On the 23 January 2007, Woolworths (Safeway) will be donating its entire supermarket's profits for the day to the drought relief. The funds will primarily be used by the CWA for immediate support for rural families with the remainder to help fund research into sustainable farming practices. This is expected to be in excess of $3 million dollars.
So if you do your normal shopping on the 23 January you will helping farming families who are current doing it tough.
Please pass this on to as many people as possible.

http://www.woolworths.com.au/woolworths+ceo+pledges+support+for+drought+reflief.asp

Hope this isn't a repeat, no search found anything on 'wool'.

Um... shouldnt they be financially supporting their suppliers anyway?

Yet another hand out to farmers that are affected by .

If it's not drought it's flooding or hail or something else. Farmers should harden the f*** up.

If it's not drought it's flooding or hail or something else. Farmers should harden the f*** up.

You've got no idea buddy, my dad owns a farm and is being forced to sell all his live stock because the cost of keeping them is becoming to taxing, since the land is pretty much dust.

Hundreds of businesses go bust every year - why should farmers get constant special treatment?

There's no doubt it sucks but everyone else manages to realise their in a f***ed situation and change professions, careers, jobs, etc.

because they are the backbone of our country /bandwagon

Err, its not as easy as saying change jobs. If theres no farmers what the hell vegies and meat are you planning to eat??

In saying this i do believe the skys will open and there will be lots of flooding soon, and we will all live happily ever after.

thats a fairy f***ing tale story sweetheart. only if life was that happy and cheerful.

yeh flooding is a fairytale lmao

I don't think running a large farm is comparable to a job in a city or town ticman. It's probably not just something you can say "ok I quit, time to go for some job interviews" - iIt's a way of life for probably most of them, and it's something I imagine they'd probably have to get into massive debt to run, with a view to slowly paying it off over a long time. If you let farming become such a f***ed up prospect that eventually no-one wants to do it, where would we be?

My guess is that farmers get special treatment so we can continue our cushy mega-consuming lifestyles

I can only imagine the cries from the cities when we have to import more and more basic produce instead of buying it locally from farmers, and the cost increase runs downhill like a snowball toward the end consumer

Im pretty sure theres an argument somewhere about Woolies ripping farmers off 365/24/7, but Im not that interested in making it

Well I know someone that owns a Bananna farm in NSW.
They got ~13c more /kg when we were paying ~5-10 $ more in the store.

That could probably go far in an argument.

i think the argument maxe was refering to is the bullying of saying "we can buy vegetable x from indonesia for 50c/kilo and you are charging us $2/kilo, match their price or we'll goto them.

Hundreds of businesses go bust every year - why should farmers get constant special treatment?

I can't think of any really good reasons except the fact that they keep us alive, which is practically not even worth mentioning

After working in the produce industry for en extended period, there is definately for and against arguments.
Woolies on one hand i know of in more than one occasion tell thier contracted farmers how much they will be getting for x produce. I have illegally purchased goods from farmers at cheaper than market value due to them not wanting to supply thier entire crop to woolworths at a ridiculously lower price.
Then the other hand, Bananas. I know of farmers not releasing their crop before they are paid in full, in cash.
With the new crop coming through, your local fruiter is currently buying Bananas at around $20-$25 a 13kg carton or less.
There are also many stories of B-Doubles full of a farmers crop being sold at market value and the farmer being told the quality wasn't there , they had to be discounted , so here's your pissant share.

The saga continues...

Jimmles, of course it's not comparable and of course considerations and allowances should be made and I'm all for doing that whole charity starts at home stuff.

But every few months (weeks maybe?) the farming communities are getting millions in aid and support courtesy of our tax dollars for the sole benefit of selling back to us produce that we assisted in paying. s***s me off that they cry wolf every time something messes them up, re: comment on hail, flooding and drought.

Woolies/Coles exploit farmers beyond belief - hence why I goto the flea markets or a fruit & veg store instead as the qualities a whole lot better and the farmers see alot more bling.

I can't think of any really good reasons except the fact that they keep us alive, which is practically not even worth mentioning

What about being able to import our produce from overseas for a lot cheaper than it costs to buy locally.

Yeah, not helping the farmers through drought is a stupid concept. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

What about being able to import our produce from overseas for a lot cheaper than it costs to buy locally.

Valid point, but I'd prefer to pay more, and eat something that was grown in .au as opposed to something grown in .tw

So if you do your normal shopping on the 23 January

I only shop on that date

What about being able to import our produce from overseas for a lot cheaper than it costs to buy locally.

You think we'd ever actually see those savings? Hell no, you'd go to the supermarket and pay the same you've always paid, the only difference is the supermarket would be making more profit and your money would be going into the pockets of some overseas exporter instead of Australian farmers.

Besides, dont we have like some of the best beef in the world? If thats the case, why the f*** would you want to eat imported s***?

If it's not drought it's flooding or hail or something else. Farmers should harden the f*** up.

This is TicMan. He can't handle hearing about the hardships of other people on internet forums. Harden the f*** up, TicMan.

Alot of good points raised here. Ticman is correct on the fact that farmers do have a choice. But, under exceptional circumstances I.E. a big ass drought, surely compassion is granted. Furthermore, being a teacher in a rural community, i teach children as young as 6 who are expected to run the property when they grow up, and hence, do not get any formal education other than high school - farming is their life. How do you expect a farmer, who only knows how to farm, to obtain normal employment?

Plus, what of the bigger corporations purchasing "quality" products and sending them overseas to bigger buyers, and in return buying from overseas "lesser quality produce." I know for a fact that some of the meat you guys are eating, particularly lamb, is not of the standard you expect.

3 mil - onya

I bought like one of those meataxe cardboard fruit containers out west full of juicy tomatos, I mean beauties, for $4. That's like 30 tomatos.

In contrast it costs me $2.50 just for two friggin' tomatos in Sydney. Someone's getting screwed here!

Time to step up Coles!

Half the farmers are in way too much debt because of the drought to just pick up and walk away from it all, even if they wanted to. :(

I have spent the majority of my life on a farm and my old man has been pretty lucky as far as drought goes until this year. He hasn't had a whole lot to do lately as he hasn't planted a crop in 12 months. 2 weeks ago he attempted to plant a sorgum crop after the new year rain however barely half of it germinated.

Now my old man would be f***ed if a) he was smart to hold onto a large amount of grain from previous years to sell off as the demand and price went up.
b) he doesn't have repayments on the farm.

An average farm grain farm would cost around $1.5m
Even with rain thats damn near impossible to cover the repayments.
There is no f***en way I would be a farmer under these kind of uncertain circumstances.

For this very reason a lot of farms are being bought out by companies in the mining sector like QLD Gas, Linc Energy plus heaps more.

Ticman needs a cluepon..........

I think we're all over looking the reason this was posted.

It was to inform us that Woolies is gonna be overcrowded and incredibly busy that day, so we should all shop at Coles.

I should Farmers should harden shut the f*** up.

fixed it for you.

Ticman needs a cluepon..........

no. you need a cluepon. farming isn't the only business that is affected by unexpected variations. have a look at all the property development businesses that have gone ass up when they overcapitalize in a boom period. no one bailed them out and no-one should have.

To all the people bitching about farmers and the government handouts they are receiving, you should all shut the f*** up. If they weren't financially assisted in times of severe drought, there would be no farm. Then where would you all be? No vegetables, no fruit, no meat, no dairy and no grain. No food of any description except for processed, man made junk.

Not one of you whining f*****s are looking at the big picture. You are all too busy up on your f***ing e-soapboxes claiming to know everything about everything, when in reality you know sweet f*** all about nothing.

Grow a brain, and get off the farmers backs for trying to hold onto their once prosperous and workable farms which have now become nothing more than large piles of dust, through no fault of their own I might add.

One more thing. How many of you c***s whinging about farmers getting financial aid have ever claimed a benefit from the government yourselves? Yeah, thought so. f***ing hypocrites.

i think i agree with him ^

Ticman, you seem to have no clue.

Our quality of food particulaly fruit, vegies and meat are very much affected by the distance and time they need to travel to get where they are eaten.
For instance, the further a fruit has to travel the more prone it is to damage and degradation. To counter this, fruit is picked before it is matured. This keeps it firmer and able to take a bit more punishment and still look ok. Unfortunatly this means the fruit has less time to ripen and convert bitter tasting salicylates into the sweeter tastier sugers and other bits of goodness. Some people can eat too much salicylates and become sensative to them, not in a good way. Perhaps this could be you?
Also, the time it takes.. generally artifical preservatives are used to keep the fruit fresh looking for your untrained eye. Alot of these preservatives arnt the best source of nutrition for your body.. Some are possible cancer causing agents..

If your country relies entirly on another for all your food production, that country has you by the balls in a very tight firm grip, not a good thing for 'fair trade'. Remember it was ONLY about 70 years ago that most of Earth was in a dirty great big war, where food supplies were greatly differnt to how they are now. In the worlds current political climate, you would be stupid or desperate to rely on other countries for your food.

Those a just a quick few points from the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more reasons.

I really think you have no clue Ticman.

i hear alot of farmers are growing hooch these days to pay the bills

A childhood friend of my mother owns a farm in victoria. They cry poor all the time.. i'm not talking just in the last 5 years - i haven't heard about them in 10 years or so, i mean as long as i have known of them they have been complaining about how tough they have it.. yet when we would visit all their kids had their own computers back when we struggled to have just one. The first time I ever saw a CD player was at their place in 1987. They drove Mercedes as the two main family cars, had flashy motorbikes and the kids went to expensive boarding schools. Mind you, they lived just ten minutes from a decent sized town so there was no reason they couldn't go to the local public school.. it's not like they required School of the Air or were any more rural or isolated than we were (living in Katherine, NT).

If the hand outs were treated like HECS and they were forced to pay it back it wouldn't be so bad, but they don't and they don't even contribute proportionally more tax during good years. Also since it's their business they get to hide normal day to day expenses (and some luxuries/consumerables) as business expenses and minise their tax well past what would be considered reasonable by your average person.. things like purchasing the fortnightly groceries on the business account, all their car petrol, utility bills etc.. in my view if a PAYE worker for the government can't claim it, then your 'tax minimisation' is actually tax fraud.

I realise there are plenty of farmers doing it hard, but they really do need to weed out the leeches, and if for 30 of the last 40 years you've been "doing it tough" and requiring handouts you need to realise that farming isn't for you and move on.

All that aside i'd happily do a shop at woolies to help out the farmers if i hadn't promised never to shop their again because the rarely staff their checkouts sufficiently, and i would consistently spend longer in the checkout process than my weekly shop would take. When the local coles finally opened its doors i said 'never again' to woolies.

One more thing. How many of you c***s whinging about farmers getting financial aid have ever claimed a benefit from the government yourselves? Yeah, thought so. f***ing hypocrites.

I have a medicare card. I take Dr receipts to medicare and get that little bit back. That doesn't make me a hypocrit.

last edited by natslovR at 23:14:55 15/Jan/07

All that aside i'd happily do a shop at woolies to help out the farmers if i hadn't promised never to shop their again because the rarely staff their checkouts sufficiently, and i would consistently spend longer in the checkout process than my weekly shop would take. When the local coles finally opened its doors i said 'never again' to woolies.

I promised to stop shopping at Wollies ever since their move to Maleny. So much dodgy stuff, one of the highlights was that an 'agreement' was made so that if Maleny found 1mil (or there abouts) to buy the land wollies would sell it to them. Maleny found it, quickly too, wollies renegged on that.
Mind you, there is a perfectly good IGA about 30 sec drive up the road. Tis funny to drive past the woolies and see the carpark with maybe 10 cars in it, a highly lit woolies and more staff then shoppers. Then to see the IGA packed with people doing great business.
O and the IGA buys milk and other produce locally from Maleny and surroundings.

IGA and organic stores for life! :D

If your country relies entirly on another for all your food production, that country has you by the balls in a very tight firm grip, not a good thing for 'fair trade'. Remember it was ONLY about 70 years ago that most of Earth was in a dirty great big war, where food supplies were greatly differnt to how they are now. In the worlds current political climate, you would be stupid or desperate to rely on other countries for your food.

just wave your hands and yell national security. lets see some justifications. what is the marginal benefit of these subsidies. i strongly suspect if you removed the subsidies we would still grow enough food to be free of your bogeyman. and what is the chance that we will be at war with all the exporters of food. very unlikely i suspect and if we are then we are probably dead in the water anyway.

last edited by hast at 23:47:31 15/Jan/07

It's not often I say this, so it's with a heartfelt sigh that I do...

TicMan
Your name says it all
You are a parasite which feeds off our farming community

I grew up on a cane farm in Nrth QLD an if you think it's easy, you don't have the faintest f***ing clue
You get paid ONCE a year for a start
The rest of the year you make do with loans from whichever financial loanshark you deal with
No rains one year, irrigation is still only fairly new in many regions, the following year a cyclone comes through and decimates your crop blowing it into the ground an making it impossible to harvest EVEN if you could get your vehicles onto the paddock to do so
Another dry season the following year... whoops, some lil a****** thought it would be funny to start a fire, which spreads outta control gutting some 5 to 6 hundred acres of cane, all of which you don't have enough bins to harvest as your only allotted so many by the mills (yes, that's right, they LIMIT how much you can harvest AND plant each year)

If your lucky, a kind neighbour MAY just loan you couple of extra bins they have spare to help you out in harvesting, unfortunately, there is still about 50 tonne that you can't do anything more than watch rot


f*** off, get a clue, then talk mkay

How many of you c***s whinging about farmers getting financial aid have ever claimed a benefit from the government yourselves?

oh oh that'd be me!! but i never whinged about no farmers so if you wanna continue with your threats then let's take this outside.

3 mill is f*** all IMO. It's not going to make a difference.

oh oh that'd be me!! but i never whinged about no farmers so if you wanna continue with your threats then let's take this outside.

You said that'd be you, but then you went on to say that you never whinged about farmers. That doesn't make sense because if you never whinged about farmers, it wouldn't be you.

The Woolies at Moorooka always gives me static shocks. I'll force myself to go there tho. But I still hate them for paying f*** all for produce then jacking the price right up.

oh oh that'd be me!! but i never whinged about no farmers so if you wanna continue with your threats then let's take this outside.

You said that'd be you, but then you went on to say that you never whinged about farmers. That doesn't make sense because if you never whinged about farmers, it wouldn't be you.

Actually he said he never whinged about no farmers, meaning he whinged about farmers.

TicMan
Your name says it all
You are a parasite which feeds off our farming community

That's probably the best post of them all, congratulations for the attempt at insult. I assume by parasite you mean buying their produce?

I've still yet to see any points or comments that may change my point of view. Farmers cry foul all the time about and they get given alot of money. They don't pay it back via any means so why should they be treated different to any other business?

What if an import/export business was doing it tough, would they get a handout from the government? Definetly not even though they move alot of goods into and out of Australia.

What if the housing market died in the ass tomorrow, would all those builders, plumbers & electricians get a hand out as well?

For what it's worth, I grew up in Mt Isa surronded by cattle farms, I know alot of people still in the industry and I've had no problem saying the same things I've said on here to them.

So next time, get a cluepon yourselves and present some valid arguements for why these businesses get hand outs without needing to pay them back.

Do you understand the simple concept of primary, secondary and tertiary industry? The reason tertiary and secondary industry don't receive this kind of support is because if they fail, they will quickly be replaced by something else (eg. A supermarket goes out of business, another owner will come along make the place look a bit different and then it will be business as usual).

All tertiary (supermarkets) and secondary (food processing centres) rely on the primary industry to succeed. If assistance is not given to the primary industries it won't just be the poor old farmers going out of business, it will be s***loads of others as well.

saint is my master yet again :(

ticlicious, your comments don't do much to inspire change in point of view either. but reading around on this topic is interesting

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=why+do+farmers+get+handouts&hl=en&lr=&cr=countryAU&start=10&sa=N
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2006/1769011.htm (expand the transscript)
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5107

Wasn't my intent to change anyones point of view .. actually my intent was to spark conversation from all sides and to some degree see how fired up people get.

oh yeah? well right now I'm so fired up I could kiss you

I'm so lonely I would let you kiss me .. twice!

Anyone ever had GayPak mandarins?

That's my Uncles fruit, best manda's ever... I got nothing to add to the topic, but you don't get s*** like that from overseas.

haha, GayPak, nice name :D

that's his family's nickname, the gay pack

i hear alot of farmers are growing hooch these days to pay the bills

god bless em

How many of you c***s whinging about farmers getting financial aid have ever claimed a benefit from the government yourselves?

i don't think anyone is denying that farmers should get the same benefits that everyone else is entitled to: unemployment benefits, medicare etc,

but they shouldn't get handouts to keep their business afloat

All tertiary (supermarkets) and secondary (food processing centres) rely on the primary industry to succeed. If assistance is not given to the primary industries it won't just be the poor old farmers going out of business, it will be s***loads of others as well.

this is a weird argument. you seem to be saying that farmers won't be competitive without the subsidies (somebody else will replace them) and then at the same time saying that other industries will have trouble sourcing primary goods. i don't think you can have it both ways fpot.

but they shouldn't get handouts to keep their business afloat

Oath they should... I like my Aussie beef, fruit and veges...

that's his family's nickname, the gay pack

Boo Mav! Though next time you have a good mandarin, check the sticker... you will be suprised.

There was a interesting article a few months ago dealing with the spin/exaggerations the media, politicians and others put on the current climate (physical, economic and social). Well worth a read and deals with most topics people have raised here.

As for Woolworths, the amount of free advertising and goodwill they have gained out of this would easily be over $3 mil, they could make a much bigger difference if they really cared by changing their buy policies but they are in it to make money for shareholders, good on the guy who thought this up.

I didn't think it was that great an article, it was just a single journalist mouthing off quite unobjectively really

thats an interesting read.

thats an interesting read.

Yeah but you say that about the bible too!

There was a interesting article a few months ago dealing with the spin/exaggerations the media, politicians and others put on the current climate (physical, economic and social).

yeah well that same spin is what the corporate pieces of s*** who run Woolworths use to justify the insane prices we pay at the supermarket.

so f*** Woolies and anyone who doesnt believe they are absolutely cleaning up from this 'drought' whilst s***ting from high on the little guy.

I like cheep food and I like farmers but once the farmers are screwd out of there farms developers will buy the farm then cut it into suburban blocks for the thousands of people moving to the area every week then there will be nowere to grow the food?

no. then we import the food from indonesia.

yay, sub par quality food imported from indonesia!

you may have heard of AQIS, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. they make sure no s*** produce gets through.

In saying this i do believe the skys will open and there will be lots of flooding soon, and we will all live happily ever after.

More likely that Australia will become one giant f***hole Desert actually.

The weather on this planet is changing worldwide.
Evidence already shows that a great number of deserts around the world used to once be thriving rainforests.

A Landbridge used to also connect Indo and Australia, again, pre-industrial era it had already become completely submerged (gg industrial pollution creating global warming theory).

This planet is going down the toilet being over-due for an extinction level event, Australia is probably going to be the pioneers to be the first in the sewers at this rate.

last edited by Loki at 16:58:34 20/Jan/07

yoyo BillyBob and Ben Affleck have got your vibe all stitched up Loki

you may have heard of AQIS

Actually no, I hadn't heard of them. And I have zero faith in their success.

well they been working pretty damn well to date

I am very picky about my fruit.

fruits and their fruit...

LOL

So I went into woolies today during the usual prime-time zerg rush (1230pm) and it wasn't any busier. Notably, because this is the Spring Hill woolies, so people wouldn't go there just to do their usual shopping at lunch time. It's more about getting a 1/4 chicken and chips for lunch.

Wonder how they're going. They'll probably get zerged tonight.

wow did you cut/paste that from your live journal or myspace?

well if he cut/pasted it from both he won't be able to answer you now, silly

infi, I believe theres other threads that require your attention.

no i got a page to this one. stat

24 January 2007 - The Day after "Woolworths 100% profit to farmers" day

Woolworths didn't look so busy today. I decided to go in a little earlier to see when the Lunch rush really actually starts. I felt a little uncomfortable stating that the lunch rush started at 12.30 yesterday when really it's possible people are coming in to buy lunch related items earlier.

I feel I will be able to do justice to the whole question of whether Woolworth's transparent advertising campaign has actually boosted sales by analysing today's traffic against yesterday's.

The weather is similar on both days and petrol prices are the same.... yes I think this will be a success.

last edited by infi at 18:08:15 23/Jan/07