MELBOURNE’S infamous dust storm was one of the most dramatic consequences of the 1982 to 1983 drought.
More than 50,000 tonnes of topsoil was stripped from the Mallee region, with about 1000t dropped on the city.
It caused health issues, reduced traffic visibility and power blackouts for the city, and shone a significant spotlight on the cropping industry’s production methods.
“Society and communities were asking the question, ‘what are you farmers actually doing?’” Animal Health Australia director Sharon Starick said.
“The risk for the grains industry was that government would step in and legislate, using a big bat to fix the problem.”
Unlike the greyhound industry, which has been exposed for illegal training practices and mass greyhound graves and led to an attempt by the NSW Government to shut down the industry, the grains industry reacted to society pressure.
Ms Starick, a pig and grain producer from the Mallee region, SA, said the revolution of no till farming and stubble retention practices was the outcome of industry-wide commitment to addressing wind erosion factors highlighted by the massive dust storms of 1983.
During the Australian Meat Processor Corporation’s conference, The Vital Ingredient, held in Sydney recently, Ms Starick spoke of the increased pressure on commodities’ social licence to operate.
She said industries failing to lift animal welfare and environmental standards will fail under the weight of consumer pressure.
Similarly, the pork industry has been under a significant amount of animal welfare and environmental pressure from society.
Ms Starick said it was not only the mission of animal activists but increasingly, consumers wanting food produced ethically.
“That is a fine balancing act when we see consumer who are further removed from understanding where their meat comes from and how it is producers, yet consumers have an expectation that meat is relatively cheap and needs to meets their expectations,” she said.
“The pork industry was at risk that either governments would step in would tell us how to fix the problems or potentially our industry would close down.”
The consumer pressure has led to the industry voluntarily phasing out sow stalls, the development of a modern code of practice for pig welfare and the Australian Pork Industry Quality Program.
“Whether you are a farmer or further along the value chain, we need to be able to communicate and engage with consumers about what we do and why we do it,” she said.
“We need to be actively involved in leading and shaping the way forward – to not do so could be at our peril in the long-term.
“If we ignore that, if we don’t step up and take on that leadership role as industry, we are at risk of going down the same path as the greyhound industry in NSW where with a stroke of a pen, overnight, suddenly your industry can change dramatically.”
During the conference, Australian Livestock Exporters Council chairman Simon Crean said it was no longer enough for the livestock industry to just focus on economic clout - on supply and demand, competitiveness and opening markets – “good animal welfare outcomes represented good business”.
Mr Crean said the “breathtaking scale” of the controversial ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 brought the need for social licence to operate dramatically home.
“The demand exists – whether you like it or not – for the live product… the challenge for the Australian industry is to respond to that demand in a quality way,” he said.
“A quality that reinforces the brand being reliable and safe, and increasingly one that is committed to lead the debate on animal welfare standards.”