australia unable to feed country, page-21

The mining tax was supposed to go some way to solving the structural imbablance in our economy that leads to our dollar being to high for the manufacturing and agricultural industries to compete. I'm pretty appalled how easily influenced people are by advertising and their own self interest that they couldn't see it and with Gillard's caving in to the mining lobby. But anyway.
There are more problems with agriculture than just currency. As pointed out we have to compete with very low wages/land cost countries, then the countries that are higher cost have absolutely massive subsidies. I am into beef cattle and follow the prices and US farmers get paid 50-75% more for their cattle, and that's adjusted for our ludicrously high dollar!

[Quote]After easing throughout the past month, the US fed cattle market rallied last Friday to around 127-129US¢/lb lwt (280-284US¢/kg lwt) – the highest level since December. The sharp increase was driven by the reduction in the fed cattle supply, with two major late winter storms disrupting cattle movements and logistics.[/Quote]