The Farmers Club Newsletter

The “Club Notes” for Saturday, the 17th of February, 2024.

By Dwain Duxson

13 days to go

Our FarmTender2024 - Entrepreneurs in Farming event is not far away. Click here for more info. See the media release here. Read some of the questions we are going to ask Danny Thomas, Rob Dawes, Claire Booth and Andrew Weidemann.

Non-depreciating assets

Most of the stuff we buy for the Farm depreciates in value. But there are things that stay roughly the same, and there are some that actually appreciate in value. The first thing that came to mind was the MiniMatic Woolpress. I think Stevlyon made them originally, and then somewhere along the line, Lyco came into it somewhere. Happy to be corrected on that one. These Mini Matics have gone up in value and are now pretty stable in price. They usually don’t last too long on the Farm Tender website when one gets listed. They are a manufacturing blueprint for how to build something: simple design, heavy duty, strong and not much ever goes wrong with them. I would be guessing that some of them would be 40 years old now. I know at our Family Farm, we still have the original, and it’s still in use and going the same as it was back in the 1980s. Other things that don’t devalue are Thornton Portable Sheep Yards. But imagine is we all kept our Kingswood and WB Utes, they have certainly appreciated in price. Can you think of any other Farm items that have appreciated in price over the years? Reply to [email protected]

Hay hey Hay

I read with interest that Feed Central have virtually eliminated any Hay listings off their website that are not stored in a Shed. Having Hay stored in a Shed is the ultimate and I can fully understand why they only want to deal in quality. Most growers that rely on Hay as one of their main sources of income will have Sheds. And we have seen a heap of these Sheds go up in the last decade. But not all Hay and Straw can be stored in Sheds. Stuff stored under Hay Caps or Tarps can be a bit hit-and-miss at times, but at the very least, it’s something. And we have all seen those half-fallen-down stacks that have been there for years. Telehandlers have been a game changer for outside stacks as you can go much higher. It’s hard to find domestic Hay industry stats, but I would reckon that 40 per cent of the Hay would be stored outside, and in big Hay years, it might be more. What percentage of your Hay is stored in a Shed compared to outside? Reply to [email protected] 

A good Supermarket news story

We have been all doing a bit of Supermarket bashing lately, and most of the time, they deserve it. But this is a good news story about a Farmer who has a good relationship with Coles. Will Morrison, from Cressy in Tasmania, emailed me this. “Although I hear a lot of criticism of Coles and Woolies putting pressure on suppliers, Cole’s Lamb price to the producer is always higher than any of our other options”. I am sure the Morrisons do well out of the deal and good on them. I asked Will what the payment terms were, and I said I wouldn’t quote them, but they are pretty good and nowhere near the 90 days that we have been hearing. See here a video that Will sent through. Check out Will’s beautiful Property. Do you have a good or bad story dealing with the Supermarkets? Reply to [email protected]

Your replies

Below are snippets from some of the replies you sent in. All quotes will remain nameless. See a few current ones below:

• “Sure, you need to be tough in agri politics, but Farmers are super fair-minded and smart. Listen more and talk less, manage the finances well and treat Farmers with decency and respect”. - Someone who has been an Agri-politician who was commenting on the VFF.

• “Power corrupts ….. and absolute power corrupts absolutely” - Someone made this comment about Supermarkets. 

• “I mean, there’s probably not much point running underground lines through an area that’s a million miles from housing and infrastructure and no one is bothered by them; however, in places like Victoria, where our countryside is heavily populated, and Farms are closer together. They need to stop treating every situation the same and genuinely and effectively listen to landholders and their communities. I know here in Gippsland, we have some very sensible and carefully thought-out solutions to our issue of transmission lines and are absolutely begging to be taken seriously”. - In reply to our Note about putting Powerlines underground.

• “Yes, it is more expensive, but maintenance is phenomenally less, our communities are impacted far less, and I also suspect these lines will last for far longer (we just don’t have the data for this as lines of that voltage haven’t been in for longer than 40 odd years so far!). It seems like such a no-brainer to those impacted, but it’s insanely hard to get government and non-impacted people to see reason”. - More about putting Powerlines underground.

• “Payment terms. The real people with power in this country are the Truck drivers. If all Truck drivers (not truck companies) all took a holiday from Christmas to New Year, they could change the Country completely”. - In reply to the Supermarkets non favourable payment terms to Farmers.

• “Not attending the meeting - our membership ceased a number of years ago”. - One lady talking about the upcoming VFF meeting this Tuesday.

• “A good friend of mine sold his Farm a few years back and started a sand and soil yard in town. I called in to see him early in the piece, and when I asked how business was, he picked up the EFTPOS machine and said: “See this thing? What happens is someone comes in here, buys something off me, swipes their card, the money goes into my bank account, and they walk away with the produce”. He continued. “How long has this been going on? None this end month plus thirty days shit here in town” I often think about that interaction. It pretty much summed up f\Farming payment terms and how ridiculous they are. They have got better since then, I will concede”. - More on payment terms.

• “How about we put nuclear beside our coal-fired power plants as the infrastructure is already there, instead of building something that will last for 25 years”. - Someone talking about how we should do energy into the future.

• “It's probably the human condition that we want to provide our children with everything we never had when, in fact, by doing this, we’re making them less resilient and less able to cope, which goes hand in hand with less satisfaction and therefore less contentment, happiness and overall resilience”. - In reply to our Note on how people have less resilience these days.

• “Powerlines don’t fall over in extreme weather events when they’re underground, and there’s no bushfire risk”. - Put them underground, they are saying.

• “They should follow SA and disband VFF and form new organisations democratically elected by each farming industry”. - Someone with an opinion on the VFF.

• “Yes, Dwain, I've been saying for 30 years to put them underground, more so up here in cyclone country”. - A Queenslander on the Powewrline story.

End of message.

Dwain Duxson
0427 011 900

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