CORRECTED VERSION
OUTER SUBURBAN/INTERFACE SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Inquiry into sustainable development of agribusiness in outer suburban Melbourne
Pakenham— 4August 2009
Members
MrN. Elasmar / MrD. HodgettMsD. Green
MsR. Buchanan / MrD. Nardella
MrM. Guy / MrG. Seitz
MsC. Hartland / MrK. Smith
Chair: MrG. Seitz
Deputy Chair: MrK. Smith
Staff
Executive Officer: MrS. ColeyResearch Officer: MrK. Delaney
Witness
Victorian Farmers Federation
Mr Ian Anderson, President, Cardinia branch, (sworn).
The DEPUTY CHAIR— I now call on MrIan Anderson to make a submission on behalf of the dairy and crops people within Cardinia shire. Ian, welcome. Could you state an address for us to be able to send you a copy of the transcript?
MrANDERSON— Good morning. My address is 800Seven Mile Road, Nar Nar Goon.
The DEPUTY CHAIR— Thank you for appearing before our committee today. I look forward to hearing your submission.
MrANDERSON— I am the president of the Cardinia branch of the Victorian Farmers Federation and represent farmers in the city of Casey, the shire of Cardinia and I also have a few in the shire of Baw Baw, in Bass Coast and one in Frankston. I am a dairy farmer on the Koo Wee Rup swamp. I farm the rich peat soils of the Koo Wee Rup swamp and I have done for the last 20years.
I call myself a generational farmer. My family has been farming around Melbourne continuously since 1851. My antecedents emigrated here and started farming at Caulfield. In 1884 they moved from Caulfield to Lyndhurst. We farmed— in actual fact, we still do farm— a portion of that land today, so for 125years.
I am very proud that we started off as market gardeners in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s. But today I run one of the oldest jersey studs in Australia that has been in continuous operation for 123years. So I come before this committee this morning with a wealth of knowledge with respect to farming on the interface of Melbourne, as my family has done for a good period of time. I also have lived in this area virtually all my life, in the city of Casey and the shire of Cardinia. So I have watched with much interest its progression and its growth over this transitional period of time.
My members are the first in their agricultural pursuits, and indeed I am proud of the economic benefit that they bring to the area. I am aware that within the submissions received by your committee, perhaps mine identifies how important both the City of Casey and the Shire of Cardinia are in providing valuable infrastructure for the livestock industries.
Please note— and it was just mentioned before— that we do have the Wagstaff abattoir in Cranbourne, and in my submission I did note that there are three abattoirs within the city of Casey and the shire of Cardinia— the Garfield abattoir and the huge export abattoirs at O’Connors at Pakenham.
In my submission I probably did leave out one abattoir. I am not too sure whether Cashtons abattoir is still operational at Dandenong but there are definitely three abattoirs and there may even be four.
The livestock industry in the area is well supported by the Victorian Livestock Exchange here in Pakenham. Please understand that it does not just service the livestock industries of both the city of Casey and the shire of Cardinia; it also draws in livestock from right throughout Gippsland and from further abroad, from other districts. It is a premium selling location for stock, it has good buyer presence, and people will transport animals a long distance— and I think that is quite remarkable— into an interface shire for the sale of their livestock. Also I note that when you do have that transport into the area you are also bringing economic activity with it at the same time.
Many people would not know that the Cardinia shire is indeed the fourth ranked largest dairy shire in the whole of Gippsland. We rank fourth behind the shires of Baw Baw, Wellington, and South Gippsland. It is a point that is not really emphasised enough in that when you analyse the whole of Gippsland, Cardinia shire, an interface shire, is the fourth largest milk producer. Sure enough it is a magnitude below the other three, but it still ranks number four.
More importantly, with respect to dairying in this area, we are really a transitional area for dairying. We have a lot of tanker movements, and I did mention in my submission that something like 10different factories are picking up milk or transporting milk through the area, and indeed on my particular road, the Seven Mile Road, on any particular day I can actually see four milk tankers travel up and down that road, and in saying so, I am the only dairy farmer on that road. It is 10kilometres in length and I am the only one there, but four tankers do move up and down the road.
That poses another problem too in that here we are, an interface shire, with significant issues with respect to vehicular movement. They are not picking up a huge quantity of milk in the area but they are crossing through the area, which is putting a huge amount of pressure on not only our arterial roads but our feeder roads, which are in a constant state of disrepair.
Milk production in this area will continue to decline. It is only natural that we cannot compete as dairy farmers for land in this area. We are in a situation like most farming activities where you have to expand and make your business more profitable, and larger enterprises are certainly the way of the future, and certainly it is a nonviable proposition to see milk in this area; but please understand that milk still exists here simply because of this area’s unique characteristics— climate, soil type, and the availability of water. They are the key attributes to any industry, and they are also a key attribute for the dairy industry to survive in this area.
I want to highlight that we did farm on Hallam Road, Hampton Park, now known as Lynbrook. When my late father set up his new dairy in 1960 there were something like 30dairy farms on Hallam Road, all the way up to Belgrave. We were the last to cease dairying there in 1989 when I moved to the current facility. And even when I talk about my Seven Mile Road farm, when I moved there 20years ago there were actually seven dairy farmers along the Seven Mile Road, but I am the only one there now.
There are two things that I can say with respect to that. The first point is that I am the youngest of all those dairy farmers along the road— there is a natural attrition that goes through— and I am also the only farmer along that road that did have access to water, and water availability, so it actually provides security to my business going forward— the ability to work myself through difficult years.
Certainly you must all realise that it does not matter where you have been in the state of Victoria, the whole state is under water stress and this area is no different to any other, so certainly that has been my strength in this particular area, where I have been able to work myself through these difficult times.
We also do have a quite vibrant chicken industry in the area, and you need to understand that it exists in the area primarily because of its close location to Melbourne, to the feed milling facilities and also its close location to the processing works. There are animal health issues there with respect to the transport of those birds; they cannot move a large distance from their place of rearing to the place of slaughter, so that is the reason why they exist in the area.
They also do have tremendous employment prospects— a good labour force that is also close by that does assist that industry. I also make the point within my submission as well with respect to the feed milling facilities. We have one there in Dandenong, we have the feed mill at Pakenham and also the Inghams mill there at Clyde. It is quite remarkable that you see those three major milling facilities— one in Cardinia and two in Casey— that do actually service the likes of the boiler industry and the dairy industry for the best part of Gippsland. The next biggest milling facility outside of those three in Gippsland is actually at Maffra, so three out of the four biggest milling facilities are located within these interface shires.
As growth continues to take place, these interface shires will continue to play a role with respect to agriculture for Gippsland. I do note that as speakers before me have spoken a little about water infrastructure, I would like to take a few minutes to emphasise a few more points about that. I note with interest and I watched quite enthusiastically the eastern treatment facility and its providing of 5gigalitres of water to the vegetable growers of Casey basically, and to see that scheme actually exceed all expectations and be at a point where it is exceeding capacity is heartwarming for myself, from a farming point of view, and I have always seen it as a pilot project going forward for greater expansion of a similar facility; but please understand that you cannot just have the water, you also have to have the skills, the people, and also the soil types which are suitable for that water to be used on.
It was quite heartening to see Liam’s slides showing that the area around Muddy Gates Lane is not an area where you want to put any water, and I fully support what he did say there, that it is not a place for a retarding basin, it is not a good place for intensive agriculture, you need to skip past that and get on to some of the better soils heading towards the likes of Lang Lang, as I said in my submission, which are sandy soils, or indeed the soil of the Koo Wee Rup swamp. Please understand that where I farm at the moment we have been farming continuously there for more than a hundred years, where the swamp was actually drained.
In supporting all our infrastructure we need to let you know what is happening within the horticulture preservation area of the Koo Wee Rup swamp— an area which, as I stated before, I have actually farmed for the best part of 20years. There have been three new dams built on the KooWeeRup swamp. I built one of them, there have been another two dams, one of which has been expanded in size and a third which has been refurbished. That is us as farmers making an investment in our future into agriculture in the area.
There are also farmers taking water security very seriously, and taking the ability to actually store water on a farm for our longterm businesses. We do understand that water is a very valuable commodity right across the state, and it is very valuable to our farming communities as well, and please note, as a committee, that we are taking proactive measures on our behalf to secure our ability to produce food into the future.
We appreciate that the soil type is one that needs to be farmed forever, basically. You cannot go anywhere else in the state and find a soil type that is as strong and robust as the Koo Wee Rup swamp. I am speaking from experience. Indeed my dairy farming operation is somewhat different to most other dairy farming operations. I am a cropper, I am an irrigator, I am a harvester of fodder crops. I use my soil to the best of my capabilities to provide a feed source for my cows.
It is really very much of a European or an American model; it is not necessarily what you would call a full grazing system on an Australian model. Sometimes you have got to think outside of the square and sometimes you have got to use the most efficient delivery sources you have available to you. You will get a bulldozer turn up to build a dam and he pushes 18inches of topsoil to one side and he says, ‘What are we going to do with all this topsoil?’.
It has been there for all this time. It has stood the test of time and it will continue to produce food quite comfortably for the next 100 or more years, because it is a reclaimed swamp; it is an area which is used to actually having water on it. It is not an area like the MurrayDarling Basin which has suffered from salinity and salt issues. We joke that within the Koo Wee Rup swamp we spend half our time taking the water off and half of the time putting the water back on. We have not done much of the taking off of water in the last 10years, I can assure you.
Hopefully that clarifies to you with respect to water infrastructure just how important it is. You also talked to a person who was an irrigator for all of my life, and I am quite well aware of how important it is to shore up a business.
I would like to spend a few minutes talking about the growth areas infrastructure tax and the proposed moving of the urban growth boundary. As I have noted before, I am a person who has actually seen the change taking place and I am a little bit fearful of how it is going to impact on farming and farming businesses. Please understand that farmers are not land speculators, they are not people who are out to make a quick buck.
As I said, we have owned land there, at what you call Lynbrook, for the best part of 125years. We have farmed it as a farm and it still runs livestock today. My greatest concern with the growth areas infrastructure tax is that it is basically grabbing too much land too fast. I believe it should be done in a staged process, with a much slower staging than is actually proposed.
This highlight some of the problems with an organisation like mine. You have got a number of different farmers who can sit around a room and who have all got a little bit of a different perspective. It depends on where you are in your life and where your farm is located as to what your particular view is, and our views do change from time to time. I think we are all in the same boat.
If you have got a property that is just about to be developed within the next two or three years, your perspective is going to be, ‘Bring it on! Move the development in, let us move on and let us start a business or relocate elsewhere’. But if you are located within that growth areas infrastructure zone, or the proposed moved area, and you are another 10 to 15years away from development, then you are in limbo for 10 or 15years, because basically you are not going to spend the capital that is required on that business to continue to take it forward. You have a perceived rising of property values, which means that you cannot expand the business. You have only got one potential market for it. You have also got a rate increase occurring right at that point in time although you are not earning any more on it.