To date, nothing has come of the Federal Cabinet’s promise to apple growers that a “reference committee” would be established to examine further the risk of NZ apple imports. Meanwhile, Washington is likely to make US apple imports a condition of Canberra’s push for a free trade agreement. Pat Byrne reports. On March 7, the…
The Federal National Party leadership has been in a state of denial over vitally important research that shows it and other key institutions have grossly underestimated the value of the domestic market to our farmers. It shows that two decades of free-market policies eroded farmers’ access to the vital domestic market, this being a major…
Was the deregulation and consolidation of British agriculture over the past 20 years really cost-effective? Did the economic efficiencies the deregulators imposed on farmers – fewer abattoirs, bigger farms, protein and growth hormone feeding – led to real long-term cost savings greater than the cost of cleaning up the mess of mad cow disease and…
The spread of foot and mouth to Britain stands as a salutary lesson to those inside and outside the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) who have been pressing for a relaxation of our strict quarantine regime. It raises serious questions about the AQIS decision to allow uncooked Danish pork into Australia, some of which…