VFF on the rocks: opportunity for GM-free?

This is an email from Gene Ethics repeated in full, with comments from Bob Phelps (Executive Director of Gene Ethics) further below. 

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VFF on the rocks: opportunity for GM-free?

VFF set to announce changes
Lyndal Reading
April 28, 2009

VICTORIAN Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay will make an announcement about the future of the farmer group later this week.

Mr Ramsay will face the rural media on Friday to make announcements about the finance, membership and the long term policy direction of the Federation.

Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh will also attend the announcement.

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Bob’s comment FYI:

It is no surprise that the Victorian Farmers Federation – aka Veto Family Farmers – is in decline and struggling to survive. It sold out members and the wider community with poor policies and dud deals on deregulation, free trade, product marketing, compulsory levies and tax breaks for speculators. Ignoring most members, VFF also promoted Genetically Manipulated (GM) crops and animals. The VFF lacked vision and has had its day.

Now we need a Future for Family Farmers program, to nurture small to medium farming families and rural communities throughout Australia. These land managers are key to preventing the imminent rural collapse that will result from failed free market ideologies, climate change-related disasters and the end of oil.

Rural communities will be asked to wear two hats in future – feeding, housing and clothing us and future generations, and also managing the fragile soil, water and vegetation in Australian landscapes. Our national security and prosperity ultimately depend on these natural resources and the people who manage them sustainably.

We city dwellers have not provided adequate resources to conserve and maintain the nation’s natural assets and must ensure that our farmers are well-rewarded, fully-resourced and highly-motivated in their key role of custodians and managers of the life support systems for society as a whole. This urgent national project needs people with vision and commitment to carry it through. The VFF cannot offer this.