AT times I forget that we live in a very diverse area, which lends itself to many forms of agriculture.
Saturday evening i attended the official opening for the Thorpdale Spud Festival, which was held at the Thorpdale community hall. This area is in my Councilor ward, and set in some of the best quality, prime red soil of Victoria.
While Thorpdale produces some of the best fat lambs, and some of the best prime bullocks, it is also well known for the growing of potatoes.
Undulating hills, which have significant dams for irrigation, this area is ripe for all forms of agriculture. Dairying occurs here too, as does other forms of cultivation, which mostly produces onions for the Japanese market.
While attending the official opening, I had the opportunity to speak with many locals about their issues, and the topic of Chinese ownership came up.
For the potato industry in general, and here in Thorpdale, a Chinese consortium purchased a major potatoe wholesaling business in Sydney, which has not closed due to poor management.
The loss of income to Thorpdale, and other wholesalers, left a big hole in bank accounts, and a sour taste in many mouths.
Gippsland, as an area, has been badly affected by Chinese ownership, with the Toora butter factory defunct, and some of the more significant dairy farms purchased over the past few years, are looking very sad indeed.
Currently, Tabro meats, formerly a prosperous, privately owned abattoir, is now owned by a Chinese company, but they failed to operate since Christmas.
Not only their export abattoir at Wonthaggi is closed, but their Moe works has been shut for two years. One can only imagine what a loss this is causing to the beef industry.
There is another downside to this is, there are at least two private operators that are owed substantial amounts of money.
While Tabro meats is not yet defunct, they are rumored to be re-opening very soon, which means they should have repaid those debts. Some say foreign investment is good for Australia, however, given these statistics, one can only wonder.
Some of this foreign ownership that again relates to the livestock industry, is JBS, who are a Brazilian company. Although JBS’s financial position is very sound, they are currently having short term closures to alienate some of their losses, due to very poor supply.
The Thorpdale Spud Festival is on March 12.