To: The Executive Officer Rural and Regional Committee Parliament House Spring Street VIC 3000

From: Andrew Farran Director Yiddinga Holdings Pty Ltd PO Box 222 EDENHOPE Vic. 3318

Re: INQUIRY INTO THE CAPACITY OF THE FARMING SECTOR TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN YOUNG FARMERS AND RESPOND TO AN AGEING WORKFORCE

This submission is made in relation to the above inquiry.

We run a 5,000 acre (approx) fine wool and sheep enterprise in the West within the parameters of Edenhope, Apsley and Langkoop, carrying some 25,000 dse (sheep and some cattle). We have 3 full time employees and some part time. Some work is contracted out. Additional numbers are engaged at certain times, such as at shearing.

Issues relevant to the Committee's deliberations are:

1. Community structure and supporting services 2. Skills shortages in the district, education and career development 3. Seasonal conditions, commodity prices and currency fluctuations - and employment issues. 4. Shire finances

1. Community structure and supporting services

The Age newspaper's website describes Edenhope as follows: "Edenhope is a small and unexceptional country town of 900 people situated adjacent to Lake Wallace and amidst an undulating landscape which is given over to wool and grazing. The administrative and business centre of the West Wimmera shire, it is located on the 30 km from the South Australian border and 394 km north-west of Melbourne via Horsham (95 km north-east)".

In area the Shire of West Wimmera is relatively large (some 9,200 sq kms), including the towns of and Harrow. The Shire's population is some 4,600, though declining. Its finances are stretched to meet a growing demand for services, especially aged services. The community includes a mixture of the aged (retirees) and the very young (school children) with not a great deal in between in terms of critical numbers, skills and finances. School leavers mostly move elsewhere to further their education and seek wider opportunities. Those that remain generally lack formal skills or the opportunity to acquire them. There is a considerable amount of underemployment. For some school leavers there would be merit in the State government sponsoring competitive rural scholarships for tendering at the few remaining accredited agricultural colleges.

Farm structures have changed markedly in recent decades. While they included a number of large pastoral estates in the 19th Century these were mostly broken up into smaller units, including Soldier Settler blocks, especially after World War 2. Once that generation had passed, and given that not all that many were retained as family units thereafter, there has been some consolidation of these smaller operations into larger, corporate businesses. As well, modern machinery and technology have radically reduced the need for pure labour; instead there is a premium need for technical skills allied to vastly more productive machinery and scientifically based farming methods. This leaves the unskilled well behind, if anywhere.

There are no alternative significant industries in prospect or conditions likely to attract new capital apart from agriculture. The blue gum planting boom faded as fast as it began, but will leave a legacy of population loss and following harvesting, a degraded landscape. The sense of drift has been palpable. However with the better wool prices now being experienced the local economy may begin to pick up and employment prospects improve (unless the present fears of a global meltdown materialises).

Clubs and societies in the major towns are active, particularly sporting groups, but the latter at the adult level lack the strength, numbers and depth to hold their own in competition within the wider region, unlike in the past. Local entertainment is often keen and creative, sometimes achieving great heights; but none of this is sufficient or open enough to attract and hold outside talent (in all spheres). There is something still of the 'closed shop' about the district, which has long-standing historical origins when thiings were very different from the present. Volunteering also is fading though there is a pervasive spirit of goodwill towards the willing. The towns are ticking over from year to year but most shedding bits and pieces as time goes on.

The Shire has an excellent website offering a comprehensive range of information on many facets of the region, Council activities, and on life there in general.

2. Skills shortages in the district, education and career development

The education provided at the local schools is generally very high in standard and quality. But after that most school leavers, as noted in 1. above, leave town to further their education and seek wider opportunities. Many (most) do not return. Of those left behind there are few facilities for acquiring skills apart from work attachments from which useful experience and some skills may be gained. Given the fact that the major surrounding industries are agricultural, particularly sheep and wool, it is surprising that semi-formal opportunities that are available in the larger regional cities are not facilitated in these smaller towns. Specifically sheep and wool handling is not purely labouring tasks. Wool handling in the shearing shed is a task that has very specific requirements which do not require genius to acquire but without meeting those requirements serious qualitative damage can be done to the wool product as it is processed through the shed. AWI and others have been funding both shearer and wool handling training but from the point of view of an underemployed adult in the Edenhope district (town and country) these seem remote or inaccessible, and unplanned. The physical facility for such training exists at the showgrounds (funded by a previous State government). If these underemployed people were to be brought into the loop, not only would the standard of wool handling in the district be much improved but the training that might be given to them would open up career and other opportunities to make for more productive lives.

3. Seasonal conditions, commodity prices, currency fluctuations - and employment issues

Seasonal conditions vary from year to year. Recent years have been very good. Prior to that there were some 8 years of drought or near drought which made working conditions and profitability somewhat problematical. This obviously restricted the ability of farmers and town traders to engage more people in employment. The lack of consistency in this regard can have a demoralising effect on those lacking full or any employment and in time this can degenerate into a welfare dependency mentality. Edenhope is not unaffected in this regard.

Commodity price and currency fluctuations similarly affect employment opportunities and farmers' ability to upgrade operations, with or without skilled labour. However in recent years the sheep and wool industries have enjoyed better times and are more outward looking in their approach to new ideas and development. Even allowing for the current volatility following the GFC and global indebtedness issues, there are farmers in this district anxious to extend their operations, to free up top skilled personnel from routine tasks, and employ and develop the skills of underemployed adults in the district if only there was the motivation and the opportunity to initiate the development of those skills. Indeed there should exist an incentive to bring others in from unemployed and underemployed areas in nearby towns and cities (e.g. Horsham, Naracoorte, Hamilton, Ararat and perhaps Ballarat). But efforts of this kind, even if tried, falter against the wider attractions available in those more diverse and better resourced locations.

4. Shire finances

The Shire's finances, as noted, are stretched. The rateable base is eroding and in that regard greater pressure is being placed on the farming sectors to make ends meet. There is an increasing reliance on voluntary groups to provide some basic community services. Moreover, there has been a regressive tendency in recent years on the part of State governments to pass down a number of responsibilities and costs to the Shires - without compensatory funding. This places an enormous squeeze on the Shires, which in the long run is counter-productive and inequitable. The R&R Committee should look further into this and seek better coordination and integration of functions (and funding) between the State and Federal governments and the Shires.

With regard to rates, and their effect on farm lands, we would note that for some time there has been a push to have rural, especially productive farm land, placed on a different rateable footing from that which now applies; that is, to abolish the requirement to collect rates from productive and income earning farm land (which is subject to State and Federal imposts in other respects anyway), but excluding residences and other dwellings from this exemption. For many farmers Shire rates loom more as an enterprise or land tax regardless of seasonal factors, commodity prices, foreign exchange volatility, or capacity to pay. There is also the fact that many rural residents by reason of distance are in effect precluded from Shire services which town-dwellers take for granted. As numbers drift from the towns, and welfare requirements there increase, and as State governments continue to shed responsibilities back onto the Shires, it is not good enough for the rural (and wider) economy, or for rural employment and skills development, to lumber the farming sector with these disproportionate imposts in the name of rates, which do not take account of income flows or capacity to pay in volatile and always changing circumstances.

ANDREW FARRAN Director, Yiddinga Holdings Pty Ltd Sheep & Fine Wool Growers