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Cut the red tape and the demonisation of farmers under the banner of the so-called “climate crisis” or any other “crisis.”  Let Australian farmers farm, Anita Dolan said.  And, allow farmers to have input into the consultations with the government bodies and Members of Parliament when deciding what’s best for the land, animals and the environment.

On Sunday, rural charity worker Anita Donlon was a guest on Today’s News Talk Radio (“TNT Radio”) The George Christensen Show.  She talked about the plight of rural Australia and, in particular, how the extreme green movement demonises farmers.

Dolan, a 44-year veteran of the entertainment industry, is a board member of Beef It Up Australia and Let’s Get Rural, a project to provide social and economic support to rural Australia which was born out of the Australian Horizons Foundation.

Let’s Get Rural began in response to covid. When covid hit, the social connection events Australian Horizons Foundation were organising for people in rural Australia were disrupted.

“Covid was very clever,” Dolan said, “it had different elements depending on where you were geographically in the country … We were noticing in communities that were not in lockdown per se that they were feeling it as well, that sense of having that social connection removed … the pub wasn’t open, the café wasn’t open, they couldn’t go and stand and have a natter on the footpath without having a mask on.”  The small businesses in rural areas were also really hurting, she said. So “we put together our Let’s Get Rural campaign.”

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0OT5XsCUQJXuE6vzR2uyTe?si=vRsog22hSx239sAN6ugJSg

As Christensen and Dolan discussed in the podcast above, there’s a whole host of rules and regulations imposed on rural communities by the Australian government.  

For example, communities within as well as others who rely on the Murray-Darling Basin have a variety of concerns to contend with; the customs duties Australian producers have to pay for products imported into Australia; the possibility of the National Voice which, should ‘The Voice’ referendum later this year determine it so, would enshrine the ideology of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice into the Australian Constitution; the phasing out of live sheep exports which will also impact beef exports; and, the rising cost of production.  “Our rural communities have got a lot that they have to worry about,” Dolan said.

The Murray-Darling Basin, occupying about one-seventh of Australia’s area, is of immense economic significance, lying across the great wheat-sheep belt in its climatically most reliable section.  The Basin has by far Australia’s greatest area of irrigated crops and pastures, some 3.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares), more than 70 per cent of the national total. It is home to 3.6 million people, including the entire population of Adelaide.

What a lot of Australians don’t realise, Dolan said, is the water in the Murray-Darling Basin is owned by overseas interests.  The water is being used as a commodity and “Australian farmers are being pawned.”  On top of that, the scheme is an environmental disaster – the water is continually cutting away at the banks and causing environmental damage.

“It is absolutely ludicrous that we live in a country where we are seeing a humanitarian crisis rolling out, not just because our food production is going to be impacted … but also the communities in the Murray-Darling Basin,” Dolan said.  The whole Basin project is one big mess, she added, and “the reality is you can point the finger at the Greens in South Australia.” 

To find out more about the lies the public is told about the Murray-Darling Basin, Dolan recommended searching the information on the Facebook page titled ‘Murray Darling Basin Myths’.

Referring to farmers across Australia and the variety of unnecessary demands being imposed on them, she said: “These people are growing our food and they’re going through so much extra pressure than you or I are, and that is why we’re seeing more and more families walking off the land.”

This phenomenon of farming families giving up farming, or encouraging their children not to take it up, is something that’s being seen across the world, particularly in the Netherlands where the government is blaming the farmers for causing the (non-existent) “climate crisis” and then targeting farms in a government land grab of forced buyouts.

The Irish farmers are facing a proposal to cull 200,000 cows over the next three years to meet climate goals which will have a devastating impact on Ireland’s economy.  Ireland was one of the 100 countries that pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 at COP26 in Glasgow, an initiative put forward by the US and the EU. 

In Sri Lanka, farmers were instructed they could not use fertilizers on their farms, again because of “climate change,” which would have caused farming in Sri Lanka to collapse and threatened the country with a man-made food crisis.

The same mantra of demonising farming as the enemy of the environment and so-called “anthropogenic climate change” is being rolled out across the world and Australian farmers are not immune from the ill effects of this destructive campaign.

Until a law was passed to protect farmers and their livestock from harmful and even dangerous actions by activists, “We had farmers who were having their stock let out [by climate and environmental lunatics],” Dolan said. “People don’t understand that a cow out on the road can kill somebody in a car.”

Local activists are, of course, being egged on by globalist so-called “elites.”  For example, in May multi-millionaire climate doomsday cultist John Kerry admitted that the destruction of the agriculture industry, livestock farming in particular, was essential to achieve “Net Zero.”

People like Kerry promote the false ideology that putting more restrictions and more red tape on farmers is going to save us.  The reality of what they are doing is making it much more expensive for us to live and making our lives much more difficult.  They are ultimately creating a catastrophic problem that affects every one of us – a global food shortage.

Whenever farmers in Australia see destructive policies in the name of “climate change” being proposed or rolled out in other countries, such as the culling of cattle in Ireland, they get concerned it is a matter of time before they are implemented in Australia.  In addition to these concerns, Australian farmers are frustrated, Dolan said. “Our public servants, even some agricultural services representatives, just do not get reality.”

A large portion of Australian farming developed from soldier settlement schemes.  When soldiers returned from World War I, they were allocated small plots of land and they became farmers. Australian state governments realised the importance of providing a source of income for returning soldiers as well as recognising the personal and family sacrifices made by them. Many of today’s farmers descend from these soldier settlers.

Politicians should speak to these custodians of the land that have been doing it for generations, Dolan said.  In fact, anyone who thinks farmers are not looking after the land, the environment or animals should do the same – speak to the farmers.  Dolan offers anyone unfamiliar with rural life and the people who feed Australia to join her on one of the Let’s Get Rural visits into the farming areas.

“Let farmers farm,” Dolan said.  “And let farmers have input into the consultations with the relevant bodies and MPs [Members of Parliament].”

Further resources:

• The myths of the Murray, The Spectator, 17 February 2019
• Fabricated myths and politics are causing the mismanagement of water in the Murray-Darling Basin, Robert Onfray, 1 October 2021
• Destruction of farming is front and centre in the fight against climate change, John Kerry says, The Exposé, 31 May 2023
• Irish government proposes culling 200,000 cows to meet climate targets, The Exposé, 1 June 2023
• Beef it Up Australia YouTube channel