EMMA Germano was re-elected last year as President of the Victorian Farmers Federation after a successful first term.
With a determination to keep Victorian farming alive, relevant and healthy, the Sentinel-Times spoke with Emma to find out what challenges lie ahead in 2023.
“My re-election demonstrates that the (VFF) membership are absolutely on board with the notion of modernisation of the organisation,” Emma said.
“The way that we do advocacy and also our corporate governance as an organisation. That change agenda has been reaffirmed by the members who want the organisation fit for the next generation.
“The challenges are going to be the economic environment, like all Australians we’ve started to see an impact on the cost of living and farm production costs, in particular, and ensuring that farming is still viable, but also being able to communicate with the community around why the cost of a lot of food products has increased and demonstrating the value of having a strong and resilient agriculture sector in Australia.”
And the hot topic of late, has been potatoes.
For years viewed the bad carb, suddenly a shortage has seen everyone flock to the frozen chip section and limits on products reintroduced.
“These extreme weather events that have occurred in a lot of Australia’s potato growing regions has led to this shortage. It’s that perfect storm, where input costs have increased – the natural increase in the cost of potatoes, overlay that with a production shortage because of the weather events, and then overlay that with difficulties accessing labour, input prices going up, the fact that potatoes have been under-priced for a period of time, and how do farmers capture more of the value of the end sale.”
For example, imagine a bag of McDonald’s fries – only three fries in the entire pack represents the monies that go to the farmer.
“Potatoes have been in a situation for a long time where there has been a lot of unfair trading terms, and the farmers essentially bear all the risk, and in my opinion, farmers never get paid adequately for the amount of risk that they they’re actually taking on their farm by putting in a crop.
“When you add to that risk increase, because the cost of production has increased, and you would even say, the weather events have increased in regards to risk, it means a lot of speculative growing hasn’t happened.
“All of those things combined to this perfect storm scenario.”
A potato farmer herself, Emma is one of many who are crossing their fingers and hoping that potatoes planted now, by the time harvesting occurs, will retain their prices.
“The whole country needs to have a conversation around food affordability and making sure that we’ve got a profitable farm sector. Risk has changed. As a nation, we do not have a risk assessment across agriculture, and that with a food security plan is something the federal government absolutely needs to be focused on.
“It’s really interesting that people still have a very low knowledge base about understanding where their food comes from, how it’s grown, and all the implications to a farmer.”
With people asking ‘why is everything so expensive’, many are failing to realise farmers face those same household living cost increases on their farming properties – electricity, gas, diesel, mortgage… alongside increased farm production costs.
“Farmers have traditionally been and continue to be price takers, not price makers, and therefore, the real risk right now is that farmers are going to be absorbing a lot of that cost into their businesses; and sometimes it takes a few years for people to actually work out whether or not the activity they’re doing is profitable.
“Yes, we might be getting slightly higher prices at a farm gate, but have they kept up with or do they outstrip the rising cost of production? That’s a risk factor across all agricultural production systems at the moment.”
A farmer with a roadside stall herself, Emma is a strong advocate for supporting local producers, which in turn supports the community and farm.
“I always advise people to buy from a roadside stall!
“What’s interesting is that notion of value and convenience. It used to be that you would go and buy a few kilo bag of potatoes in a hessian sack, and they would have dirt on them, which would help them with storage, and you would put them in a dark place in the cupboard – you’d feed your family from that bag for six months.
“Now people only want to buy 1.5 kilo plastic bag of washed potatoes each week or each fortnight and I’m not storing them I expect farmer to do that, I’m not washing them, I expect the farmer or the packer to do that for me. And expecting that is maintained even though financially they’re not able to actually afford that anymore.
“A lot of people have moved away from the notion of how to be really thrifty in regards to their food purchasing. Potatoes are still some of the best value foods you can buy, it’s still cheap to eat a potato that is full of nutrition.”
In highlighting the nutritional value, Emma also covered the psychological impact.
“When iceberg lettuces went to $12, all of a sudden everybody wanted an iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce farmers had been trying to convince you to eat iceberg lettuce since the 80s when it fell out of fashion for mixed leaves, rocket, spinach, kale…”
Even Emma has had the agonising conversations with family over their farm gate.
“As a family we agonised over the decision to put the price up a bit, we want to be loyal to the customer who is making the concerted effort to come to the farm gate and purchase something which means that they do care about a farmer and farm store.
“They come because they feel that sense of connection.
“And that sense of connection to Australian farmers couldn’t be more important when it comes to the notion that farm businesses are absolutely impacted by policies that are set for a government that is facing the majority of the population being in the city.”
