national ag day

BY DOROTHY HENDERSON, WESTERN AUSTRALIA-BASED MEDIA STRINGER

National Agriculture Day is a day that officially enables us to toast the industry that employs, feeds and clothes many of us. For the last few days I have been trying to think of words to mark this occasion in a way that does this important sector justice: we can talk about the economic contribution agriculture makes to Australia, or about the role farmers play in putting food on tables, or about the major role they play as custodians of vast tracts of Australia’s landscape.

The day’s focus should deservedly be on those that make up “agriculture” as a whole: the people who contribute to a vibrant and vital field of endeavour that is nurtured by us and that nurtures us.

But as I contemplate agriculture now, I see in my mind photographs of skin and bone cows that flowed into my newsfeed yesterday. Images from pastoral country in the north of Western Australia, where primary producers are facing drought conditions that have been exacerbated by catastrophic fire conditions. Forecasts of temperatures of around 40 degrees during the next few days are looking like a reality with no sight of drenching summer rains on the forecaster’s horizon. These photographs settle into my mental image gallery along with others from the eastern states; the essences of fire, drought, survival, anguish, determination---photographs that show people with red dirt on their faces and both grief and hope etched on them.

Finding a focus via the lens of others, I put myself in the boots of those who captured those images, and I wonder if anyone has acknowledged the role of rural journalists in telling the stories, the ongoing narratives, of our regional and rural people, and of the agricultural industry upon which they depend.

There is something romantic about the task of rural reporting: rural journalists are a bit like roving foreign correspondents in far flung locations. They get to drive vast distances on unsealed roads to talk to people who may live in isolated places and live in ways vastly different from their counterparts in other parts of the world.

But unlike foreign correspondents, the rural reporters that traverse the network of country roads in Australia are collecting tales that are much more domestic in nature. They listen to people telling them about cattle, sheep, horses, goats, dogs, chickens, pigs, rabbits, wheat, oat and barley varieties, canola strains; livestock sales, wool prices, field days and ag shows, champion sheep and prize bulls, top-priced studs and diseases threatening the future of food. Most days the stories they cover are positive, inspiring even, and the task of rural reporting is an enjoyable one.

This is not always the case, and the level of stress that is felt during the agricultural industry at times of drought, flood, fire, low commodity prices, policy upheaval and even climate change are all felt and passed on by those with pencils and cameras in hand. This comes on top of the stresses that journalists deal with as a “normal” part of their professional lives…tight deadlines and pressure to get a story even if the task seems almost impossible.

Headlines in front of me today tell the story:  “The drought is pushing rural women to breaking point as doctors urge them to get help early” (Dominique Schwartz, ABC News) to “Farmers and mental distress: “I’m still a bit ashamed about my story.” (Katerina Bryant, The Guardian). When we watch Landline, we see journalists out in paddocks with people. The barrier between what is happening to those people and the reporters telling the story is wafer thin, an almost non-existent veil between one person’s experience and another’s. 

It is the tears in that veil that lead to journalists taking home the distress they witness, and it is this bearing witness of suffering, be it of humans or the animals in their care, that lingers.

While Michael Rowlands may not be a rural journalist, his story about his experience covering the drought for the ABC in July this year, “Five things I learnt covering Australia’s drought crisis this week”, showed the extent to which he was exposed to the impact of the drought as he traversed through the ravaged landscapes. While he waxes lyrically about country bakeries and vanilla slice, there is no doubt that he took home some of the pain along with the positives from that experience.

The journey to farms and the interactions with people are part of the job’s reward. They are usually positive ones as the people have welcomed a journalist onto their properties in the first place: there is no compulsion to say “yes” to a reporter who wants to come and take a pic of your header ploughing through a crop of barley that is going 5t/ha, so these stories are willingly told. But what is even more amazing, and humbling, is the generosity with which rural people, and those in agriculture generally, will share not so pleasant stories too. And those that are tinged with a degree of sadness are so often the ones which are so inspiring; the generosity of spirit that comes with telling a tale that is flawed is truly remarkable.

The stories in agriculture are ongoing; they are constantly being rewritten, edited and revised as people come and go, grow and experience more themselves. Agriculture is a rich source of inspiration, entertainment and humour, intelligent conversation, controversy, harmony, community and isolation. It is deserving of story tellers who can tell the stories with compassion and understanding, but who are also capable of ascertaining the conflicts that exist within our spheres of interest, and balance them with views and experiences that enrich rather than isolate agriculture from the rest of Australia, and rural and regional people from others in their country.

To this end I would like to raise a glass to all regional reporters, the rural journos out there, recording the stories and bridging the gap between city and country, urban and rural. While some of them write specifically for rural audiences, if they tell the stories of agriculture well enough, it will only serve to strengthen the sector and improve understanding. In return, it would be wonderful if those in agriculture valued rural journalists. Keep on welcoming them into your lives; make them tea and provide them with scones and laughter like you always have, because they are hurting with you. They are taking home more than dust on their shoes and grime on their lenses. Your stories are penetrating their souls and becoming part of their being. They will be seeing images of suffering cows and parched paddocks, with you, for years to come.