He is correct. People are buying property and hoping for capital gains, but there is a limit. People are in some cases paying more than twice the value of the property and then trying to make it viable. It's just impossible.

Is agricultural land to expensive, or is the price producers receive too cheap? The result of both is the same, that is lack of viability and profit. The percentage of the consumer dollar returned to producers is killing agriculture, but governments from both sides have no interest to take on the power of the supermarkets. The actions of the ACCC have been pathetic, and now with the lifting of the meat import bans, the supermarkets will use this opportunity as another lever for downward pressure on prices paid to producers. Capital growth in agricultural land has been a vital tool for increased borrowing power and retirement planning, but the prices paid for rural land have not reflected the true viability of the core business. Much is written from the urban media how agriculture must adopt sustainable practices for the future, yet two key areas of sustainability, profit and enjoyment are not given due consideration. God is not making any more land, and population growth says there needs to be a massive increase in food production. This points to ongrowing growth in land values, but without profit or enjoyment, then who will do the hard work, and invest their capital in land.

Likely future demand for low cost animal protein drives the fundamentals and most investment in cattle properties is long term. Hard not to be sceptical when an existing and committed investor talks value down.

Cattle prices have to go up, or land prices have to come down, or both. Fact is that based on current prices for both land and cattle, properties can't repay their purchase value, even with the most wildly optimistic production figures. Without continued capital gain the financial outlook for a lot of people (and banks) is very bleak.

Dear CD, let's keep blaming the ACCC and the supermarkets and the urban media for all the ills in agriculture. Food production and farmers were around long before supermarkets and government regulatory bodies. Does that tell us all something?

Wally, I think you will find that CD is saying we are paid $2/Kg for a beast at live-weight, and then to buy meat in the super market you can pay anywhere up to $50/Kg - that is a heck of a lot of difference, and the price in the super market is going up and the prices we get are going down.

Wally, the issue of supermarket control over the bottleneck between farmers and consumers is relatively recent. In the past consumers had the choice of buying their meat from multiple butchers. Similarly farmers had the choice of selling their cattle to multiple butchers. The situation we have now is one of severely reduced choice. The consumers don't have much choice on where to buy their meat from therefore supermarkets could push the price up. The farmers don't have much choice on who sell their cattle to therefore supermarkets could push the price down. The bottleneck between farmers and consumers has always existed. However the supermarkets have now made it extremely narrow, they control the market in both directions.

A supermarket buys pumpkins from me at $0.30/kg and sells it at $1.99/kg. Is there a problem??? They don't grow it, own the land, harvest it, package it or send it to market. When there is a shortage and the price goes up at the markets($0.80/kg), they increase their price to $2.99/kg. That's 100% mark up on the difference and they blame the farmer for the shortage!! Is there a problem?? The ACCC thinks this is OK? The consumer is getting ripped off, the farmer is getting ripped off, but this is OK apparently. We do sell some produce from the farm gate and when buyers asked what is wrong with it because it is so cheap, I respond that it's not weeks old and inflated by supermarkets.