Why You Should Give a F*ck About Farming
Journalist Gabrielle Chan lives with her farmer husband on the south-west slopes of NSW. Her new book, Why You Should Give a F*ck About Farming, looks at why eaters need to engage with farming methods amid the pressures of climate change and farm politics.
Arresting title! You assume that the average person actually doesn't give a fuck about farming. Is that true? We all live incredibly busy lives and so I totally understand why a metropolitan audience or non-farming audience would not prioritise farming. I was the daughter of Singaporean migrant who grew up in the city and knew nothing about farming and my projection is, if I hadn't married a farmer, I actually wouldn't give a fuck about farming.
So what should we know about farming in Australia today? Farming stands at the intersection of the world's existential problems – climate change, soil loss, water shortages, trade wars, pandemics, zoonotic diseases. The ground is shifting very quickly in farming and in a way that might have impacts people won’t like down the track. The price of food doesn't cover the cost of what economists call the externality. You might want a farmer to increase their soil carbon and plant trees, but that cost is not covered in the loaf of bread you buy from the shop.
How has the pandemic changed things? Local suppliers – small niche growers of organic wheat or sourdough bakers or meat suppliers – were just run over with demand from customers who might normally shop at Woolies or Coles. I think it was a bit of a wake-up call that we need diversity – diversity of small, medium and large suppliers; diversity of short, medium, and long supply chains.
Should the government legislate to stop the concentration of land ownership? I think that’s a debate for Australians to have – whether they want that to be regulated. That loss of a greater number of landowners is certainly an issue. The monopolisation of large chunks of Australia has implications for democracy and land management.
Do bigger farms pose more risk to the environment? Farming controls or manages up to 60 per cent of the Australian land mass so I’m saying to farmers, you have a responsibility, that what you do within your own boundary fence has an impact way beyond the boundaries. You can't just slash and burn and say ‘Well, this is my property’. We want a good outcome for everyone. I became a grandmother over the time I was thinking of this book and that really supercharged my interest because suddenly you’re not just thinking of your children’s generation; you’re thinking about the next generation. If we want a future for them that is healthy, this [land management] is what we have to grapple with.
A lot of voices for change in agriculture are women. Why? I think it mirrors politics. As a political journalist, I’ve watched the political cycle for the last 30 years, and women began entering more high-profile positions in politics when things were probably at their worst. You would see a female premier come in when the blokes recognised an imminent loss – they’d say, ‘Let’s put a woman in to see if that works’. That was the Joan Kirner, Carmen Lawrence model, and that's happening now in farm advocacy. The increasing identification of farmers who happen to be women has really changed the debate, particularly around climate change. Women in farm advocacy groups are pushing the need to recognise that climate change is an issue while a lot of men are still dragging the chain on it.
In the book, you say that it frustrates you that farmers as a group have not spoken out on climate change. Kevin Rudd said it was the biggest moral challenge of our time and even before Rudd came to power in 2007, [prime minister] John Howard was talking about an emissions trading scheme and climate change was a fairly bipartisan issue. We were all going along swimmingly, pretty much on the same page, and then the politics shifts in 2009 when Malcolm Turnbull loses the leadership of the Liberal Party and [new leader] Tony Abbott weaponises climate change. Suddenly farmers are no longer saying it’s the biggest issue in farming, which the National Farmers Federation was saying prior to Abbott. The farmers were now saying, ‘It's not such a thing’ or ‘It’s a beat up’ or ‘It’s just a political ploy of the Labor Party’ and all that sort of stuff, so it's frustrating. Once you lose that bipartisanship on such a big issue, that’s when the politics change.
You live at the coal face. Where are farmers at with regard to climate change?There is change. They’re seeing the impact it’s having on markets. You get European leaders talking about carbon tariffs which will have a material impact on farmers exporting their produce to Europe; Joe Biden is discussing the moves we are making going into the next round of climate talks … You can argue until you’re blue in the face about the science if you want, but you’re on a hiding to nothing if you’re thinking you won’t have to change your business.
It sounds like farmers will play a role in climate change solutions? Definitely. We are seeing nascent programs around environmental service payments to farmers to improve things like soil carbon and ground cover. The National Farmers Federation is projecting that 5 per cent of farmers’ income by 2030 will come from environmental services payments. The United Nations has put into place a natural capital framework where nations can measure their environmental effects, and that’s going to have an impact on farming. There are changes to the way we’re thinking about cropping and livestock and horticulture, so it’s changing. No matter what anyone thinks politically, it’s changing. The transparency that people want in food chains is global and a lot of that is coming from Asia, from China where people are paying premiums.