By Chris Spindler
ADELAIDE — A recent Social Development Committee report shows that poverty in rural South Australia is widespread and increasing.
In some instances, children are stealing food from classmates because they are going hungry and have asked school counsellors to be adopted out because they think they are a burden on their families.
As far back as 1972-3, 12% of farm households had incomes below the poverty line compared with 7% of the non-rural population (ABS figures). Of those 12%, approximately half had incomes that were only 20% of the poverty line.
Since that time, rural poverty has massively increased, forcing small farmers from the land, increasing hardship on families and extending environmental destruction.
The new South Australian study found that at least a quarter of the Mallee farmland families — that is, some 1600 full-time and 700 part-time farmers — were living in poverty. They live on $100 to $200 a week for food, fuel, clothes and power.
The report pointed out the role of the banks in the current crisis. After the deregulation of the banks in the 1980s, primary producers started paying commercial interest rates, and because they were considered high risk, had to pay above normal rates. They were encouraged to take out large loans by the banks.
In the 1980s, as commodity prices fell (wool and wheat by some 40% following the removal of guaranteed minimum prices), increasing numbers of farmers were forced to leave the land. Other rural industries also failed. In 1990, 15,000 non-farming small businesses closed down across the country.
The study showed that many farmers could not afford to employ labour and so were relying on their children to do farm work. Many children are expected to work long hours; there is documented evidence of children driving tractors for a total of 200-300 hours during the seeding season.
The impact on women has also been particularly severe. Phone costs and increasing petrol costs mean increased isolation. Women are increasingly expected to carry out farm work or take off-farm work to supplement the family income, as well as to look after the family and participate in community work.
Work on the land is becoming more dangerous because farmers have no money to replace obsolete equipment. Some sell off farm equipment to stave off bankruptcy but often get prices well below what the machinery is worth.
In many instances the selling of farms is not an option any more because the price received would not cover the debts.
The future of the small family farmer is bleak. Agribusiness monopolies and the banks have little sympathy for the needs of families and workers on the land, who view their occupation not just as a job but as a way of life.
State government responses to the crisis have been weak at best. An interest rate subsidy for young farmers for three years amounts to $7 million annually.
The state government and the National Farmers Federation have essentially accepted that at least 25% of farms have to be "structurally adjusted" out of farming altogether.