Life is tough on the farm

THE images of my youth (my happy place) are those of the rolling Victorian Western Plains.

The image is a view across the paddocks on a spring morning, as the sun climbs into a blue sky, a low-hanging fog sits across the lower parts of the paddocks. Interspersed with large old red gums in the far distance are rows of sugar gums framing the horizon. The grass, brown with a hint of green underneath is mildew-wet, the air is crispy cold, the heat of the day is yet to set in, and wearing a thick jumper my Nanna knitted, the smell of wood smoke and lanoline from the wool shed sits heavy in the air. My ears are full of noise; young magpies, a cockatoo, a young lamb baa-ing for its mother, the kelpies barking. I am lucky enough to have been born on a typical Marino farm, on the banks of the Native Hut Creek, on these beautiful plains.

When I was a kid in the 1980s and early ’90s, our property was a soldier settlement farm, a 600-acre rectangular piece of land that produced income from wool clips and fat lambs, the odd crops, enough money to feed a family of six. It was hard work, a full family affair. We cleared the surface rock with our hands to make paddocks suitable for ploughing. We spent our weekends and holidays in the wool shed or on a tractor. We planted thousands of trees to make the land more fertile, we cared for the land and grew a deep respect for it.

Unfortunately, this life is no longer feasible or possible in our farming landscape. Simply put, the increase in input costs such as diesel, feed for stock, vets, drench, and chemicals to keep pests at bay have all increased, while at the same time, the income streams have been eroded. The recent ban on live exports has taken away one of those income streams, abattoirs governed by Coles and Woolworths dominate the markets that buy the sheep, typically forcing down the buy price from the farmers for the fat lambs and mutton, while getting premium prices at the checkout.

The falling value of wool has meant that for some farmers, the cost of shearing the sheep is higher than they will get for the precious wool clip itself. Scale has been the answer for many. Grow or perish. This mentality and desperation drove property prices throughout 2022-2023 to record prices, with neighbours buying out neighbours.

Since the peaks of December 2022, property prices have plummeted, the costs of inputs such as fertiliser and diesel prices skyrocketed due to the Ukraine and Russian conflict. Even the more ambitious scale farmers lost the ability to keep growing, the RBA increased interest rates and banks stopped lending. Farmers stopped buying the paddock next door. Agricultural land prices have fallen over the past two years by an average of 30 per cent and in some places even more. In the grazing country such as the Victorian Western Plains, land values have slid back to 2019 levels.

Then, drought. From early 2023 through to early 2024, the western plains have experienced a “green drought” – enough rain to keep a small green tinge on top of the soil, – but not enough to turn that green tinge into rolling grasslands that could sustain farming. The only decent rain was back in November 2024 and since then rainfall and water density in the soil has been at record lows. We are experiencing one of the worst droughts since 1983 across the western district region.

It is in this environment that the Victorian government will impose the new “Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund” (ESVF), to replace the existing Fire Levy. If passed in our Parliament, this will come into effect on July 1, 2025. For primary production land, the tax will increase from 28.7 cents (per $1,000) to 83.0 cents. An increase of 360 per cent. This is an annual tax. It is based upon the value of the land and improvements, as noted on your rate notices as CIV value. This is a far greater impost for farmers, as the underlying land values of farms is greater than urban residential and commercial property. Whilst the farmland is valued at a premium on the rates notice, it now provides less income for these farming families than the average unemployment benefit. This is financially crippling where most have heavy debts to carry and variable cash flow. Many of these families are living below the poverty line but are just too proud to admit it.

The government rationale is that the ESVF will support a broader range of emergency services beyond fire response. However, in the bush, volunteer brigades provide fire services, and they have little sight or sound of “broader services”. The small funding received by most brigades is supplemented by sausage sizzles and raffle tickets, run by guess who; the farmers. The trucks are staffed by; guess who: the farmers. The fires are fought by guess who: the farmers.

Are we nuts? Instead of talking about drought relief, we are imposing more taxes on families doing it tough. Give us a break!

Head to parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved/petitions/emergency-services-and-volunteers-fund and sign the petition to support our farmers and stop this levy.

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