Aussie farmers need to feel valued, supported | OPINION

They do, if you believe the surveys.

You probably don't know that each Australian farmer produces enough food for 600 people (to repeat, if you believe the surveys, but it does seem an awful lot) and that there are 250 thousand Australians employed in agriculture.

That's about 2.5 per cent of the workforce.

If you look at Australia's gross domestic product (GDP), agriculture is valued at about $14,505 million.

That may sound significant but it's only 3pc of the total GDP (think about the other 97pc; mining and oil, for starters).

To follow on from the theme of this column, more than three quarters of those farmers surveyed felt their work wasn't valued by the Australian community.

Sixty-four per cent are anxious about their work and life, and 45pc are depressed; so depressed that 30pc have attempted suicide, and there is one farmer death every 10 days.

The suicide rate for all Australian deaths is 1.8pc but it's 60pc higher for Australian farmers.

They're the people who actually get their hands dirty and drive tractors.

The value-adding to what they produce is done by downstream processors.

As an example, just down the road from where I live is the Simplot factory.

There are 165 farmers getting their hands dirty producing 300,000 tonnes of potatoes each year for the 450 workers in that factory to turn into French fries.

They are well looked after with regular Simplot-sponsored events.

It's not just Simplot.

The have a rival, McCain Foods, and just down the road the other way, there's Botanical Resources who, as they say on the web, are "a reliable supplier of the natural insecticidal ingredients, Pyrethrins".

Keep going and, just before you get to Launceston, you'll hit Westbury and find Tasmanian Alkaloids, which makes a fortune literally cutting down tall poppies; it produces 40pc of the world's legal supply of opiates.

Tasmania is also renowned for enthusiastically engaging in the other derivation of the phrase, as I know from bitter experience when I was a public servant.

I could go on, but I think you've got the picture.

Having said all that, it would be useful to find out if the farmers who feel forgotten are not involved in this sort of work.

THE National Farmers' Federation is taking up the challenge.

Hopefully these farmers will feel better as the federation's efforts start to achieve results.

For instance, in partnership with Meat and Livestock Australia they have sponsored the film "We are Australian Farmers".

This is the first step in the long-term efforts to narrow the divide between farmers and the community.

As it says on the web: "Australians report to be increasingly disconnected with how their food and fibre is produced."

"And while they are overwhelmingly supportive of our farmers, they would like to know a lot more about how and why we do what we do."

I confess freely that I cannot help feeling rather sceptical about this.

I'm sure I'm not the only who has heard all this before

Let's wait and see.

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