Macquarie 2100 has run a workshop with the title 'Diversity is King' and it goes for all aspects of life, it's nature's way of telling us we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket because, if catastrophe befalls us, we break the lot leaving us with nothing.
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This non-diverse policy pretty much parallels Australian agriculture at the moment in many ways.
On the broadacre side of things we have vast areas sown to wheat and a few side crops such as canola, barley and oats, and disease is an ever-present concern because there are such vast monoculture plantings across the grain belts.
Another disease is a lack of markets, with a few transnational grain traders controlling the worldwide prices fairly tightly and farmers having few options to sell elsewhere.
We have irrigated cotton but in years where there's almost nil water allocations, only farmers with groundwater can grow it, and even then the price is in the doldrums at the moment.
Farm chemical and fertiliser production is also controlled by a smattering of major corporations and the prices for these inputs seem to fluctuate with the seasons. To an outsider it appears that they're priced at whatever the sellers think farmers can afford in a particular year.
We also have little vertical integration in our major grains' industries, with farmers forced to sell in bulk at wholesale prices, at the same time hoping that the nearby rail lines stay open to ensure they can get their product to the end user within the ultra skinny margins.
Thus any secondary industry jobs are exported off-shore to enrich communities in other nations.
All this against a backdrop of prolonged droughts.
All this against a backdrop of the majority of farmers, who, in a good year, receive just about 1 per cent return on capital equity.
In other words, if you had to buy a farm and then do the sums, you'd be going backwards at a great rate of knots - this is why regional Australia has been steadily retreating from the prosperity we enjoyed 40 years ago.
We've got many irrigators with capital intensive centre pivots who rely on their super sweet corn crops which they grow for Simplot, but that company is constantly on the verge of shutting up shop in Australia and there are precious few alternate crops to keep those pivots in use.
That's if you can afford the huge electricity or diesel bills to keep the pumps in operation.
It's this big picture which Macquarie 2100 is trying to change by looking at ways we can create opportunities for new crops so farmers can spread their risk.
This means finding or creating new markets and putting in place supply chains so the products can get to the buyer in a seamless manner.
Miscanthus Gigantus is a giant grass that, once established, grows at no cost each year where it can be harvested for 15 to 20 years.
Each tonne of this crop produces the same energy as half a tonne of coal and it's being pushed hard in Europe and the USA.
There are plenty of other biofuel crops we're looking at, this valley needs to get growers experienced in planting and harvesting such crops so the expertise and seeds are available when these new crops become mainstream.
It's why the industrial iHemp forum we're staging in conjunction with RDA (Orana) at Narromine Aero Club on October 13 is so important. We need people from all sections of the lower valley community to come along and show their support to establish new crops and industries so we can reverse the ailments afflicting our patch of regional Australia.
To register for this free forum email admin@rdaorana.org.au.
