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NSW Farmers Association seeks insights on rural futures

September 01, 2005

RayJohnson.thumb.jpgThe Chief Executive of the NSW Farmers Association, Dr Ray Johnson, visiting the Institute for Rural Futures (IRF) at The University of New England yesterday, emphasised the need for a “blueprint” of strategies to reverse rural decline.

He outlined this decline in terms of the decreasing number of farms and farmers throughout Australia, and the “population drift” towards the capital cities and the coast. “There’s been a 20 per cent decline in the number of farmers over the past decade,” he said, “and the decline is more like 30 per cent in the small farm sector. There has actually been a 60 per cent decrease in the number of young farmers, with the average age of farmers being now about 52. All this sends a danger signal in terms of the sustainability of rural communities.”

“We need to be looking for solutions, not just restating the problem,” Dr Johnson continued. He explained that this search for solutions had prompted his visit to IRF, which conducts research on the pressures for change affecting rural Australia. Founded in 2000, IRF is an independent, non-profit Research Institute within UNE. It undertakes applied multidisciplinary research into rural issues. It has conducted important projects on issues such as farmers’ retirement and farm succession, and social (and industrial) structures within rural towns.

“Research such as IRF undertakes is critical in developing an understanding of the key drivers of rural decline,” Dr Johnson said. “No one would deny the need to get people out of the cities and back into the regions, but we have no blueprint or framework to start the process. We need to put together policies that can be put before government.”

He discussed this with the Director of IRF, Professor David Brunckhorst, and other researchers at the Institute. Among other things, they considered undertaking a program of case studies of regional towns (such as Orange, Toowoomba and Mudgee) that had been successful in terms of population growth and improvements in services and infrastructure. “This could, indeed, be a step towards understanding the characteristics of such places so as to develop a realistic ‘blueprint’ for regional development,” Professor Brunckhorst said.

“We have to get commercial activity back into regional NSW,” Dr Johnson emphasised. “And we have to provide the services – communications, health, education and infrastructure – that such activity requires.”


The photograph displayed here shows (from left) Brianna Casey (Senior Policy Manager, Rural Affairs, NSW Farmers Association), Professor David Brunckhorst, and Dr Ray Johnson.


Media contact: Professor David Brunckhorst, Institute for Rural Futures, UNE (02) 6773 3001 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.


Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 1, 2005 04:26 PM