National Agriculture Day

My friend Chooky posted about National Agriculture Day (November 21st) here.

She is a country girl - a farmer and also does "town" work - where she gets a regular pay cheque and paid holidays...(unlike her farm work).

I'm a city girl - born in Sydney eastern suburbs, now living in the 'burbs in Brisbane.  All the mod cons, minor concern over water usage (due to the water rates bill) and power usage, can shop whenever and for whatever I like (within budgetary constraints).
I go to the supermarket where milk comes in containers, meat on black plastic trays with Use By dates.  Fruit & vegetables are all "perfect" and uniform shapes and sizes.

Such is the good life in the 21st Century (even in the 20th Century, things were easy although not so pre packaged).

I have never been totally ignorant about where the food comes from and how it gets to me - I have had some small exposure to real life on a farm...but not a lot..however, it wasn't a big factor in my day to day life.

Since I have been following Chooky's blog and become a friend of hers, I am a lot more conscious of the struggle that our farmers deal with constantly.  The unpredictability of the weather is of course a huge issue - especially in Australia which is such a dry continent anyway. 
Then I started hearing "them" say how farmers should put away for the bad times - and I know that this is just hog wash for most farmers - of course they stack up hay and other produce when there is a surplus - but that is only going to last for n years - not forever.

And now we are hearing about the other extreme - huge volumes of crops being ploughed back into the ground because the bananas are too big, too small, too straight, too bent and don't fit the "perfect shape" that sits so prettily on the shelves in the supermarket.

And the milk with all the cheap house brands - which has no taste and is being procured from farmers at a ridiculously low price - making it hard or impossible for farmers to survive.  The same thing has happened to honey and no doubt many other food lines.
I do not buy house brands for that reason alone and avoid imported fruit & vegetables when ever I can.

To balance all that struggle Chooky does see some amazing landscapes, cloud formations and sees a lot more stars at night.  And of course there are often baby animals to be "oooh'd and aaah'd" over.

I have no wish to become a country girl at all...but I do tip my hat to all the Australian primary producers who work hard to produce the food we eat.  

A big thank you to them all.
(off my soap box now)