of guilt as they are. He was an apiarist. Bought himself a new ute and had “Eat Honey” written on the back. After a night out with us he painted out the “Eat” with grey housepaint. I don’t know if it’s relevant but it was funny..

Brian says:

09:48am | 21/02/10

“all intensive purposes”... what about the casual ones?

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