Saturday, July 22, 2023

Farming today is still a risky business.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Today the 20th of July 2023, I have decided to repost some of those articles, that in a way can link me to our main message, where we will talk about the housing problems in Australia, the Social Security System, and the ASSETS TEST that prevents the Social Security to be equal for everyone. And this is the main problem, because today there are not enough rental propeties on the market. 
This article can also be found at this Hub Pages link,  Farming today compared to the old way
To read all the blogs of this selected group click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com,



Farming is not easy, it is hard work and has many problems. If you have livestock in the farm, you need to feed and water them, and do many other things. This can be easy, if you are organized and it rains enough. but what about when there is a drought, see photo below. 


Now, look at this piece of land, it is so dry, there is nothing for the farms' animal to eat. No farm animal can live here for long, unless the farmer feeds and water them manually. When things like this happen, it is very hard for the farmers to survive; they need help from the goverment. But the Australian Social Seccurity System fails to help the farmers, because of the assets test.  

NOTE, ARTICLE No: 2

This article is the second article, of a group of articles, about Australia and the housing problems cause and remedy discussions. We are starting with these farming articles, because farmers can also have financial problems, in a way similar to the housing problems, since the Social Security System fails to help them. 

Welcome to our article, Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business

(This article was published in August 2018)

Australia farming and their present problems.

Dear readers, I am writing this article, “Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business”, because everybody is talking about it. The problem is the drought that is ruining farming and there is no end in sight. Now I want to say that I am writing this article for two reasons: One is to talk about the farmers problems that the drought is causing, and the failure of the government to help them; when they know that these things happen in Australia easily, because Australia is the driest continent on earth.

Now, this farmers problem gives me the opportunity to talk about the Australian government failure to help the farmers and other people, because they are in the same position as the farmer, according to the present, Social Security System, which I believe it is faulty; but it can be improved, is the assets test is adjusted to the right level, or simetimes ignored if necessary. 

Now, let me explain, the farmers and some other people are cut off the Social Security System, because they own properties, so, the assets-test eliminate them to receive help, even when they need help like the farmers today. So, this article is going to be one the first articles, followed by several other articles about the Australian politician’s failure to help people in need.

We may argue that the farmers are rich people, so, they must be the last people to receive money from the government. Okay, you are right; but when the farmers reach a stage, where they cannot run their farms anymore, because they have no money; I believe that the government should step in and help them, even if it is a free loan, to be paid back when the farms produce enough, and they are able to pay back that loan. This is only a suggestion, and there are other ways that the government can help.  

I believe that what is happening to the farmers today, it has happened before, so, I want to point out that this is the same old failure that most governments have. You see, what is happening in Australia now, brings back my life-time memories, which are two folds: one is that farming is a risky business, because the nature of farming is risky, since the weather and other things influence the outcome, as we can see from this drought that today is crippling the Australian farmers; the other is about how the government fails to help the farmers even today, when help is urgently needed.

I believe that today we are more advanced, so, these things should be easier to understand and control, if everything can be worked out and organized, before these things happen. Now, I may have started to write this article for the farmers, but there are other things and places that the government is failing to do the right things, so, I will be writing several articles, to point out what I believe can be done to fix them; but let us go back to talk about the farmers.

Anyhow, I want to compare what I know from my life experiences, to what is happening now in Australia. I must say that it is like when I was young, the Italian government wanted only to collect the land tax from us farmers, because we owned some land, even when the land did not produce anything; they still wanted the land tax, and that was hurting us farmers. You see, we old people will always go back and compare present happenings to the past and then have our say, therefore, let me tell you part of my life story, to compare the past with the present.

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Compare old and new farming problems. 

 When I was young, I have been working in our family farm in Southern Italy for twelve years, I gave up farming because we worked hard but made very little money. During the time that I was working in the farm, I remember two very bad years for us famers; one of this was in 1951 when we had a drought and the wheat and other crops completely failed. We harvested what we could, but there was no much in it; the second time was in 1960, this time was too much rain, we again harvested what we could with the same result, we made about twice as much as the seeds we used for sowing, now that is bad because a good harvest is ten times plus what you sow, at least that is what we believed then. Anyhow, also the farm animals did not do well, because there wasn’t enough good food to go around; so, these events made me think to give up farming, since it is too risky, and you work for next to nothing.

But not all farms were the same, so, let me explain, some people that had more land and more money than us, had enough money to keep going, but I could not do that because my family didn’t own enough land, so, I had to find another way to earn a living. For this reason, I migrated to Australia hoping for the best. In Australia I switched job and instead of farming, I worked in the building industry; but in the back of my mind, I always thought about the farmers and their risky business.

Anyhow, most people in Australia were and are thinking that farmers are rich people; well, some of them are rich and some are not, when everything goes well, it is okay, but they are still running a risky business, and their business can lose money easily.

Now, the worst part of running a business and losing money; it is when people think you are rich, and therefore, nobody cares about you, even if you are starving. As it happens, farmers are at the top of this disadvantaged list, because farming is very risky; you see, most time it depends from the weather, but the farmers have no control over the weather, then, they own a lot of land, (they might even be paying tax because they own this land, (like we did in Italy in the fifties) but I don’t know much about this issue in Australia). But I know that the farmers are self-employed, so, they don’t qualify for help from the government, because they are self-employed and because of the assets-test. I believe that the assets-test should not apply in special cases, if you cannot make any money even if you work hard to earn it, the assets-test should not apply. I believe that this is what is wrong with the assets-test today, they don’t consider if you can make money, from what you have? And how much money you can make from your assets? We are going to say something about the assets-test later, where we will be talking also about the assets test for rental property owners. To do all this, we are going to write several articles, so, we invite you to follow us.

Now let me go back to the farmers issues because life problems never come alone. You see, it is the federal government that can help the farmers, but the federal government is having trouble today, as we will explain.

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Life problems never come alone. 

Anyhow, today I am writing about what is happening in Australia to farming people, because there is this drought problem. So, the farmers need help, they cannot keep going the way it is. I believe that they are not being helped enough from the government when the government can do more to help them. But as it often happens, our lives problems never come alone; so, troubles can increase other existing troubles, even when they don’t belong to the original trouble.

Anyhow, what I am trying to say here is that the federal government must help the farmers, but today they have their own political problems, so, instead of trying to solve the farmers problem, the politicians fight each other, they want to elect a new Prime Minister, believing that it is the fault of the PM the reason that people are leaving their coalition party; they don’t see that it is the party policies that people don’t like, and one of this I believe it is the assets test, because it puts the farmers and other people in a disadvantaged position.

About the political scene, I believe that changing their leader is not going to solve their political problem, unless those people that will be in charge, change their policies. But that is not all, because also, what I am trying to say here is what, senator Richard Di Natale, is talking about in this video, click the link to view.

Richard Di Natale flares up in the Senate - YouTube

OMG finally somebody is telling the truth. Wake up Australian politicians and think about the people that have voted for you first, it is your duty. Now, let us hope that this political problem is solved quickly, so that the politician can go back to work and solve the farmers problem, then solve the other problems. Anyhow, let me go back to talk about the farmers problem, since the farmer are neglected from the government.

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Farmers are neglected from the government. 

When we compare today farming to the past, today it is easier than it used to be, because of the progress we have made in farming; good farming practice helps everybody, the proof of how the farmers help is written in this article, Farming today compared to the old way, we wrote this article some time ago, and it explain the benefit that modern farming brings to the people. Because farming helps us all, a good government must care about the farmers; but today the farmers are neglected from the government.

Now, as we have said, today farming is still a risky business, when it should not be that risky. You see, we need the government to intervene and make laws that help the farmers when they need help. After all, it is the farmers that feed the people of Australia, because all the food is grown in the farms; so, it is necessary that the farmers are kept farming and continue to feed the entire population, if that cannot be done, then one day food can cost a lot more. So, let me explain how I see this farming situation.

Australia is a vast country, but at the same time it is the driest continent on earth, for this reason the Australian farmers must be organized in a way that they can survive, when a dry spell happens like it is happening right now. They cannot copy anybody else to solve their farming problems, when there is a drought or something else that affects farming, because nobody else has got a problem as large as Australia, so, we in Australia must be the first in the world to find a solution to this farming problem.

I believe that the Australian government must make laws, which will help the farmers survive and be able to bring their farm back to produce whatever they produce, when the drought is over. Now, here we are talking about the drought, but it should apply to other things as well, because farming has too many ups and downs, so, they need to be organized in such a way, that when things go the wrong way, like the drought they are experiencing now; this new future set up that we are suggesting, will keep hardship to a minimum.

At this point of time, let us imagine what can be done, then make some suggestions.

 

We can suggest helping the farmers. 

Today the most important thing that the farmers must do is think how they can survive the drought, or anything else that puts their livelihood at risk. Here we must admit that most of the farmers are good at doing that, because farmers are practical people, but that may not be enough, to save all of them, as we can see from what is happening today. Therefore, we must think about a helping solution. Here we suggest that an organization that collect things from the farmers, when farming is doing well must be created, this is where the government can step in, by setting up a collective organization, which for instance collect every year a portion of the farms produce, or even some money when they are doing well, before taxing them to collect their tax. Then this government organization, will keep this tax-free reserve of food and money in reserve, which then, it can be freely distributed, when it becomes necessary to help those farmers in need.

Well, this only a suggestion that we have written here. But this thing is not even new; we are all familiar with the story in the Bible, when the Pharaoh of Egypt dreamed about the seven fat cows that then were devoured by the seven skinny cows. Joseph interpreted the dream that in the land of Egypt, there were going to be seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine. The Pharaoh got Joseph to organize a collection in the years of plenty, to be distributed on the years of famine, and thus Egypt survived the years of famine.

What happened in Egypt was a long time ago, and the earth seasons then were more regular than today, because they did not have global warming to deal with, this global warming is an extra problem that we have created ourselves, so, today and in the future, we must create things that can overcome this global warming problem. Meanwhile, we must be careful what we do; perhaps we should create more social security for everyone including the farmers. Now, let us talk about our present farming and other problems that we are having today. 

Australia is having problems. 

Anyhow, today what we want from the government cannot happen; because of what has happened in Canberra recently; since the federal government has had political problems; so, on the 24 of August 2018 they have replaced the Prime Minister; now the new PM. is Scott Morison, but he needs still to choose the other ministers and then swear them in, before they can talk about anything else. Anyhow, we can say here that today Australia is still the lucky country, because there are people that donate things, when people are in need; so, the farmer get some help that way. Thanks, God, for that!

Anyhow, meanwhile the farmers are praying for rain and praying that the people in Canberra will remember them, and then, do something about helping the farmers. Because, farming is a risky business even today, when things are easier to organize, for this reason, we need to look at the Australian security system to see who is responsible and what can be done.

I think I have said enough in this article, see you in our next article, where we will discuss about the Australian social security system that today is failing the farmers, but not only the farmers, because there are other people that can be served better. We believe that Australia can do better, if the Australian government can organize the resource better. 

Therefore, we will publish more articles about these failures, hoping that somebody in the right circles reads them, and does something about it. 

I think we have said enough in this article, see you in our next article, Australian Social Security

To see more click on this link, Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business

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NOTE. This article above, is the link to the following article, The Australian Social Security. This article is also the second article of a group of articles that we want to publish. The aim of these articles is to demonstrate that, the Australian Social Security System fails to help those that need their help. And we believe that it must be equal for everyone. The greatest problem is created by the assets test anomalies, so, the ASSETS TEST must be abolished or adjusted, so that those anomalies are eliminated.  Because this is one of the reasons why, there are not enough rental properties on the market. We will talk about this in our future articles. 

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Thursday, July 20, 2023

Farming today compared to the old ways.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Today the 20th of July 2023, I have decided to repost some of those articles, that in a way can link me to our main message, where we will talk about the housing problems in Australia, the Social Security System, and the ASSETS TEST that prevents the Social Security to be equal for everyone. And this is the main problem, because today there are not enough rental propeties on the market. 
To read all the blogs we are talking about click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com ,
This article can also be found at this Hub Pages link,  Farming today compared to the old way
 

Show off, of several harvester machines at work. 


Now, this photo is a show off of Harvester machines and how wheat harvesting is done today. But anyhow, we must say that this photo is an exaggeration, because it is too crowded with machines. Anyhow, this is how wheat harvesting is done today, but it was a lot harder in the old times. 

NOTE, ARTICLE ONE

This article is the first article, of a group of articles, about Australia and the housing problems cause and remedy discussions. We are starting with this farming article, because farmers can have also problems, in a way similar to the housing problems, since the Social Security System fails to help them. See explanation at end of this article.  


Welcome to our article, Farming today compared to the old way. 

Now, this is an old article, published the first time in 2012. Now I am strarting with this article, because things change, and even rich people like the farmers, may one day need help from the government, as you will see in future article, Farming is still a riscky business. Anyhow, let us start with this positive article. 

Dear readers, I have been farming when I was young. So, I would like to talk about farming today compared to the old ways, because I can mentally see the great difference that it has made in our standard of living. So, I believe that today we are better off than we were before; but let me see how I can describe this difference. Anyhow, I am writing about my life story, so, I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in the past when I was young; for this reason, I have become aware that there is a great difference; in fact, the difference is so great that it is worth writing an entire article to explain my personal point of view.

Anyhow, we must acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia, and in other parts of the world, it has slashed the present cost of living a lot, and this helps us to live a better life. We believe that this has happened because of the new farming machines available to the farmers, and the fertilises available to them; so, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper than in the past, so, food has become cheaper, therefore, we are better off today in many ways.

In this article, we invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the time when I was young in the fifties, and, how hard was life then because most of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our families.

This difference that we are talking about applies to the farmers and the public as well, because today it affects both in a beneficial way. So, there is a lot to be said about this great difference in cost and hardship or easiness, and this has happened during my life timelifetime. So, I believe that our standard of living has improved a lot, at least in the sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products, because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past; so, let us compare the cost of living, perhaps for the sake of seeing where we have come from and how much we have improved since then.

Today we often wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more machines required. So, let us talk about some other machinery that the farmers require.

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Some farmers' machinery

Now let us talk about the farmer’s machinery and the benefit that has come from them; of course, this is due to the industrial revolution that has started a long time ago, and last century has reached the farming communities improving it a lot. It seems to me that the farming sector has been one of the last communities that has benefited from the industrial revolution, anyhow, that doesn’t matter how it has worked out, because today we are better off, so, let us talk about these machines.

We can say that the most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine can be used in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, therefore, wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat is one of the main ingredients to make foods for us to eat, and we require lots of it.

Of course, if we want to talk about farming there is more to say than just wheat farming, because there are many other things that the bloke on the land can produce, see this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.

Agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear readers, now that we have talked about these farmer’s machines, let us talk about wheat farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we must be happy about what is happening because it is a good thing for all of us; so, we want to point out that there is a great difference in the ways of living, and we are a lot better off today than we were when I was young, so, let us compare some of the benefits that we have achieved, since today the farmers can use these farm machines that the industrial revolution has made for us.

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Let us compare these benefits.

Now, let us compare the great difference between today and the past. For comparison sake; today here in Australia there are a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we wonder and we do not know how it can be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap for a start.

Then, because the wheat is cheap the price of bread can be cheap, the supermarkets make it even cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they do it anyhow; so, there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets. (We hope that this will last for a long time, but I have my doubts). Anyhow, I must point out that in the past, the price of bread and milk was a lot dear, in fact there have been times, when people were struggling to feed themselves, as we will explain before we finish writing this article.

But even though bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But for comparison’s sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk to day, you see today, while I am writing this article for the first time, most people on the government old age pension in Australia receive about 700 dollars per fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they can easily afford to buy bread and milk and other food items.

Now that we have said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us see how things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than today, therefore, they were a lot more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, we are going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young, and how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was just a piece of bread and butter, bread and milk, or bread and tomatoes or other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms. Anyhow, let me describe how farming was done then, in this following sub-article, farming the old ways, so, we can have a better understanding of the whole issue, and be able to compare the past with the present way of farming.

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Farming the old way

Dear readers, to compare and explain how farming was done at the time when I was young, we are going to write here the way of farm life that was going on in those times; we know already that things have changed for the better since then, as we have written above, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come out since then, all due to the industrial revolution or progress; which we have experienced in the last hundred years or so, but when I was young there were a lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, of course, the tractors were already there, but they were very expensive to buy for most of the small farmers, so, we had to do most things the old ways. Now let me tell you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties and earlier.

It is a well-known fact that in those times and even now, there are two times during the year, when in the farms everybody is working hard and working very long hours; one of this was sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready to go into the fields at daybreak.

At that time of the year in the morning it was very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so, in the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of very hard work at sowing time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again, but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores; see this article My farm life continues, where we describe what we did after sowing, and what we did during the winter time.

Now let us talk about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labour, so, there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore, this was and is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying time too for the farmers, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. Here we are talking about mostly how things were run in the farms when I was young.

Now let us say a few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat is one of the most important produces that we need from farming, as we have already said at the beginning of this article. With wheat we make bread and pasta and other bakery products, therefore, it is the most important farm produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since I was young:

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Wheat harvest in the fifties

The following description is the way of wheat harvest time in the fifties. When I was young we had already a horse drawn harvester that was helping us, this early harvester was able to cut the wheat plants and tie them in bundles, so, we were already halfway down the track of progress, as this machine saved us a lot of work, because we did not have to harvest by hand, which is a very labour intensive job, as we are going to describe later in this article. Anyhow, at this time of the year everybody in the farm works hard and for very long hours, it is very hot and everything is very dry. We get up very early in the morning, we get the horses ready for working by feeding them and watering them, then we harness the horses and set them to pull the harvester, and off we go in the fields for another day of hard work, if everything goes well, we might be able to go over a ten-acre field just in one day with this harvester. The harvester needs two people to get it working, one drives the horses, and another regulate the harvester, the harvester goes around the field and leaves these bundles of wheat or other cereal, whatever has been sown in the field. Now these bundles of wheat will be collected in hips around the field from other people as soon as possible, the hips of these bundles of wheat are made is such a way that if it rains the rain would run off easily, these hips of wheat will be collected later when we finish with the harvester, perhaps in a week or two, then we will go back to the fields with a cart to take everything on a special plot near the farmhouse, where the trashing machine will be hired and set.

When we collect and cart everything to the farm house, we work very long days, we get up before 4 am, but we have a break of two or three hours at lunchtime because it is too hot to do anything, then we go back to work and between real work and looking after the animals we finish at dusk around 8 pm, after that we only have to feed the horses: this sort of work goes on for more than a month and sometimes up to two months, with no breaks at all seven days a week. Everybody in the farm works to their maximum and they are very tired, they are also very worried about the possible fire hazard, and also of any thunderstorms at this time of the year, since anyone of these happenings can destroy the whole crop, and a whole year of hard work can go up in smoke. So, we are all working hard, and at the same time we are praying God and waiting for the trashing machine to come and finish our harvest.

When some famer did not have a lot of wheat to trash, they could use a place in common with other farmers, so that, the trashing machine would not have to be set several times. The trashing machines that were around and we would hire together with other farmers came with a large crew, because it was a very large machine, bigger than the one shown in this article, it had a crew of about twenty people, it was a very interesting time when we were trashing our own wheat, oats, barley, etc. Because we were anxious to see how much wheat and other product we had made.

Now there were many other things that I could tell you, but I better not to make this story short. Anyhow, here I want to say that when one goes through these life experiences in the farm, one knows that farming life is hard; but since this is the only way to grow food to feed ourselves, we the farmers keep working in our farms to feed ourselves and the rest of the community.

So, we the farmers feel that it would be right if the rest of the community appreciates our efforts, so, they should be thanking us for all the hard work that we have done, after all, we are providing all those things that are necessary to makes food for the rest of the community; but it does not happen that way, because even when we are working our guts out, and while we are doing that we are becoming dull, the rest of the community does not care and they label us as dull people; their attitude hurts us very much and we believe that we don’t deserve that; just because we are farm people, but we have done our part of hard work for our own benefit and for the benefit of the entire community. So, we the farmers feel hurt to say the least.

This is how life was then in the small farms of Southern Italy. Anyhow, this town people attitude as I have said above, plus some very lean years when we hardly could survive, and because we had only a small farm and it would have been hard to expand was one of the reasons why I left farming and migrated to Australia. But anyhow let us continue to describe how harvesting was done the very old way, so, that we can compare it to today’s living.

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Harvesting the very old way

Now, before we end this article, because we want to compare the very old ways of farming with today farming, we need to say how harvesting wheat was done before my times; here we need to say that I have witnessed the last part of this old practice when I was young. You see, when I was young we were already using a horse drawn harvester, and it was very helpful; but there were people that had some small holdings and we had one of these ourselves, it was in a place, where it was hard to go with the harvester that we had, so, we had to use the old ways for harvesting our wheat for that small wheat field, because that was the only way to do it for one reason or another.

So, let me describe how harvesting was done in those old bygone days; at harvesting time strange as it may seem today, we could hire some specialized people that were good at using the sickle, these people usually went from town to town to do this seasonal harvesting job; we need also to explain that in Southern Italy because the terrain has different altitude the wheat reaches maturity at different times, this was helping these seasonal workers to have a longer span of work, now just to compare those very hard times with today times, I have to tell you that these workers were sleeping anywhere they could on a sack filled up with straws under a shelter if they could find one, as they could not afford anything else. In the morning they would get up early and wait in the town square hoping that somebody would hire them for the day.

Now let us say that we had a small plot about one acre and we could not use the harvester, because it was not possible to go there, we would hire four people and form a gang that could harvest one acre in one day and collect it in hips, that later would be taken on a cart to the farm house to be threshed one way or another.

In the old times anything that had grown in the field was collected, it needed to be collected for the people to survive, because the fields did not produce as much as they do today, because they could not be cultivated with our modern machines. You see, today we have the tractor to cultivate the fields and it does a better job than the horse drawn plough, we have many types of fertilizer to help us grow more wheat but let us go back to talk about very old harvesting times.

Wheat harvesting and trashing the very old time.

Now I must say briefly how the older generations before my times used to thresh their harvests, to collect their produce. Now, let us suppose that it was a few bundles of wheat to be threshed one could even extract the wheat by hitting them with a stick, but let us say that we had a cartful, or many cartsful for that matter, then we had to use a different method, which is the way that most farm used in the very old times for centuries, before the trashing machine was invented, so, let me tell you how it was done.

I happen to know this procedure, because in the farms when I was young, we were still using this method with smaller crops, most likely broad beans, lentils, chickpeas, linseed, and other farm produce that were not meant to go through the wheat trashing machine. When we were doing this procedure of trashing these minor crops, the elder would always be telling us that this was the way that they used to collect their wheat as well and usually it took them a few months to collect all the season produce. So, now let me describe this to you, so that we can compare the difference.

In order to do this old trashing, first of all we needed to prepare a piece of ground that is very solid and smooth, this can be achieved by stripping the old dry grass on a piece of land that had a large clay content, then wet it with a little bit of water to make it compact; once that was ready we would place our wheat or whatever was to be threshed and collected on this clean ground, then we would get our horses mule and donkeys whatever animals were available and drive them around and around until everything was threshed. Of course, there was a lot more to say, but let us make it short otherwise it would become too boring.

Now, once the threshing was done we had to separate the produce from the straw and any other foreign matter, this was achieved by removing the straws from the top layer making sure that no produce was left with the straws, at the same time we would collect the bottom layer in a hip, once that was done we would have to clean that produce by using the wind, to take away the finer parts that were still mixed with the wheat or whatever it was, and there were many other things that we could use to get this wheat clean, by the end of the day we could have collected two or three hundred kilograms of produce, and when we did that we thought that we had done well for a day work.

In the very ancient times was even worse, see what they were using in the Medieval Times, here is a link to check out some ancient farm tools including the Flail and Winnowing Basket used to collect and clean wheat.

Medieval Farm Tools

I hope that this gives the modern reader a view of how thing were done in the old times, so, I do not want to say much more about how all this threshing and cleaning of the wheat was done, because even writing about it is boring today, but anyhow it needed to be done in those days, because that was the only way to collect our wheat to make bread and other things to eat. Now, my dear reader’s do you see how hard was then even to collect wheat for ourselves, so that we could make bread and other cereal product.

I hope I have been able to write something that really sets up the great difference of the ways of life that we were living then and the ways of life that we are living now, for this I want you to compare and judge for yourself how much better off we are today.

To the young people who think that today life is hard, let me describe what I have witnessed when I was young, because then life really was harder than today, you see those days everybody had to find how to earn enough to feed themselves there were no handover from the government. So, the very poor people of those days were trying to collect anything they could to feed themselves, as I have witnessed these things myself, so, let me describe this to you:

You see, at harvest time this is what I have witnessed, I have seen old and poor people mainly old ladies go around the fields and pick up any ear of wheat that was left behind in the fields, one ear of wheat here and another ear wheat there until they had the strength to go around, they did this each day until harvest time was over and there was nothing else to collect; and I tell you what these poor people were happy if in the end they had collected enough ears of wheat that they could trash and clean themselves, perhaps they could have collected enough to make 50 to 100 kilos of wheat during harvest time and they were happy because, they could make bread from this wheat and not go hungry for a few months.

Now I hope that you can see what I mean when I say that the youths of today don’t know anything about hard times.

Anyhow, I hope that today this abundance of cheap food lasts for a long time because things can change in the future. The climatic change is the worrying part, since we don’t know how much it is going to affect the farms and our lives. 

I believe that this article is too long, see you in our next article, Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business

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NOTE. This article above, is the link to the following article, Farming today is still a risky business. This article is also the first article of a group of articles that we want to publish. The aim of these articles is to demonstrate that, the Australian Social Security System fails to help those that need their help. And we believe that it must be equal for everyone. The greatest problem is created by the assets test anomalies, so, the ASSETS TEST must be abolished or adjusted, so that those anomalies are eliminated.  Because this is one of the reasons why, there are not enough rental properties on the market. We will talk about this in our future articles. 

To see more and the original article, clicl on this link, Farming today compared to the old way

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Saturday, July 8, 2023

World News Diary, June 2023.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Here, we will post articles about world issues, Australian issues, Italian issues. And we will post also my personal life story articles. 

Will they be happy together again, we do not know. 

Today even the best families in the world have problems When some members of the family do not comply with what they usually do. When that happens they become isolated, and nobody wants to know about them, and they will try to keep them as far away as they can. Anyhow, I hope that one day they can reunite with them again. 


Welcome to our article, World News Diary, June 2023

Will start with what is happening in England. 

This month of June 2023, while there are several things happening, they do not seem very important. So, there is not much to write in my diary, but at the same time I am continuing it, So, let me start with what I have found on the internet about the Royal Family. (And I quote)

Royal Family on a path to ‘alienate’ Sussexes and get on with business.


Writer and Broadcaster Esther Krakue says the Royal family as an institution is “clearly” on a path to establishing a strategy which alienates Sussexes and Prince Andrew as well.

“Even if relations were warmer, he still wouldn’t be invited - he’s not a working royal; I don’t think he has any way back into the Royal Family,” Ms Krakue told Sky News host Rita Panahi. 

“The Royal Family are trying to just get on with business and ignore the peripheral royals that really shouldn’t be in the public eye.”

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(This is a second report)

'He is not welcome': King Charles snubs Harry and Meghan from big royal event.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have not been invited to the King Charles’ Trooping the Colour parade this weekend.

“Why on earth would the King and the rest of the Royal Family want a man to be present at Trooping the Colour who’d been so … rude to them and embarrassed them,” GB News host Nigel Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray.

“And worse of all, he made the last two years of his late grandmother’s life so difficult.

“He is not welcome – he can stay on the wonderful west coast of California.”

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While we talk about England, let us see what else has happened in England, Boris Jonson has resigned from parliament, because of the parties he had at 10 Downing Street, when he was prime minister. (And I quote)

On Friday 9 June, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he would be stepping down as a Member of Parliament immediately. The following week, the damning Privileges Committee report came out. Impact’s Hannah Walton-Hughes reports.

The resignation announcement came after Mr. Johnson received the report from the Privileges Committee, investigating whether or not he intentionally misled Parliament over the Partygate scandal. 

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What has happened in Europe in June.  


We are sorry to say, that another refugee disaster has happened in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece, a boat of refugees went down and about 600 people have died, they say that there were about 100 children that perished. Only 90 people or so could be saved. Now the Greek blame Italy, because the boat's people wanted to go to Italy, and Italy blames the Greek since the disaster has happened in Greek waters.

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ITALY

In Italy, the ex-prime minister Silvio Berluscone has died. This is how they have reported on the internet.

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi honored with state funeral, day of national mourning

Many Italians identify Berlusconi as the most influential figure in Italy over recent decades.

 Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi was honored Wednesday with a state funeral in Milan’s Duomo cathedral and a day of national mourning, as his legacy — positive or negative — was being hotly debated among Italians.

Thousands of people outside and within the Duomo erupted in applause as a sign of respect as Berlusconi’s flower-draped casket was hoisted out of the hearse and into the cathedral, where Italy's business and political elite, including the president and three former premiers, gathered. His children and companion teared up as the casket was placed in front of the altar.

Most Italians identify Berlusconi, a media mogul, soccer entrepreneur and three-time former premier, as the most influential figure in Italy over recent decades. But they remain sharply divided on whether his influence was for the better or worse, extending to whether the three-time former premier merits all the fuss and ceremony. (End of quote)

For me Silvio Berlusconi was a strong political man, I think he did well, even if some people see his private life, somehow colourful to say the least. You see, if you are in politics, you have friends and you have enemies.

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In Ukraine the war continues as usual and a lot of people are dying, but something strange has happened. Some Russian army soldiers turned against the kremlin, or something like that, for a few days we were thinking that this could be the end of the war. But then it ended in nothing, and the leader of this group has been isolated.

Anyhow, some people are asking the following.

Did Putin flee Moscow in the face of Wagner's march on the capital?

 But nobody knows if Putin tried to flee.

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France riots enter fourth night as interior minister says next hours ‘will be decisive’

Story by Jon Henley and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris • 2h ago

France’s interior minister, GĂ©rald Darmanin, has said the coming hours “will be decisive” as violence triggered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb flared for a fourth consecutive night.

Darmanin said on TF1 television that 45,000 police officers, including special forces, would be deployed across France on Friday night, adding: “Entirely legitimate emotions can in no circumstances justify disorder and delinquency.”

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In America, Donald Trump still wants to become a president for a second time, even though he has been having trouble with the laws, about some secret documents that he took from the White House, when he was president, so, nobody knows how this will end.

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What is happening in Australia.

In Australia, just like anywhere else, we are having problems with the economy, because during the time of the covid, the government gave money to a lot of people to keep the economy going, and it helped.

Today it is completely different we are back to normal, so, everybody has gone back to work, but we have this inflation. To control it the RBA sets the interest rate higher, they do this to slow inflation. The result is that, while the inflation may be controlled, other problem may be caused. The greatest problem will be felt from those people that have borrowed a lot of money; they may find that they might not be able to pay their loans.

The other problem is the rental problem, there are not enough properties for rent on the market, so, rents are going up. Everybody is complaining about it, some people think that the landlords want to get rich quick, but that is not true. They should realize that the reasons why there are not enough properties for rent, it is because there is not enough money on rental properties, there are a few small investors, but they are being driven out from the assets test. So, I believe that this problem in Australia is going to last, until the scale is changed, and properties show better profits. But I do not see it happening soon.

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Look at what this present prime minister is talking about to help the people.

HEREUNDER IS FANTASY MOMEY IN THE FANTASY WORLD.

Anthony Albanese Invests $52 Million In New Trading Platform – Releases To Public, Making Aussies Wealthy.

Appearing on 'The Project' Austrialia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, revealed that he invested substantial amounts of money in a new automated trading platform. The idea was simple: allow the average person the opportunity to cash in on the digital currency boom. Even if they have absolutely no investing or technology experience.

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Here I must say that, if anything like this exists and makes real money, this must be the devil’s money, because it does not produce anything good for mankind, all it does, is to make money for those that do nothing. So, is should be discouraged, or banned. But this prime minister does not think so. Now let us see what else is happening in Australia.

These days in Australia, instead of concentrating how to fix the economy, they are talking about the indigenous Voice to parliament. This is really an old issue, that even the pope has talked about, when he visited Australia. See this hereunder.   

Pope John Paul II would not have supported the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, according to Sky News contributor Rocco Loiacono.

“What he said to the Aboriginal people when he came to Australia in 1986, he addressed them … he said, ‘Australia is part of you, and you are part of Australia … the Aboriginal people of this country must show that you are actively working for your own dignity of life’,” he told Sky News host Cory Bernardi.

Well, that was the view of the pope then. Anyhow, today we should decide to vote yes or no, whet this referendum is held, but it is not easy to decide, because they are not explaining, how it will work, and if the Aboriginals will have more power than the rest of the community. So, I wonder which way to vote, and what I want to say here, please explain.

I believe that I have said enough in this article, so see you next time. 

To see more click on this link, World News Diary, June 2023

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