Policy and practice

Abstract

The role of this last chapter is to put the oral history into a policy context so that the combination of factors that formed this environment can be understood. It looks firstly at the social reasons behind the determination to introduce farming on the Darling Downs. This vision was sustained for more than 100 years but had to overcome a series of commercial and environmental problems. Government leaders gave financial and political backing, and agricultural scientists helped to make family farms viable by developing modern farming systems. This final chapter briefly reviews the technical advice and support that government departments disseminated to the farming conununity. Just as it seemed the vision was being realised, changing international trade relationships and new and difficult environmental problems began to undermine the foundations that had been laid so carefully. The chapter ends with the 1970s as the problems that that decade ushered in are still very much part of contemporary debate. However ir does draw some conclusions about how this history can help inform a new vision for the catchment.