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

I rise to speak on the Primary Industries Research and Development Amendment Bill. As I often say—in fact, on many occasions; some people may find it boring—every year Australian farmers will grow more food, they will grow more fibre, they will grow it in a more environmentally friendly fashion and they will grow better-quality food. It's been a remarkable achievement. Just the changes in farming practices over the last 20 or 30 years—the no and zero till revolution has reversed the loss of our fertile topsoils.

On my own farm, I marvel at the increased productivity and increased fertility, and the patches of degraded soils being restored to full health. Many a day I spent carting old sand drifts from the forties and fifties off my fence lines and back onto the loamy ridges. Now, once the soil has been taken back, with modern farming practices it stays there: highly fertile soil, in its right place.

Australian farming and Australian farmers are a runaway success story. But we are a high-cost production platform. Innovation is what has kept Australian farmers in business. We've innovated on the back of a great two-way partnership between farmers and scientists. I was closely involved with the ag research sector in this way before I entered parliament. I remember well a scientist telling me just how much he valued the interest and two-way interaction with switched-on and eager farmers. He said: 'Often, as scientists, we don't know what question to ask or where to find the next barrier to address. Farmers provide that information. They are the catalyst. They are the challengers of the scientists.' And we are in a very good space in Australia in that way. That's why, in many cases, our agricultural innovation has led the world.

The method of funding agricultural research in Australia has evolved over a very long period. Historically, research was largely the domain of government agricultural departments. However, over the last 30 years or so it's become apparent that if agriculture were to reach its full potential then much more was required—more investment was required. So we reached out to the private sector and introduced laws in Australia which protected and rewarded the development of intellectual property.

Specifically, in one case at least, that has led to what we call plant breeder's rights. So the researcher who has spent the money developing a new grain, a new cultivar, can reap the rewards through a royalty system. When the grower delivers the new grain to whatever facility, whoever he sells it to and whoever they sell it to pay a royalty back to the original developer of the product. Just this move alone has led to private investment—both local and international—and developments in new cultivars, with remarkable improvements. As a friend of mine once said, 'You should never underestimate the amount of technology in that single grain.'

But rather than entrust all agricultural investment to the private sector, the Australian government has remained heavily involved in the research sector. There are a number of vehicles where this occurs, including the Cooperative Research Centres. But, without doubt, the program which is admired all over the world—and I've had this continually from visiting agriculturalists—are our 15 registered research organisations. These organisations are owned and operated by the growers of the various sectors and funded by statutory grower levies, which in turn are matched by the federal government. This gives the growers skin in the game.

Those registered research organisations are the teams that have kept Aussie farmers at the cutting edge. They've directed resources to the areas where we get the best bang for our buck, and agriculture has benefitted greatly. I spoke about more environmentally friendly farming when I opened this speech. Let's just look at a few examples. Coarse grain yields in Australia have doubled on a per hectare basis over the last 40 years. They've doubled in 40 years, but that's only part of the story. The area planted to coarse grains has risen by only 30 per cent over the same period. This increase in productivity hasn't been brought on by land clearance, but largely by the tightening of cropping rotation and increased yields. The tightening of cropping rotations has been brought about by the introduction of disease-inhibiting crop rotations and chemical weed control—changes which have been underwritten by scientific advance. All of these things have resulted in coarse grain production over that period rising by about 350 per cent. Remember, yields have only doubled and the area has only gone up by 30 per cent, but the production has increased by 350 per cent. By the same measures, cereal grain exports have performed even better. They have risen by 400 per cent from 2.6 million tonnes to 11 million tonnes over the same period.

In the rice industry, there have been enormous advances in Australia. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. It's not particularly wet through a lot of Australia, so Australia has developed the most water-efficient rice plants in the world—and by a long way. With stock production, we know that we are now close to things like virtual fencing for livestock, robotic stock handling and feeding systems, drones that will change the way we farm and autonomous tractors are on the way. In the previous parliament, I led an inquiry into agricultural innovation, and one of the things we did was visit the University of Sydney's school of agricultural robotics. It was an absolute eye opener. There is so much good stuff on the way for agriculture. It's a very fine place to be, in Australia at the moment.

However, as if to underline those technological advances in the industry, while production has quadrupled across a range of products, employment in the agricultural sector has fallen by 20 per cent, which is having a major negative effect on our rural communities. If we are to regenerate jobs in the regions, we can be sure that, once again, we will be relying on the science of agriculture to find the answers because if we are going to find jobs for people in the regions it is likely to hinge around the primary products and value-adding those before we send them to the rest of the world. We will have to really commit ourselves to that or otherwise the challenges of an emptying inland Australia will become more and more pressing.

To come to today's legislation, quite rightly, the four registered research organisations which will remain statutory bodies are compelled to spend their research and development levies on only research and development. The current legislation theoretically allows them to invest in marketing, but they can only raise money for that purpose by implementing a separate voluntary levy on producers. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, as someone who was a producer of grain, that we don't normally rub our hands with glee at the thought of being hit with another levy. It presents a huge challenge to the organisations: producers are unlikely to be enamoured by a new levy.

The question is: what if the organisation could find a separate stream of income—perhaps a business partner or a benefactor? Currently, it is a no-go zone. This legislation will give them the flexibility to explore those options to find a way of investing in marketing without having to strike a new levy on their producers. It's pretty straightforward, really. While we need to make sure these organisations do the right thing, we need also to encourage them to make the best decisions on behalf of their members, and this requires them having sufficient flexibility to do so.

I firmly support the legislation as it stands and assume that it will go through this parliament—I don't think it's particularly controversial. Those in the farming community can rest well assured that I will continue to support those registered research organisations. I believe they produce great results for Australia. I believe the partnership between private enterprise and government—the taxpayer in this case—in supporting those research outcomes benefits all Australians, and I look forward to working in that sector in the future.

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