Mecardo Blog

Back in December the Indian government imposed a 30 per cent chickpea and lentil tariff on imports, which would affect many Australian growers. As of March 1^st, the tariff was hiked up to 60 per cent. The latest rumours are tipping that it may increase again, anywhere up to 100% in coming months. Headlines have cried a crisis on the Australian chickpea and pulse industry at this devastating blow and lost market.

While this is a significant setback to Australian chickpea, pea and lentil growers and traders, particularly for the 2018 season, the larger concern should be focusing on the state of agricultural production in India and what this might mean in the long term.

China has come along way from the “great leap forward” program undertaken by Chairman Mao in 1958 that was aimed to move the country from a largely agrarian based economy into an industrialised, collectively owned global power house. 

The “great leap forward” was widely acknowledged as a dismal failure which lead to periods of famine and economic recession.However, the modern China bears little resemblance to the disaster of the “great leap”.

In this article we take a look at how Australia can change how infrastructure investment is managed, in order to compete on a global stage. 

This is an astonishing comment from a leading South African politician. If you have been following the news in recent days, you would likely be aware of the deteriorating situation facing South African farmers. In 2017, 82 farmers were killed, in 423 attacks on farms. So far in 2018 there have been 15 murders and 109 attacks.

What is going on, what is likely to be the impact of these actions, and should they learn some lessons from neighbouring Zimbabwe?

South Australia is the only major crop producing area in Australia which does not allow the commercial production of GM crops. We were tasked by the industry with answering the question:

”Does the GM moratorium, provide a premium price to South Australian farmers?”

“For students starting a 4-year degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.”

This was one of the startling facts I learnt recently from a YouTube post discussing the rate of change and innovation that has occurred around the world and is predicted for the future.

It included other amazing stats like the 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ’s ……. is greater than the total population of the USA!

And, “China will soon become the Number #1 English speaking country in the world”, along with, it took 38 years for the radio to reach a market audience of 50 million, 13 years for TV, and 2 years for Facebook to reach an audience of 50 million. 

Both these projections seem amazing but also plausible to me, but what if someone had told us this 30 years ago? Would we have believed it or even done things differently?

Agriculture is in a fortunate position, it produces a non-discretionary consumer product, that is the need for food sits at the very top of the consumer spending decisions. This is good, but this fact alone cannot be relied upon to sustain our farms. Complacency in industry or business is not justified and we should look to learn from other sectors for methods to drive growth. 

Toto have been singing about it since 1982, but should livestock producers be paying more attention to Africa in the future, instead of India? 

The Australian livestock sector is perfectly located to take advantage of the growing population of middle class wealth expected to stem from Asia in the coming years. Indeed, there are more mouths to feed in the regions to our north west than there are in the rest of the world – Figure 1. Over 50% of the current world population reside in the shaded circle.

The philosophy ‘Invest in what you know’, advocated by Warren Buffett, has been a popular guide for investors. The premise is that having specialized knowledge in the field should mean an investor can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of the business, evaluate the industries climate and know when to make a move. But is this really an ideal strategy to follow for those in agriculture or is it placing all your eggs in one basket?

All this bickering about water and access to water is doing my head in at the moment. You would think it is a crucial element to our survival the way the commentators are carrying on about it... actually, wait a minute – it is!

Protests in steak restaurants, sheep vigils, monuments to fallen chicken & attacking fictional cartoon characters. These are areas which animal rights activists have campaigned in the past month.

In the modern world of social media, and instant communication, it can be easy to spread a message. How should the industry respond to these stunts?