Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Farming the future report. I am drawn to the comments of the member for Moreton. I would consider, even though he might publicly bemoan the lack of passing of the ETS, that privately his opinions might not be quite the same, given that had we passed the ETS we would be implementing a $14 billion tax a year on industry to go with the $9 billion resources tax that the government announced only two weeks ago. In fact, if he feels so strongly about it, of course the government can go to a double dissolution election on it. He and his colleagues may well wish to do that, but I suspect not.

I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, but I do have a longstanding interest in these matters. As a farmer before I entered this place, involved in agripolitics, and having a long involvement in the agricultural research community as a farmer representative, I have been looking at this report with great interest. I was particularly drawn to its chapter on research and extension. I was recently at a Canberra dinner, hosted by the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology. I was privileged to hear an address by the respected agriculture journalist Julian Cribb. He informed us that while the world was focussing on eight to nine billion people in 2050, in fact he believes we will have 11 billion people in the world by 2060. Surely this is an alarming figure. It will be one of the great challenges of the next 50 years and, as far as addressing the greatest moral issue of our generation is concerned—the Prime Minister used to talk about this on a regular basis—feeding this world of 11 billion people will indeed take some topping.

Feeding the population is not just about things like widespread famine, as calamitous as that would be; it is about the security of the world as we know it. Most wars are caused by economic disadvantage—nothing sharpens the bayonet like starving children. At the same time as this demand increases, we will continue to lose the most productive land on the planet to urban sprawl and land degradation, and there will be increasing competition for water resources. The planet will need to double food production while at the same time we expect to lose up to 30 per cent of our arable lands. Australia has both an opportunity and an obligation to be a big part of the solution. We must unlock the untapped potential of this land. We are traditionally a supplier of food to the world. Our regional security will rely on us expanding this role.

Those who believe agriculture is a sunset industry are wrong. They are wrong, they have to be wrong, because if agriculture is not a new horizon all else will fail. Collectively, the agricultural industry and parliaments have allowed governments to steadily reduce public investment in agricultural science. The road to discovery is very long, and we are still reaping the benefits of the investment of the sixties and seventies into agricultural advances. Certainly many of our scientists were trained in this time, when the prospective career paths in agricultural sciences were more attractive. Currently our agricultural training courses are well undersubscribed, and, without wishing to offend anyone, we struggle to attract the top students.

There will be simply no alternative: Australia and the world will have to start seriously investing in agriculture again. Five million dollars of research funding was cut from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry budget last year, and this year another $80 million has been taken away from Caring for Our Country. In my state, South Australia, the South Australian Research and Development Institute can expect no more than standstill budgets in the foreseeable future. We must spend more. We must invest more heavily. We must promote the industry as the progressive future we need. For that we need more research and development funding in order to address this imminent threat to food production. Investment in R&D is the backbone of agricultural industry, but it has been diminishing in real terms for 25 years.

We have had emergency drought aid around Australia for some years now, with mixed results. In some cases it has done what it was supposed to do and supported good producers through a tough patch. In others it has distorted the market and stopped good young farmers from investing in the industry. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Mr Burke, has signalled the government’s intention to move away from exceptional circumstances support and has announced a pilot program in Western Australia targeting farm planning and efficiency. I wish the program well, as at least it aims to increase productivity and efficiency, but much more will be needed for our farmers to remain profitable and the world to avert a food crisis.

The key to farmer and community prosperity is production advantage—to be the best cutting-edge farmers in the world. As we deal with climate change, the pressures from international trade, the rising costs of doing business in the Australian economy, the likely rises in inputs, and the weakness of the American dollar which will continue to reduce our competitiveness, the best possible chance we have of avoiding the periodic requests for assistance to the agricultural industry is to make sure we have a profitable sector. The best way to ensure we adapt to the impacts of climate change is to make sure we have a profitable agricultural sector. The best way of doing this is to provide the scientific horsepower to drive adaptation and the adoption of new technology.

Disturbingly, we are held hostage of the green left, who tend to oppose any advances in technological agriculture as being somehow bad for the general public—as if starving to death would be a good outcome. At the current time there are still bans in South Australia on growing GM products, when the rest of the nation has moved on. Indeed, the rest of the world is moving on and we will soon see widespread adoption of this technology in China and other parts of Asia. We simply cannot limit technology; we must support and amplify it. Unfortunately at the current time we have the handbrake on.

Australia’s agricultural research, development and extension effort is declining at the very time growers and rural industries need research to provide solutions to the challenges of the world’s growing population. Less funding directly impacts upon production capability, food security, natural resource management and the ability to cope with seasonal variation and climate change. Recommendations 3, 5, 6 and 7 in this Farming the future report all ask for extra research funding—recommendation 3 for soil sciences, recommendation 5 for greenhouse gas science, recommendation 6 for new technologies, and recommendation 7 for weather forecasting. I sit on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation, which has just completed a report on long-term weather forecasting. That report also recommends greater funding in this area—science to assist agriculture to predict and adapt to climate change.

Agriculture has maintained productivity growth of about 2.8 per cent during the past 20 years but it is starting to slow, a trend that Geoff Thomas, the President of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology—who was the host of the dinner I attended—believes is directly linked to the slowing down of research. He said another major threat to Australian agriculture was the shortage of agriculture graduates. Mr Thomas said:

This is at a time when Australian growers are being expected to maintain or increase productivity in the face of unprecedented cost and environmental pressures and rapidly worsening terms of trade.

I welcome this report into farming for the future, particularly the chapter on research and extension. Its conclusion at paragraph 6.53 actually says that research funding in Australia is at a bare minimum to drive the industry. So this report is not a signal to kick back; it should actually have the alarm bells ringing, because, as I pointed out, in four other recommendations it asks for increased research spending. If Australia does not meet its challenge to increase food production, if it does not make its farmers profitable, the world in the end will not be secure and it will become increasingly insecure if it is not well fed, as indeed will our farmers.

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