David Tribe writing about the latest issue of the Australian Farm Policy Journal and quoting Executive Director Mick Keogh notes there has been little real growth in total annual agricultural research and development investment levels in Australia since the 1980s, and the level of government investment in agricultural research and development is falling.
“Given the extended lag times that are known to occur between agricultural R&D investment and subsequent farm productivity growth, this raises doubts about the ability of Australian farmers to maintain the high levels of productivity growth in the future that will be necessary to remain competitive in global markets,” Mr Keogh said.
The focus on production research has been replaced to some extent with a greater emphasis being placed on environmental issues.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Some questions for David:
What’s agriculture’s contribution to the GNP – say in recent years versus the last 30 years. Some historic consideration of economic performance? Is it falling?
Are industry and agrochemical companies filling the gap left by government research ? Cotton would be an example.
What is the status of yields in our bigger industries – wheat, cotton, sugar, beef, wool – is production per hectare levelling out. If so – why?
Globally – who’s doing any better?
Thought it was generally agreed here that govt spending just creates inefficiencies.
Au contraire Thinksy:
In the best business schools they start from famous work of Nobel-laureate Kenneth Arrow-eg
Uncertainty and the Evaluation of Public Investment Decisions
Kenneth J. Arrow, Robert C. Lind
American Economic Review, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jun., 1970) , pp. 364-378
That suggests that government expenditure on fundamental research for example is important and essential, because private companies and investors undervalue it’s economic returns and hence underinvest for optimum improvement in welfare.
detribe thousands would disagree with you, particularly many regulars on this blog, including those who want the CSIRO corporatized and outsourced (and gagged?). Or do they swing? ie happy to receive the benefit from govt spending, but grumble about market inefficiencies when someone else receives?
Dear Phil
Surely the issue is whether the returns from agricultural R@D in Australia either from the private or public sector are sufficient to pay for the cost of R@D allowing for risk and competing demands for the resources.
Agriculture’s share of GDP is irrelevant.
Perhaps you can enlighten us by what you mean by economic performance.
I agree the contribution of the private sector in agricultural R@D will increase over time; greater opportunity to privatize the returns from R@D.
Why pick on yields as some measure of the return from R@D?
Again I am sure you would agree the ultimate measure of any benefit must include the returns to producers and consumers whether it be from reduced (real) prices or increses in producer income.
What do you mean by who is doing any better? Higher percentage returns to agricultural reaearch in other countries?
Good luck if you can find the evidence but again so what?
Higher returns in some overseas countries mean we curtail or cut back research here?
I have enjoyed your contribution to the discussion on AGW so in the light of your query re the return from agricultural R@D perhaps you may enlighten me and others on the potential return from the resources devoted in Australia to this very subject.
As for you Thinksy I suggest you re-enrol in Econ 1.
Blair
Bugger – fancy running into a real retired ag economist – don’t you hate lurkers. Shit I hope he doesn’t ask about NPV and intergenerational equity or I’m stuffed.
I think you have misjudged me as being critical when inquisitive is the tone.
Blair – I was trying to say that perhaps government doesn’t see the ag sector as important anymore – hence the GNp quip – don’t think it has to be rational. And from what detribe is saying I’m asking whether yield improvement from research are declining or plateauing. There are some stories about that research is not delivering or lack of research is allowing agronomic and disease factors to creep up on yield.
On other countries – I’m asking are there lessons to be learned – are we letting the side down in Australia – just asking.
And I was about to post the following (now of course at great risk of being machine-gunned – jeez if Ian Castles gets on here too I’m really rooted).
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/032.html
Nevertheless, as research expenditures have increased and as the beneficial effects of many investigations have become more subtle and less immediately obvious, the demand has grown for objective evidence, in economic terms, of the returns that accrue from research investments.
It is not easy to develop satisfactory techniques for measuring these returns and any such technique involves a range of assumptions which influences the final conclusions.[45] Nevertheless the several cost-benefit studies of agricultural research productivity that have been made in Australia and overseas, have concluded that the annual internal rate of return generally varies between 20 and 80 per cent.[46] There is wide agreement in Australia with the conclusion reached by Scobie, who assessed the contribution made by agricultural research in New Zealand since 1926:
The return on research comes over an extended period; in fact the best estimate is 23 years. But the size of the annual real rate of return to investment in research is around 30 per cent. This is a substantial return, and is well above the rate of 10 per cent used as a guide to the minimum acceptable return to public investment
http://cotton.pi.csiro.au/Publicat/..%5CAssets%5CPDFfiles%5CCRC%5CBDARpt.pdf
Chudleigh and Simpson (2001)4 examined a range of benefit cost analyses across Australian
rural research agencies. Benefit cost ratios (BCR) were found to range from 3.1 to 20.1 with an
average of 7.2. If the highest BCR is excluded, as BDA Group believes it is not representative of
the total portfolio, the average BCR would fall to around 5:1.
And if you want a really good one:
CSIRO have replicated experiments in all cotton producing regions every year (Reid et al 1989). These experiments include old control cultivars which had been grown in the 1970s. This data can be used to estimate progress with new cultivars and Constable et al (2001) calculated an annual yield increase of 1.8% in Australia due to conventional breeding. Similar calculations in the US with cotton have shown no increase for the past 20 years (Meredith and Bridge 1984; Meredith 1991) – a dramatic comparison.
Yield progress is a direct production performance indicator. A recent economic assessment of cotton breeding in Australia found the net present value of that program to be $4.9b and with a benefit: cost ratio of 86 (CIE 2002).
http://www.regional.org.au/au/cs/2004/symposia/4/2/1136_constableg.htm
Do that get me a pass mark? I know it’s not triple bottom line.
And Blair – your last sentence somewhat cryptic – are you asking what’s the B/C on climate variability and/or climate change research. You’d better declare before I say more ! 🙂
And I’m pro-agriculture – so be nice ! (It’s those Tasmanian foresters you have to watch)
Blair I suggest you enrol in a reading for comprehension class. Other free market regulars at this blog, not me, protest govt market interference of any form. Some want ag research privatised. I havn’t argued for that.
If you’re going to ask deconstructive q’s, have the decency to get off yr lazy arse and put up some solid figures or references yourself rather than expecting other hardworking commenters to do it for you.
Does anyone have any figures on the comparative R&D outlays of various State Governments and the Feds over time. My suspicion is that the decline in outlay is state based rather than federal. And that would obviously be a political issue.
Phil, this free market proponent has never questioned the role of public sector R&D. Indeed, one can only wonder what sort of results might be forthcomming if a new Farm State was directing its own R&D programme.
Well I have suggested that you guys form your own Rural Research Foundation before. But Rog got up me about the matching $ for $. I still think you’d do better with your own outfit. But that’s just IMHO – no supporting references.
Blair – the quick answer is there has not been a lot of B/C on climate: Here’s a brief spray.
The recently completed GRDC project investigating single crop issues can be expected to be ‘highly profitable’ (Antony, 1994). The report found that the project would deliver substantial benefits well in excess of the social opportunity costs of funds used in it. The wheat-SOI project is estimated to produce a Benefit – Cost ratio (BCR) of 34. If the benefits due to research are halved the BCR still achieves a value of 17.
http://www.apsru.gov.au/apsru/Projects/Finished Projects/Proj 36.htm
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/wheat/index.html
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/methods.html
However – if AGW turns out to be dire – the B/C will be high. Looking at what drought costs us – I think we need for be forearmed and forewarned. If AGW is a fizzer I suspect the overall research investment won’t be crippling.
An example where AGW modelling may be having some benefits now is calculating new Maximum Envelopes of Waters for storm surge.
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/ClimateChanges/pub/OceanHazardsMenu.html
http://www.ema.gov.au/agd/EMA/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(63F21BC6A4528BAE4CED2F9930C45677)~EMASCA_book.pdf/$file/EMASCA_book.pdf
The problem with doing your own R&D is that it is difficult to make them tax deductible whereas levy contributions are. Plus if done through the proper channels ie an AFFA approved mandatory industry levy there is a $ for $ govt contribution. The upside is that the specific industry becomes more business like and focussed and R&D results are made available to all in the industry. The downside is that the corporate governance issues can be cumbersome and expensive.
Govts are keen to get ag industry up and running but only if they are sustainable. They are good for foreign exchange and we need to be able to feed ourselves.
..and yes, the CSIRO should be working for the taxpayer not vice versa.
Doubtless there are institutional differences between the way Australia and the US handle and view the public and private ag research sectors, but I doubt the differences are substantial.
In these parts, public ag research via land-grant colleges and universities have been viewed as an “open computing” alternative to private research. The notion was current even before computing, much less “open” computing, but you get my jist. The research and its results were transparent and shared with the private sector producers at low or no cost, thus “competing” with private research.
It’s also generally agreed that public research, since it’s not geared to near-term financial gains, is free to concentrate on “fundamental” research, which is much more time consuming but can result in achievements just as substantial as those in the private sector.
I’m a bit skeptical of the surge in public environmental research. Sure, political correctness has driven a lot of research money into this sector, but by the same token, a lot of responsible, progressive research is undertaken by “dressing it up” as environmental research to make it more appealing to the greenie politicos who control university budgets. So these numbers will be inflated somewhat.
It’s a fact that public funding for ag research is less than robust in the US and Australia, and this has led public institutions to partner with private interests, blurring the line between the two.
This leads to odd circumstances, such as Monsanto recently paying US$100 million to a California university in a dispute over the invention of bovine growth hormone. What makes this interesting is that public research then becomes funded by profits rather than taxes. (This is quite common in many fields and university ‘technology transfer’ offices are busy.)
People who are alarmed at the convergence of public and private research should consider another factor: much of ag research in the private sector is carried out using proprietary technologies–technologies in development and not yet patented. Were students in public universities denied access to these proprietary technologies, the schools would consistently produce graduates with knowledge and skills woefully out of date. So it’s in the interest of the private sector to have usable graduates, and of the public sector to not issue outdated degrees. So to that extent, public/private partnering is something of a practical necessity.
What I would like to see is *total* investment in ag research, by government, by the private sector, and by public/private partnerships. It’s entirely possible that total investment in research is up a bit, and that the contribution to the total by the private sector is growing substantially.
The numbers are hard to come by, but I seem to recall seeing a paper about six years ago whci claimed such a trend.
Schiller.
Dear Thinksy
I have just spent the last half hour searching for the meaning of the word “deconstructive”. Unfortunately I could not find one.
Again I am going to have to depend on some hardworking someone else doing research for me and coming up with a meaning for the word so I can reply to your comment.
Blair
Blair
I’d have suggested you try PoMo websites, but PoMo’s 15 minutes of fame have passed.
;o)
Phil
I’m not shy about tackling your questions but I’ve said a fair bit (with updates) at GMO Pundit, and think the main interest is in what Mick Keogh has to say. I’ve only read his Editorial though, as I have to wait for the snailmail version of February Farm Policy Journal to arrive at the library, not having the affluence to blow $10 at will on pdfs.
Stone the crows Blair!! I gave you some freebies: I did a half min search for you and got some great web references but post blocked. ;( (Perhaps you could manage yr own search. I’ll write you step by step instructions if needed).
BTW I apologise for accusing you of having an arse. I hope you’ll forgive me.
URL’s being barred, but being willing and eager to be of service, I have little choice but to plagiarise:
“The goal of a deconstructionist reading is to seek out the contradictions in the text to prove that the text lacks unity and coherence. The point isn’t really to show that the text means the opposite of what it is supposed to mean, but that there can be no actual interpretation of the text. Although deconstruction is primarily applied to the written word, some practitioners use deconstructive techniques to analyze concepts, systems and institutions.”
you’re sure to find this extract particularly insightful:
“..and ultimately, the merit of a deconstructive reading consists in this creative contact with another text that cannot be characterised as either mere fidelity or as an absolute transgression, but rather which oscillates between these dual demands. The intriguing thing about deconstruction, however, is that despite the fact that Derrida’s own interpretations of specific texts are quite radical, it is often difficult to pinpoint where the explanatory exegesis of a text ends and where the more violent aspect of deconstruction begins.”
look up Jacques Derrida
righto, back to competitive edges & ag then
Friends,
“Deconstruction” is bomb-throwing with footnotes.
Schiller.
Wunderbar Schiller. I don’t know why, but I recently had an invitation to a conference about ‘Deconstructing gender roles in a postmodern something or other etc. etc.’. I didn’t go. Wish I had, knowing your definition.
Half the world are trying to build a better life and the other half are deconstructing;
Q: What do you get when you cross a deconstructionist with the mafia?
A: An offer you can’t understand.
My dog’s got no nose.
Really? How does it smell?
I don’t know. I don’t have a dog. That’s why it doesn’t have a nose
Dear Thinksy
Thank you for your illuminating reply. Perhaps somebody out there in Blogland can translate it for me.
When I read your statement “Thought it was generally agreed here that govt spending just creates inefficiencies” I was a bit nonplussed; presumably by here you mean the majority of Blog readers and/or contributors, including yourself, agree with the statement.
I look forward to some research supporting your statement.
I look at Jennifer’s site as an opportunity for a person like myself to learn something new and perhaps contribute in a small way to offering some insights in a field I know something about.
I enjoy particularly the contributions of Ian Mott, Phil, Ender, Ian Castles, detribe not forgetting of course Jennifer’s input in putting up the topic for for reading and feedback.
But I am at a loss to understand why asking questions about some of the various views presented is somehow a reflection on my preference for stting on my arse, although apparently now I now longer have one.
More importantly, Phil where did I meet you? and congratulations on your sound economic knowledge, demonstrated in your reply about the much ignored returns to agricultural research.
However I have a genetic disposition towards loggers. My great, great grandfather and three of his brothers were all pioneering sawmillers in Queensland and New Zealand.
Blair
The EU reward their farmers with grants for environmental works, this is another word for ‘subsidy’ and is a feeble attempt to avoid criticism by the WTO. Many of the EU countries, particularly Germany, have invested heavily in organic/renewable/sustainable farming technology. This is in response to the political climate, until the German Greens had some clout by being part of the governing Schroeder coalition.
Australian farmers do not have the same access to public funds, which is a good thing. Unfortunately govt has maintained its access to producers funds. What is needed is a reduction in costs and govt surcharges, levies, taxes, license fees, quotas etc which diminishes the incentive to re-invest in agriculture.
Govt could deregulate more and let farmers be masters of their
..until the (last election) German Greens
Blair this should have cleared it up for you (quote from me above): “Other free market regulars at this blog, not me, protest govt market interference of any form. Some want ag research privatised. I havn’t argued for that.”
Some commenters here make general claims for minimal govt interference in markets. Screw down the govts income base and what do they have left to invest in ag R&D & market development? For specifics, see the science gagging & CSIRO thread, I think someone there specifically argued for ag research to be directly funded by corporations, govt to remove itself from the equation.
Actually the deconstructive blog commenting approach is typically bomb-throwing WITHOUT footnotes. Hence me telling Blair to get off his bum above. It requires little effort to throw up a string of questions on someone else’s post and then expect them to run around digging up the answers for you. Blair, all of the commenters you claim above to enjoy reading go to considerable effort to provide data, references or egs from their experiences to support their point and justify their questions.
Thinsky,
Its rather hard to figure out whether your original remark about government investment was intentional self-parody or just plain naive.
A comment that an American bioethics professor Les. R. once made to me comes to mind.
“Why are fights between University Faculty so intense?”
Answer: “Because they are over so little money.”
In case you still don’t understand, let me make another remark.
Once you get in the boardroom or I assume cabinet, discussions about policy get serious, and inaccurate opinion based on juvenile ideology (shoulld) fades into the background. When there are millions ($s or people) affected by decisions you must consider all the realistic consequences of decisions and the complex pros and cons of the real world.
Same for running a farm, I expect.
My colleague Roger K and I have worked together on economic papers and repeatedly Roger K. has made me aware of the strong and long research contributions of governmental organisations such as CSIRO to important industry activities.
Wheat varieties like Drysdale and cotton industry research are just some.
That’s not to say Government agencies can’t be criticised. For example State agencies have recently allowed governments to get away with disastrous decisions on technology and Australia now seems to have lost competitiveness stretching out till beyond the year 2013 because of certain government decisions mentioned by Mick Keogh. Exactly why, I don’t know for sure ,as because these government agencies are not transparent.
In short, Thinksy, your not really tuned in to the realities of ag research in Australia if you leave you initial remarks as they stand. We can’t assume Government investment is well done unless we scrutinise it intensly.
For the record, although I am personally in favour of the need to try and get government funded research done here yield better measurable returns to the taxpayer, I’m also genuinely concerned and very aware that this effort (an effort started by the Hawke Government) is also actually now leaving fundamental research underfunded in this country. I fully acknowledge though, the reasons for this situation are quite complex.
Interesting point on the complexity of decision making, David. I don’t recall the reference but remember piece suggesting that mr and mrs average were capable of dealing with only three variables. The cleverest quartile were able to deal with four variables while the top half decile were able to deal with five.
So it is interesting to note that the rule for cabinet briefs is that they fit on one page and contain no more than tree dot points. Pity about the more complex issues though.
Funny thing though, when I tell this to farmers, many with only a rudimentary education, they all laugh. For their normal decision matrix may have many more concurrent variables.
And the consistent criticism they make of government decision making and their scientific advice is that people tend to grasp only as many variables as they are able to and run with it as hard as they can to get a result.
Try doing that with a roll of fence wire and you soon develop a preference for steady progress taking all variables into account.
Original remark? “Thought it was generally agreed here..” does not state my opinion, it means the general consensus as voiced on this blog; means all the free market anti-govt intervention that gets spruiked around here. Read closely as I already clarified “Other free market regulars at this blog, not me, protest govt market interference of any form. Some want ag research privatised. I havn’t argued for that.”
Why not grill rog for his extreme free-market no-govt-spending comments? He’s careful to keep them a bit brief & a bit vague in this thread tho, probably as he doesn’t really want to cross swords..
detribe you should know from previous exchanges I’m for govts creating effective and market enabling instituations.
Funny Ian that complex issues get narrow treatments here. eg on climate change where everyone is arguing narrow science, a couple of times I’ve brought in a broader array of considerations (complementary problems that have overlapping solutions, other potential gains from actions irrespective of the science) but who has shown any interest in considering the broader picture? For you to be prepared to do that you’d have to be prepared to re-examine your political and social assumptions as well as environmental considerations at differing granular scales.
Hi Jennifer,
I read in the papers that you are going to argue that global warming may be good for farmers, and that one of your points was that it may be wetter.
Are you going to talk about total moisture balance, or will you just focus on rainfall and completely ignore evaporation?
You got me even more confused: do you or do you not assert that the majority of the participants here ” agree [d here] that govt spending just creates inefficiencies”. This is a rather shallow charicature and seems to me to be a deliberately absurd depiction of the views of any person here who believes in promoting free-choice and basic economic freedoms. Do you really see this as the view of common participants here? Do you really believe all those who favour such freedoms are against all government spending? that the point I think betray lack of contact with reality.
My personal view is the governments should spend our taxes but not waste ’em.
Going back to the decision made by State Governments on introducing moratoria on GM canola which David alluded to previously.
This decision (at least in Victoria) was taken with an extremly short term objective i.e. to push this issue beyond the next state election.
As rightly pointed out by detribe here and in separate postings on his blog ( gmopundit) the direct consequence is that more than 50 % of the investment for developing new types of canola were pulled out of Victoria essentially overnight after the decision in 2004.
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the politicians that made the decision and the real repercussions to scientists in Horsham and other places that were developing the new canola varieties are going to be felt for a long time or as David puts it ‘we now seem to have lost competitiveness stretching out till beyond the year 2013’.
The political cycle is short term but plant breeding is a long term undertaking that can’t be turned on an off with immediate effect.
This is the real problem that Mike Keogh is addressing and what the figures show.
Yes detribe it is interesting that a personal statement “Thought it was generally agreed here that govt spending just creates inefficiencies” becomes ‘it is not my opinion.. it means the general consensus as voiced on this blog’.
Yet there is no supporting evidence to support the view that on the blog there is indeed a general consensus that govt spending creates inefficiencies.
I become a little wary about the usefulness of views expressed by persons who refuse to concede their statements may be wrong. Surely the possible falsification of views is what science is all about.
Also I have no idea about “granular scales”
I did some in-depth research viz Google but the best I could come with was “Granular scales. Small, convex, non-overlapping scales, typically with a pebbled appearance.”
Blair & detribe; I was saying that ‘govt spending = inefficiencies’ is not my opinion. I apologise that I caused confusion by using sarcasm – something I’m aware doesn’t usually come across well on a blog but I succumbed (detribe I mistakenly assumed you’d know my position well enough by now, slap on the hand for me for assuming). If I’d thought it would get this unnecessarily drawn out I wouldn’t have made the cheeky comment in the 1st place.
As for the assertion that’s general consensus here, I was poking and hoping that the frequent commenters here who are constantly crying foul-mouth over govt spending would respond by clarifying their perspectives. You see when you ask straight-fwd, non-provocative q’s as I have done previously on this question, you tend not to get answers. I’ve tried to clarify the position of those who frequently state a desire for unencumbered mkt operations before (I’m not going out to dig up specific references, but I’ve already mentioned the CSIRO/science funding debate threat as eg where someone, I recall, said CSIRO R&D should all be privatised). Yes detribe I do find it hard to believe that “all those who favour such freedoms are against all government spending”. I hinted above that there might be some hyprocrisy eg a general dissapproval of govt spending but a willingness to accept it when they benefit from it or personally agree with it? (But then you argue that would accord with most people’s outlooks if motivations in politics are inherently selfish).
It wasn’t entirely without result. eg Motty clarified his position and I was interested to read it. Rog hasn’t recanted his minimal-govt stance which seems to approach almost zero govt (eg on other thread “by shifting funds here and there they stimulate growth. It is also a major fallacy as they need to raise taxes (costs) to pay for ‘growth’.”) but perhaps he’d care to.
Blair I do willingly, and have previously on this blog, conceded when I’ve made a wrong statement. However this more a case of poking a sleeping rhino with a feather than making a wrong statement. But if it’s wrong, I’ll admit it (1st we’d have to survey every commenter though!). As a sweeping, stand-alone statement I would like it to be wrong.
I too think that “governments should spend our taxes but not waste ’em” eg, spend as efficiently and effectively in areas of scientific research including ag, among others, but detribe, considering either the amount or the target, one person’s valued investment is another’s waste. Here we have a root cause of political differences.
Detribe & Blair I’d like to hear what you think about the need for further govt spending, not just on the basic research itself, but also on market development, ie to ensure dissemination and take-up of the research results.
Thinksy:
One area of government spending I favour is an efficient, predictable, timely, coordinated, science based, professional product registration and safety assurance system similar to FZANZ and OGTR at their best that once a decision is made, certifies products can be dealt with freely on commercial markets.
We currently dont have such as system.
I dont think that government should have as an objective to ensure take up of research results occurs, as I’m not sure they can well judge which results are worth that huge investment. But they should definitely refrain from actively preventing good results from reaching the market.
Ps Thinksy,
Let me be up front: from the moment you made that remark it was as clear as day you were being sarcastic.
Of course I wasn’t actually confused by what you said: my response was irony. But the point of my irony was the defense of civility
All of us make a few mistakes in this rough and tumble and its time for me to apologise to you, as I know you deserve it, on behalf of rog, Schiller, Blair and myself – the humour at your expense was a response to your sarcasm, was a little over the top .(None of us know each other by the way.)
“What do you get when you cross a deconstructionist with the mafia?” was bloody funny though. Thanks rog whoever you are for real wit.
Yeah detribe, from yr 1st reply I immediately thought you got me loud & clear. But after some posts from Blair the spirit of my remarks seemed to be getting stretched too far, hence I thought time to be crystal clear.
I thought rog’s & schiller’s comments were funny too, I had a good laugh at that same joke and at schiller’s bomb explanation and the possible interpretation for Davey’s missed conference. But Blair’s posts took the fun out of it by bordering more on nagging and being unhelpfully deconstructionist or playing dumb moreso than humorous. Therefore I went along for a while but, esp after that middle sentence in Blair’s last post, decided to make things sparkly clear! I would have thought that was all clear to you anyway. Enough of this tedium now. What was amusing has become tediously dull.
Return on R&D dollars and farm economic performance might be difficult to judge, My observation is that a lot of rural R&D (probably over half) seems to be spent on environmental aspects of farming rather than just production issues. Big changes compared to say 30 years ago. Return on this R&D investment is rather more difficult to quantify than simple economic returns from production or cost reductions.
Also rich farmers can afford to be light on the land .
The discussion on the return from agricultural R&D needs to be put into perspective. We have just had vegetation management legislation imposed in Qld that, according to Bill Burrows’ suppressed report will cost Qld farmers $900 million a year. This will be on top of the $600 million a year in confiscated carbon credits that rightfully belong to the communities that are making the sacrifices to achieve these emission reductions.
So the $10 billion a year Qld agricultural sector is being asked to pay an environmental tax that is equivalent to an extra 15% GST but with no input tax credits. There is also no effective means of passing the tax on to consumers as most of them are in overseas markets.
And when R&D expenditure is examined in this context, it is difficult not to conclude that this is little more than window dressing, designed to reassure the voters that the government actually has the welfare of farmers in mind.
This is not to cast any doubt on the motives of the researchers involved, far from it. But it all needs to be seen in the full context of a predatory government and serial abuse of power and process.
Yep – thanks for that (suckers). We couldn’t have done it without you. You didn’t expect us to make any changes in town did you. Off to the coast again on the weekend down the M1.
(Black humour – not intentionally disrespectful).
If you keep this up, Phil, we may even invite you over from the dark side. We may even organise for you to get some fan mail, as your own side are clearly indifferent to your efforts. That is, until you burn all your bridges, after which you will be on your own. Hey, it worked a treat with Jana, didn’t it?
Oh yea – fan mail would be good. Nothing but abuse thus far. It’s very lonely over here. But I’ve still got my teddy bear – he loves me. They even make me march up the back on demos now.
Dear Ian
I certainly sypathise with your view that one sector of the Australian community ie Qld graziers has been forced to bear an inequitable share of the burden of reducing carbon emissions via restictions on land clearing.
Ironically the original arguments in favour of restrictions had nothing to do with minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. It was all to do with preserving biodiversty!
But unfortunately that is how the political process works and unless you are prepared to agree with the establishment of some overarching non-elective body we are left with some second or third best solution.
Motty can you kindly tell me whether I would be wrong to contend that you don’t give an antechinus’s arse about biodiversity, that you only care about property rights for your trees (& yr mates’)? Tell me that would be grossly incorrect, then tell me why.
If it was a male antechinus in rut then he’s not long for this mortal coil anyway.
I used to have a great regard for biodiversity until even that was converted into an instrument of oppression. I still have the working drawings for a range of artificial tree hollows that the fuzzies actually prefer over natural ones. But I trashed and torched the prototypes and the major elements of uniqueness in the design will remain in my noggin until we get a government without sleaze or I succumb to alzheimers. There is also some good stuff on boosting animal density and maintenance of nutrition in drought. But that, too, is in the time capsule with stacks of observations by the old man and other forest dwelling specimens.
Its a pity really, but I guess the public gets the wildlife they deserve.
For Blair, Schiller and Thinksy:
The complete cure for deconstructive impulses
Sokal’s antiPoMo cure
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/infocusprint.php?num=5&subject=Science%20Studies
Naturally I have the hard copy versions.
Pundit G.