Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion but in particular would like to talk about an issue which I think is underutilised and an area where we need to do a lot more policy work and see some serious policy change: family farm forestry. Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Yan Yan Gurt Creek catchment area and the property of Andrew Stewart. There I met with members of the Colac Otway Landcare group. Since 1993, they have set up the Otway Agroforestry Network. It is local farmers and government working with Landcare to look at ways to increase the productivity of farms through the use of agroforestry.

What we are seeing is quite remarkable. The results suggest that family farm forestry can not only make a significant contribution to future timber supply but may also ensure commercial tree growing has local community support, underpins sustainable agriculture production and delivers real environmental benefits. I would like to thank Andrew Stewart for hosting my visit last Monday. I would also like to thank Rowan Reed from Bambra. Rowan is a former professor of forestry at the University of Melbourne and has now set up a farm where he showcases what forestry can do to improve family farming. The results are quite remarkable. I view it as a serious way forward. I have also had the pleasure early late last year of visiting Melville Forest at Andrew and Kim Dufty's house, where I also met with their parents, Margaret and Stuart Dufty. They produce carbon-neutral wool on the property by putting about 10 to 15 per cent of their farm to forestry and to plantations. They also use shelter belts, through the use of which they are able to increase livestock production and also get cropping production up. This is a way forward.

The problem we have at the moment is that we are not providing the incentives for farmers to look at forestry. The only incentive we have at the moment is for large-scale plantations through managed investment schemes. I will take this opportunity to once again call for this type of subsidy to plantation timber to stop. It distorts landscapes; it has turned out to be an absolute Ponzi scheme and has delivered no net result for local communities. We need to look at ways we can empower and provide incentives for our farmers to use their land and agroforestry to not only increase their food production but also increase timber production. There is a smart way we can deal with this issue and it is not through MIS. We have seen farmers have their subsidies reduced. We have seen the wool floor scheme taken away from farmers and the single-desk scheme from the wheat growers. We have seen subsidies removed from the farming sector and it is high time we remove them now from the timber plantation sector so that we can once again see farmers working, without having to compete with forestry, to improve their lands to continue to increase their food production and crop production and go a long way to trying to feed the globe. As we all know the increase in food demand is going to double in the next 30 to 40 years, and if we are smart about how we use forestry and food together we can deal with that problem.

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