When will Australia produce its own food again?

[old man emu]

[facthunter]

Back to topic Australia already over produces food. 75% of our beef is exported. Most lobsters are exported . We then get inferior food imported that's already deserving of being chucked out. transported from all over the world at great cost to the environment and frozen.  Nev

[Yenn]

There is a push to produce meat in a laboratory. They say it is good stuff and uses less water and produces less methane. The do gooderss want to stop us eating animals which have to be killed. What they don't seem to realise is that those animals will not lead happy lives, being fed and looked after by graziers. they will not exist. the other things are that those cattle may use a lot of water, but there is no wy that the water could be used for growing crops. When we get rid of all the cattle the grass will grow rampant and what will the fire situation be like then?

We already seem to have lost the ability to control fires.

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, Yenn said:

There is a push to produce meat in a laboratory. They say it is good stuff and uses less water and produces less methane. The do gooderss want to stop us eating animals which have to be killed. What they don't seem to realise is that those animals will not lead happy lives, being fed and looked after by graziers. they will not exist...

I know people who have eaten the new lab-grown meat and they were impressed.

I doubt artificial meat will totally replace domestic animals, but I hope it leads to the phasing-out of feedlots, which are not a nice place for animals to live. 
 

I believe there will always be a market for clean, green, grass-fed cattle.

2 hours ago, Yenn said:

...When we get rid of all the cattle the grass will grow rampant and what will the fire situation be like then?

We already seem to have lost the ability to control fires.

This already happens; during dry times our roadsides used to get a thorough mowing from hungry stock. When was the last time you saw a mob of cattle grazing the “long paddock”? If the fire authorities were fair dinkum about preventing fires they’d get together with local government to streamline the Red Tape that discourages grazing of roadsides.

 

 

[old man emu]

You can't have those beasties in the long paddock. Somebody might run into them and get hurt, or worse, someone might skid on a paddock patty. Then where would the Authorities who approved it be?

[Marty_d]

OME's right.  All it'd take is one inattentive driver getting a steer in the windscreen and it's all over red rover.  

 

Councils are naturally risk averse (except when it comes to approving development in flood/fire areas, where they take none of the risk but all of the rates & taxes), so there's no way in hell they'd put themselves in the path of a potential wrongful death suit.

[spacesailor]

Iv,e driven down the " Long Padock "

AND

If there,s animals grazing, there,s lots of signs to warn us,

SLOW THE FXXK DOWN.

I know l will damage my ride, if l hit a two ton steak !.

So bring them back l say.

spacesailor

[facthunter]

What's the difference if they are replaced by kangaroos, which are even more dangerous if you hit one or it comes through the windscreen? Nev

[nomadpete]

Nev, the difference is in the ability to blame somebody for failing their duty of care. It's easier to sue for a loss or injury that can be traced to animal owners. Or animals that can be reasonably expected to be controlled by fencing. Nobody owns Skippy, and everyone knows it's almost impossible to fence them out.

So, road authorities don't see a (financial) risk from Skippy or bush pigs or feral camels.

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, nomadpete said:

road authorities don't see a (financial) risk from Skippy or bush pigs or feral camels.

Bush pigs can cost you a fortune if, in your drunken state, you tell then you love them.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I'm not worried by artificial lab meat. Think of the labor costs (from boffins to cleaning ladies) involved in producing it. Then compare that to the costs of grazing a flock or herd.

Yenn is correct about the environmental claims against meat being nonsense. I think they use feed-lot  figures while range animals are quite different.

[facthunter]

Feed lot is becoming very much the normal. Look at chicken It tastes like soft cardboard and is as cruel as hell. So is dairy. Look into it and find out for yourself. These industries have very powerful lobbying  ability same as gambling and cigarettes, Medical (pharma the FDA).  We don't need a lot of some other animals milk. Pure water is the best drink and not in a PLASTIC bottle of the wrong type. Some people would never drink JUST water. Nev

[Old Koreelah]

21 hours ago, old man emu said:

You can't have those beasties in the long paddock. Somebody might run into them and get hurt, or worse, someone might skid on a paddock patty. Then where would the Authorities who approved it be?

...which is why we need at least State-level reforms to allow/encourage roadside grazing of secondary roads at least. If state and local governments were liable for fire hazards on our roadside they might come to realize the value of livestock removing roadside fire hazards- for free.

 

.A temporary speed restriction is not hard to organise (and would be more meaningful than the ridiculous number of “Road Work Ahead” signs where you slow down for no reason because nothing is being done).

[Yenn]

The reason the Long Paddock is used less now is nothing to do with councils, or road safety. It is just not economicly viable nowadays to have a gang of stockmen tending cattle for days on end. The stock routes are enshrined in the law.

Bureaucrats are controlling everything now and as far as fire goes they are making a complete stuff up of it.

It is difficult to get a permit to burn and impossible to get it quickly, when conditions are good. So we don't burn and the fuel builds up.

What gets me is that when i see fires reported on the news and fire bombers flying all around, when a bit of back burning would be more economical and also more effective.

I agree that feed lots are bad news and years ago I used to raise pigs but not in modern conditions. they were in sheds in pens and they used to be happy little campers. We used to lose a few piglets by being crushed by the sow, but not enough to warrant going to the inhumane methods they use now.

Feedlotting seems to be the way modern agriculture wants to go. I have even seen sheep in central NSW with troughs and conveyors for food in grass paddocks.

[spacesailor]

facthunter

ME TOO ,.

I worry about the Poisons they put in our reticulated water !.

SO

Who knows what They don,t tell you, that they put a little of This, or a little  of that, just to see IF we notice.

I would rather drink Rain water.

spacesailor

Edited February 10, 2021 by spacesailor
Missed name

[Bruce Tuncks]

I worry about the long grass on the verges of the minor road at the farm here. It should be grazed short for fire reasons but it is all too much hassle to do it legally.

Feed lots need expensive meat and cheap grain to make money, and with the price of grain now, they are fewer feed lots out there. The one farmer I know who keeps a commercial piggery grows his own grain and uses the downgraded stuff for feed . Another just keeps a sow and lives well with all the bacon he needs.

Years ago, farmers around here would often have a cow and a sow and a veggie patch. They didn't need much money to eat well. My father-in-law was a schoolboy during the depression and he lived on a farm and didn't even know it was on.

 

 

 

[willedoo]

On 10/02/2021 at 8:40 AM, facthunter said:

What's the difference if they are replaced by kangaroos, which are even more dangerous if you hit one or it comes through the windscreen? Nev

I wonder if one has ever come through a windscreen. You would think a full size male Red or Wallaroo would have a chance of it with a flat windscreen like a Landcruiser if you had enough pace up.

 

There was one case where a lady had one come in an open rear side window. The roo must have been at the top of it's hop when it hit the car side on. She had a hard time of it as the roo wasn't killed, only injured, and was thrashing around in the car. Once a mate of mine was driving on a property road when a roo hit his driver's door. At the time he was talking to his mate in the passenger seat and had his head turned toward him. He heard the bang and his head instinctively turned back to see the roo's face a couple of inches away from his as the roo hadn't recoiled back out the window yet. He said it nearly gave him a heart attack.

 

Pigs are solid and will go underneath and can cause vehicle damage. Horses are long legged and can go straight over the top. I saw that in the main street of Mooloolabah one night. The car had a lot of damage to the front end and bonnet. The windscreen was smashed and the roof pushed back. Luckily the poor lady driver only suffered shock and a few scratches. Someone had reported a horse wandering the streets that night, so the police thought the best way to catch it was to gallop it up the main street with sirens and lights blazing. Like a Wild West movie. The poor lady was driving along and the horse hit her head on at full gallop. Lucky it's not America or the cops would have been shooting at it as well.

[facthunter]

 Something the size of a roo will come through the windscreen. I had a lump of hard mud come from between the dual wheels of a truck when it came onto the Hume highway and got up a bit of speed  after exiting  from a roadside tip and it easily caved the windscreen in on me. . Wouldn't be a 1/4 the weight of a kangaroo and I've hit about 5 which generally hit the front luckily. Birds come through aircraft windows. Try a pelican or a frigate bird for size.. Nev

[old man emu]

Wombats have taken out their fair share of cars. On the Hume Highway between Berrima and Marulan there is a long straight which we called 'Wombat Straight" due to the number of wombats that were taken out by the Overnighters. The worst thing about wombats is that they are low to the ground, but very solid. They can cause a smaller sized car to roll if the wombat is hit in eh centre of teh front of the car.

[old man emu]

Next chance you get, have a look at the label on a jar of Cottee's jam. Made in New Zealand form 40% imported materials. Another Aussie icon is IXL jam. In 2019, the IXL brand and Kyabram factory were sold to Kyabram Jam Company, in conjunction with Coca-Cola Amatil selling SPC. Kyabram Jam Factory is majority owned by Malaysian Holstein Milk Company.

 

The company was first established by Henry Jones in Hobart in 1891 as H. Jones & Company. The company derived from Jones' employment with George Peacock's jam factory from 1874. In 1895 the company purchased a building in Melbourne and commenced manufacture of jams and spreads. The building became known as The Jam Factory. IXL formed as a limited liability company in 1903. The IXL brand – 'I excel in everything I do' was Henry Jones's personal motto.

 

If you watch carefully in the silent movie The Sentimental Bloke, you can see The Bloke waiting outside the Sydney IXL factory for his Doreen