Just answer the question Coles!

This week I've been setting the cat amongst the pidgins on the Coles Facebook page, with some help from some very concerned Australians.

I've been asking Coles to detail how they audit and track their overseas supply chains to ensure no factory farmed pork finds it's way into those products they so misleadingly label "Made in Australia from local and imported produce"

Coles refuses to answer my question directly and have even slyly removed it from their page meaning it can only be accessed through this link

http://www.facebook.com/coles/posts/425455687518452?comment_id=4085021&notif_t=like

I think it is grossly unfair of Coles to throw Australian farmers under a bus while they soak up the glory from Animals Australia's recent campaign against factory farming when they cannot give a public guaranteetheir imported produce does not come from factory farms.

It really is hypocritical of Coles to expect one standard from Australian farmers while allowing a different standard for their cheaper imported produce especially when Australian farmers have already agreed to phase out sow stalls by 2017 at their own cost while competing with this cheaper produce.

Australian farmers will be the first in the world to completely phase out sow stalls while they are still legal in every country that supplies Coles with pork.

I don't hear Animals Australia pulling Coles up on this either, I wonder how much Coles has donated  to their recent campaign? Food for thought.  

Is this the kind of food system we really want in our country?

If we demand a certain standard from Aussie farmers shouldn't we demand the same standards on the produce we import?

Sadly it seems we rarely do.

Even our frozen vegetables (also labeled "made in Australia from local and imported produce") are not held to the same standards as many would expect.

Next time your at the supermarket remember that Australian grown produce is more expensive because it is grown to higher standard by people who take pride in the way they treat their animals and grow their crops.  I think John F Kennedy said it best "The farmer is the only man in our economy that buy's everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale and pays freight both ways."

   





    

Does my cat have a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export vessel than at an RSPCA shelter?

It's amazing what you find when you cut through the emotion surrounding live export and start looking at the hard figures. Live export boats are often accused of being "Death ships" and are branded "ships of shame" by one group of animal activists.

If you look at the 2011 figures for live export vessels on the DAFF website you will see that Australia exported over 3.3 Million animals that year alone. Sadly some 20,288 animals were lost but that means that 99.39% of all the animals exported arrive alive at their destination. Many of these animals do not just arrive alive, they put on weight. In some cases (Indonesia for example) the exporter is paid by the kilogram on arrival for the animals. It is therefore in the exporters interest to use the ship like a floating feedlot and to keep the animals in a contented condition so that they will continue to put on weight and be worth more money on arrival. Any animal that dies en-rout is also a big hit on profitability, hence the low mortality figures.

If you contrast the figures above with the figures provided in the RSPCA's 2010 to 2011 National Statistics the posturing about mortality's on live export vessels can appear ridiculous!

During this 12 month period the RSPCA euthanized no less that 37,177 Cats and 19,583 Dogs!

Together that's way over double the amount of animals that die on live export vessels.

Now of course some of those animals would be sick, injured, old or simply not fit to be re-homed but the devil here lays in what is not shown in the pie graphs of the statistics.

You see there is no representation here for animals that are held for too long or animals that could not be adopted in time but were otherwise healthy. The kicker is that 29% of dogs and 57.5% of cats were put to sleep while the RSPCA NSW branch alone made a whopping 12 MILLION dollar profit. How many more animals could have been saved or kept longer waiting for adoption with that money? 

Given the profits involved, the generous amount of money spent on the RSPCA's live export campaign, the RSPCA's other animals rights campaigns and the threats issued to fund political campaigns against an MP who spoke out in favor of live export it would be fair to ask if the RSPCA is doing enough to look after the animals entrusted to it's care. It is rather sad if your cat has a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export boat than at an RSPCA shelter.

The RSPCA's recent lurching into animal rights really comes up in the national figures with this little pie chart.

You see the RSPCA received some 54,398 cruelty complaints, choosing to prosecute only 275 and nearly half of those are livestock.  The RSPCA has an interest in prosecuting farmers wherever possible, farmers have land which they can be forced sell to pay fines and the RSPCA has recently been very happy to hop into bed with anti-farmer groups like Animal Liberation and Animals Australia.  Every cruelty case the RSPCA can publicize is a gift to the vegan lobby groups that happily portray one off incidents as common practice and farmers as cruel and ruthless industrialists.   

Lets not forget that the RSPCA is often consulted by government on ever tightening farm animal welfare standards in fact  few non government organizations have so much input into laws they are then entrusted to enforce. Farmers who abuse their animals deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law however it is worrying governments put so much trust into an organization that targeted farmers so heavily during the live export campaign last year.  
 
The RSPCA is a large organization with a vast reserve of money and political pulling power that will continue to target Australian farmers along with other fringe animal rights groups as long as we allow them too. You can make a difference everyday by donating to local shelters instead of RSPCA owned shelters, sharing this blog or others like it and spreading the word with friends.

If we don't fight, we lose.

My First Journey As A Live Export Stockman - A Response For The Haters

First off let me say this. I was not paid any money or commissioned in any way, shape or form to write my article that appeared in Beef Central. I was paid the same wage as the other Australian stockmen aboard the boat representative of my previous experience as an outback stockman. I approached Wellard Rural Exports myself so I could see first hand what happened on a live export vessel.

Like I mentioned in my article I had been told terrible things happened aboard live export vessels by a high ranking member of Animals Australia.

My experience showed that person had no idea about the conditions aboard live export boats, perhaps because she had never done a journey on one in her life. 

I will leave the practice of paying bribes for stories up to the people on the other side of the argument. I can prove I wasn't paid but I would like to ask the animal justice fund how much this guy got paid. Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money to buy the testimony of a disgruntled employee from a live export company or abattoir and I will leave it up to the reader to decide if such payments could actually encourage animal cruelty to be committed or exaggerated in pursuit of such a lucrative prize.

My article is frank and factual and it really is a shame animal rights activists see their cause as noble enough to make the truth irrelevant. 

Check out the live export moralities claimed by WSPA on the right hand side of this page (40,000) and compare them to the figure under fact number 2 here. (28,000!)

The actual figures are available on the D.A.F.F website and of course the WSPA is lying through their back teeth about how many animals died on live export vessels last year.

In fact I could spot several errors of fact on the WSPA page, the biggest porky pie being the ease with which we can replace live export with boxed meat exports. These reports are flawed with the laughable assumption that the rest of the world will pay current prices for boxed meat if we stop live exports.

Recent experience with Indonesia proves otherwise. Since the live export ban last year Indonesia has slashed boxed beef imports  along with reduced live export quotas. They are now sourcing illegally killed beef from India to make up the shortfall.

This means that instead of cattle being exported from Australia and killed in supply chain accredited abattoirs to OIE standards they are being hacked up by lawless backyard butchers in the back blocks of India and sold by criminals into our market.

The footage shown on Four Corners 'A Bloody Business' story was sickening and horrific. Thanks to the work of Lyn White, the exaggerations of the WSPA and the arrogance and ineptitude of Joe Ludwig those scenes no longer play out in four small abattoirs in Indonesia they play out every night in every backyard abattoir in India to every animal that takes the place of an ethically killed Australian animal.

It is a cold and uncomfortable fact that when we allow animal rights activists to interfere with industries they know nothing about the biggest losers are the animals.

Clipping DeRose's - a reply to an article in the Australian (25/2) live export is cruel and must be banned)

I would like to ask Mr DeRose if is article (the Australian 25/2)  was intended to be dishonest or to simply betray a willful ignorance of the facts. Mr DeRose declares that Australia is undermining the work of the OIE when in fact the new live export supply chains only send their animals to accredited abattoirs that meet OIE guidelines. Far from undermining the OIE the live export industry is actually creating real change in how animals are treated overseas. If you draw a line across a map of Australia from Townsville to Perth there are no abattoirs north of that line, meaning an instant ban on live export would require animals to be trucked thousands of kilometers south, a poor animal welfare outcome. Those opposed to live export often screech about killing the animals here in Australia but they make the assumption that Indonesia and other countries would buy the expensive boxed meat, a moot point considering Indonesia's recent slashing of boxed beef imports. The fact is Australia is now exporting animal welfare in a way that no other country, not even Mr DeRose's USA can match. A ban on live exports from Australia simply clears the way for countries with inferior standards to take our place and animal abuse to flourish. Mr DeRose joins the many other public voices here in Australia foolishly crying "ban live export, regardless of the animal welfare outcomes".

Fighting for our future - why I am an agvocate

A person whom I had never met face to face, a friend I had met through the 'save live export' facebook group called me just before the big RSPCA protest in Melbourne. She was having second thoughts about coming with my partner and I to counter protest at the rally and I could hear in her voice that she was very intimidated by the idea of being out-numbered a thousand to one at a very emotionally charged protest. (I don't blame her either)

"I just don't see how we're going to do anything worth while, there's so many of them, so few of us and they never listen anyway." She said.

Those of us who have fought this battle over the last eight months or so have often  asked ourselves why we bother. I've often wished for the days when we were allowed to farm without having to justify our existence to a group of people that would never take the time to walk a mile in our shoes for fear having to challenge their moral vanity "live export is wrong, I am right, end of story".

Often, when cornered by hard evidence like government reports that clearly prove the massive negative animal welfare outcomes of the changes these people push for or the non-viability of abattoirs replacing live export (Indonesia recently slashed boxed beef imports) they turn to abuse or twisting previous statements all out of context, forcing the argument over old ground and into a vicious circle of repetitive venomous argument.

The disturbing thing about this strange tactic is that it constantly exposes the fatal flaw in the arguments these people use. They don't care what happens to the cattle, the sheep or the farmer for that matter. To put it in the words of one protester "farmers should just sell all their farms and get real jobs"

Vegan lobbyist's only care about being right. Negative animal welfare outcomes resulting from vegan lobbyists pushing for changes in industries they don't understand are simply blamed on the farmer and I have no doubt that any sort of concession or compromise will only be rewarded with further demands. This has nothing to do with animal welfare, kindness or climate change. This fight is about the slow, deliberate crushing of an iconic Australian industry by slowly destroying markets and increasing our costs to gradually kill us off farmer by farmer.

My friend did come with us that day, she stood shoulder to shoulder with my partner and myself against roughly two thousand protesters, she kept her temper and gave a good account of herself arguing the issues back and forth with both the good and the ignorant people that were present on that warm August day. When she asked me the night before "what difference will it make" my reply was this.

Someday, and I hope that day never comes, your children may ask you "how did it get so bad?"
You can look away, maybe pretend you didn't hear the question or say "I don't know" or you can look them in the eye and say in all honesty "I did everything in my power to stop it, we fought them all the way."

One thing is certain, if we don't fight we lose.


 




   

Farmers - Stewards of the environment

It's that time of year again, the warm days and wet weather brings good times, fat cattle and weeds! Weeds are a serious curse down here in Victoria, one or two may look harmless but every thistle or ragwort that is left standing can spew forth thousands of airborne seeds over a wide area, seeds that are capable of surviving in the ground many years while they wait for favorable conditions to strike and multiply.

As a farmer you don't really think about how your management practices are perceived outside your local community but the recent live export debacle has shown me the increasing hostility that some city people are willing to show toward their country cousins.

So there I was bouncing the two wheel drive quad bike through the bush and I had to wish that maybe someone in the city would take the time to appreciate what I was doing. We've preserved close to a hundred acres of bushland on our property, bushland that is home to wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, echidnas and many other native marsupials. Some might say this land represents lost production, another fifty or a hundred head of cattle we could be running, another hundred acres of peas or potatoes. That hundred acres of bush also represents a cost, a hiding place for weeds and introduced animals like foxes, cats and rabbits that must be kept in check at our own cost.

To us that hundred acres of bushland is a cost we gladly bear.

Trees bring rain and help with retaining moisture, they are an important part of the ecosystem of our farm. Native shelter strips for our cattle also provide corridors for native wildlife to move about. One of the great perks of living in the country is waking up to find the wallabies mowing your lawn for you.

City environmentalists have managed to convince many of our city cousins that farmers are raping the land for all its worth, that livestock production and irrigation on the Murray-Darling can never be sustainable. These lies are taught in our schools and universities like they are cold fact and common knowledge.

I don't want a medal for spending my day wrestling this old bike through the scrub and spraying a few weeds. I want people to recognise that the modern farmer works in harmony with nature, if we don't nature will take us out. Without the work of farmers this land would be over-run with introduced weeds and pests and our regional towns would wither and die. As a farmer I'm proud to say I am a steward of my environment.