General News
11 April, 2023
Opinions: Farmers in it together
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Farmers ... all in this together Sir, Along with my husband, we are farmers - we were raised by farmers and now we are the parents of two young farmers. Life on land is pretty darn good, we have our challenges but overall, we...
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Farmers ... all in
this together
Sir, Along with my husband, we are farmers - we were raised by farmers and now we are the parents of two young farmers.
Life on land is pretty darn good, we have our challenges but overall, we love what we do; there is an enormous amount of job satisfaction when we get things right.
Like all farmers, we work hard, we put in long hours in a self-employed occupation that’s a gamble. With a gamble comes risks, stress, sleepless nights and mental health issues.
Much of this goes unseen as farmers are the great pretenders. Farmers make passing comments such as, “she’ll be right mate;” “it’ll work out;” “it will be what it will be!”
This attitude has helped us through many tough times but maybe it’s time to get tough!
Recently our district has been blindsided with the news that 500kV towers, the size of the MCG lights and powerlines, will be draped across farmland.
The proposed route is from Dinawan to Bulgana, however details of the precise course of the double-circuit overhead transmission line appear to be confidential with the AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) keeping their cards very close to their chest.
I believe, and I think that most of us (the landholders/farmers) believe, that AEMO knows exactly where the powerlines will run.
Many questions are being raised by farmers regarding the health risks, land loss due to easements, increased fire dangers, limitations of machinery use, restrictions of irrigation and devaluation of land.
Answers to these pressing and prevailing questions are not being provided by AEMO.
It is our valuable farmland; surely, we deserve transparent and accurate answers to our concerns.
There is fear and frustration circulating amongst the farmers with many expressing that not one dollar of compensation will be worth the negative effects.
Collectively we are powerful but we keep being played and plagued with compliance after more compliance red tape, and we keep complying.
I’ve noticed that if one farming industry isn’t personally impacted, we sit quietly and let them fight their own battle. For example, the dairy farmers and the Murray-Darling Basin scandal saw many dairy farmers leave the land and it is still one of the most spoken about issues at every state and federal election.
Our fellow farmers in the Western Renewables Link district have been fighting this powerline project for the past three years, it’s only now, when it’s at our back door, do we care.
There is strength in unity. Farmers, we have a voice, let’s use it collectively. This is not a time to sit on our hands and think, ‘she’ll be right!’
Let’s stand together as one united body and articulate our concerns and demand answers.
We can direct our questions and objections, in writing, to AEMO and to our local and state governments and the VFF.
As farmers, we are all in this together.
Susie Lockhart
Berrimul
Avoid trap and show
local unity
Sir, It was encouraging to read of the Loddon Shire Councillors’ tentative support for landholders who face the prospect of gigantic transmission towers terrorising the landscape. (Loddon Herald March 30).
It can sometimes be tempting to feel relief, or to see this as someone else’s problem, if your town or farm is not in the proposed footprint.
But everyone pays a price if these 500 kiloVolt lines with 85-metre high towers are imposed upon us. Just in my small part of the world, the impact on the natural beauty of Pyramid Hill, the Loddon River, Boort Lakes, the Granites (Mt Egbert), Mt Buckrabanyule will be devastating.
Not to mention the lost productivity to farm land which has a flow on effect to the entire community – less grain in the receival sites, less stock for the stock agent, less irrigation supplies etc.
It seems that AEMO’s vague details and drip feeding of information is a deliberate strategy to prevent communities from uniting.
I hope our Loddon residents can show we are not going to fall into that trap. But instead, we show strength in unity. It doesn’t matter exactly whose backyard, we should support each other by writing our objections to AEMO.
Susan Gould
Mysia
Man-made challenge
sent this way
Sir, Insensitive, insulting, disresoectful and so the list goes on.
The way in which the proposed transmision line Option 5 has been introduced to our community is nothing short of pathetic.
We heard a whisper of the route of a transmission line being changed to now going ‘somewhere’ (no one can say where) in our local communities and very soon after became aware that the Minister for Energy Lily D’Ambrosio, had issued a ministerial order exempting the projects from challenges under the National Electricity Rules.
Three short weeks to have our ‘submisssions’ emailed with less than minimal information.
A drop-in session – the young people who were handing out the fact sheets, admitted they knew nothing about the project, an opportunity to have your say and be paid $20 if you were lucky enough to be in the local supermarket on the right day, and a meeting time and date found on Facebook!
A poor attempt for community consultation but maybe a better one for ‘ticking the boxes’ which appears sadly to be the way we seem to do things today.
This project, if it goes ahead, will have catastrophic implications for our local farming families with their livelihoods being in jeopardy.
This will have a catastrophic knock on effect on our towns, farms not being viable will see the young families move on, school numbers decrease, shops and businesses close, health services no longer viable – it is not a great picture for our back yard.
The saying ‘If it’s not in our back yard it doesn’t matter’ – this proposal has been shifted from someone else’s back yard to our back yard, we have to shift it as well. It is not a challenge that mother nature has sent us, it is not a drought, flood or mouse plague, it is a man-made challenge that can be changed - if we want it badly enough.
Glenda Watts
Charlton