What's the betting that Stratchan didn't run around telling these particular Australian farmers that Japanese rice farmers were right to ruin their livelihoods. This is the price of protectionism that the likes of Stratchan never defend or even mention. At this point I really did laugh. The purpose of markets is to coordinate purposeful human action. Profits and losses are one of the means by which this is accomplished.
Profits are maladjustments between supply and demand.
This means that factors employed in that line of production are underpriced in relation to the value of their products while there is inadequate supply to satisfy consumer demand. Profits encapsulate this information. If Stratchan had really read von Mises and von Hayek, as he claims to have done, he would know this. Instead, he gives us the old discredited socialist claptrap about profits, poverty, the rich and the poor, etc., etc. I really do believe this is funny.