The "Dutch disease" - a term that goes a long way to explaining our current farming problems is getting airplay recently.
In the Netherlands in the 1970s, the north sea oil fields created a resource boom, that drove up wages and increased the value of their currency. Although great for the country as a whole, the side-effects of high wages and inflated currency devastated other industries such as (for them) manufacturing.
The W.A. mining boom is causing similar harm to farming. As well as raising wages and inflating the currency, it is sucking finance away from farming.
This is not the whole of the current farm problem, but on top of everything else, it is all devastating. (I believe our lack of productivity growth is our major issue).
Whether the community thinks it is worthwhile to help industries affected to allow an adjustment period, remains to be seen. For example do we need to manufacture cars in Australia?
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