LETTER TO THE EDITOR – NATIONAL AG DAY

Dear Editor,

National Ag Day, celebrated this year on Wednesday 21 November, is a chance to thank our farmers.

Our farmers help feed us, cloth us and create jobs across the supply chain.

In fact, agriculture employs 1.6 million people across the supply chain around the nation.

Within Barker, Agriculture is by far our largest industry. There are over 4,500 Agri-businesses directly employing over 11,250 people throughout the electorate. And these figures don’t begin to take into account the indirect employment along the supply chain such as truck drivers, retail workers, stock agents and the like.

Aussie farmers grow 93 per cent of the food we eat while helping feed the rest of the world. In fact, two thirds of the people eating the food grown by Aussie farmers live outside Australia.

This year, I want to use this opportunity to not only thank our farmers but acknowledge that while our farmers continue to contribute so greatly to our society, many have been doing it tough due to drought.  

So this year more than ever, thank you to all our Aussie farmers.  Through the good times and the tough times, again you have proved yourselves the backbone of this great nation.

Tony Pasin MP
Federal Member for Barker