If Forest Gump was a farmer, instead of the analogy about
life being like a box of chocolates, he’d say, ‘life is like harvest. You never
know what you’re going to get’. And you just never ever do.
I know from the outside, it seems as though farmers are hard
to please. One day asking for rain, the next day praying for it to stop. But let me
tell you, one night of heavy garden soaking rain, or one unusually hot and
windy day, can wipe millions of dollars from the state’s annual harvest. If you think this doesn’t affect you, and
unless you have a diet of air, then I’d suggest you ask your mother at what
stage of pregnancy she gave up drinking. Because I suspect not only did she
not give up, but indeed she upped consumption in your formative growth period.
You see, food security
affects everyone. Even if you are grain free in diet, consider that farmed animals are often fed from cereal harvests. And consider that the
price of this feed goes up, so thereby, so do your meats and by-products. The canola oil in your pantry is affected, the
beans and lentils in your stew and the chick peas in your Dahl so too bear cost
fluctuations. So paying twenty cents
more for a loaf of bread might be your cost, but what cost does a farmer accept?
Sometimes the cost is too huge and to heartbreaking to
relay. Forgiving any unforeseeable weather phenomenon, just plain dumb
luck or poor business management, modern day cereal farming in Australia has
enough hurdles to make primary producer’s lives difficult as it is.
For many broad acre farms, the end of year summer crop is
the primary income. That is, the success of a whole year of work and financial
outlay relies on one result. Harvest. In part, it’s the driving of those big ol’diesel guzzling monsters over the paddocks and crossing your fingers and toes
that the crop coming into the box passes for top grade, that it doesn’t need to
be cleaned and that no dopey snails follow it in. Now it’s not as simple as skimming a
lawnmower over a lawn city folk, no sir!
First there’s the fire risk. Do the maths. Most days the boys work 12 hours as a minimum,
lots of hot moving parts and plenty of chaff flying about. Plus, the best
reaping days are warm and dry with just a little bit of breeze to blow the
debris off the plant as it flies in the front of the header. So there’s the CFS
on speed dial. (On the Yorke Peninsula
in 2009, over the period of just one week, nine header originated fires needed the assistance of CFS
appliances and neighbouring farmers evoking the farmers unwritten code of ‘all hands on deck’).
Secondly, there’s the silo system. This is where most
farmers are relegated to deliver their grain. After waiting in lines (for hours
sometimes) to get their trucks unloaded, the driver then has to often argue how
good their grain actually is in order for it to be registered at the right
grade. That’s if they have their own
truck, if not, they have to spend a few hours on the dog and bone just finding
a carrier who’s free to do the job, and then relay to them the importance of them also
being the farm’s pseudo grain-quality negotiator. The current system which is
being used to judge the quality of the grain at the major silos has come under
much scrutiny and considerable disappointment of late, and the fight continues.
Every grade counts, being knocked down
just one grade could cost you more than $1000 a load, or an entire sale.
Thirdly, there’s marketing your grain to the right buyer. A
mission which has been made ever so complicated with the abolishment of the
single desk trading system and the influx of fly by night traders (and the old
boys are all still saying, ‘we told you this would happen!). Who to trust, when
to sell, are the prices going to move,
shall we sell some in advance and lock in that good price and hope we actually
reap what we’ve promised, what’s the fluctuating dollar doing? Now the average
farmer needs a smart phone as a necessity and a degree in commerce and
marketing in order to market and sell on the run. There’s hardly another way.
Don’t get me wrong, our boys love the lifestyle. Love the
work, and they do it well. They live every little boy's dream. They drive
trucks, loaders, headers, tractors and get dirty every day. But the culmination
of the whole year’s effort pivots on so many factors that they cannot change by
will or by force. The crops look okay this year. Not out of this world
fantastic, not buy-a new-house-and-book-a-holiday type okay, but good enough to
give the boys the feather of confidence back in their cap and book themselves
up for another year of crazy in 2012! (…and Mum might get last year’s new
pergola by next year!?! *Hint hint*)
So you see, it’s not as simple as pop a little seed in the
ground, get a little rain and then sell it in an old hessian bag down at the
markets. So excuse the men of the land
for a while whilst they almost lose their minds trying to wrap their seasons
up. Fingers and toes crossed for good grain, good prices, and sane farmers!
