KANIVA district farmers, hit hard by drought conditions last year, have told Victorian agriculture minister Jaala Pulford they would prefer the State Government’s $27 million drought assistance package to focus on ways of allowing farmers to help themselves.
Ms Pulford met with community representatives from the West Wimmera region this week as part of a consultation process with drought affected communities across the state. One of the key messages the delegation, who all farm in the West Wimmera Shire, which has one of the largest road networks. was rate relief is required. “It’s at the stage now where our annual rates bill basically would equal another full time worker,” said Jonno Hicks, who runs Hannaton Merinos together with his parents at Kaniva.
Fellow local farmer Karen Rabone acknowledged any rate subsidy program would have to have eligibility criteria. He said farmers were struggling, because they had to pick up such a large proportion of the shire’s rate base, due to the low population. Alwyn Dyer, whose enterprise revolves primarily around cropping, said access to affordable, effective multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI) product would be a game-changer. “We took out MPCI this year, which was definitely the right move given our poor yields, but it irks me that we have to pay both GST and stamp duty on the policy. “Government could help growers in a hands-on manner by abolishing both of these additional costs, making MPCI more accessible.” He said Australia’s fledgling MPCI industry was on the right track, but said government intervention would allow more growers to become involved thus making premiums more affordable.
Steven Hobbs, who hosted the meeting at his farm north of Kaniva, agreed that allowing farmers a chance to self-insure would be a wise use of drought funding, but raised the possibility of setting up a tax advantaged deposit system as an alternative to MPCI. “In my case, while we need some sort of insurance, that insurance premium can be up to 10pc of my profit in a good year and that sort of deduction from the bottom line can amount to a death by a thousand cuts.”
