Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a very important motion which I am bringing to the House today, supported by a number of my colleagues from the coalition, because we do have a crisis right now—a crisis in the number of agriculture-related courses being offered, in the numbers of graduates, in the demands and needs of agribusiness in Australia and in the growing global food task that we are in danger of not being able to meet.

The Australian agricultural industry does have excellent career opportunities. There are over 100,000 jobs in the agricultural sector right across Australia, whether in horticulture or in other production sectors in animal husbandry or in cropping, whether in research and development or in the growing of markets for produce. There is a wide range of domestic and international jobs associated with the agricultural sector. Yet we have a situation in Australia today where there are fewer people working in agribusiness when compared to any other sector, given the size and the contribution of the sector to Australia's economy. There is a diverse range of career opportunities which require a whole range of skill levels.

We have an understanding of the growing food task internationally. Part of that global food task is the need for more refined foods and higher value foods. Australia is amazingly well-situated to provide much of the value for exports into that growing global food market, yet we have this crisis back home.

We also have to recognise that it is not just a matter of throwing dollars at increasing the numbers of places, or subsidised places, with registered training organisations, in TAFE institutions or at universities, although that is a very important part of the solution. I note that today—and I have no doubt that the speaker to follow me will stress this long and hard—the government has reannounced the commitment it made in the last budget to further education and training. The tragedy, when you look at what the government has committed to the area of agribusiness training and at what grants have been put into the system, is that virtually nothing has gone to this agricultural education sector. For decades now, it has been hugely ignored.

There is a skills deficit crisis in the agricultural sector. Across the nation, the agrifood industry is facing a critical lack of people. In 2012, the decline in Australian agriculture related graduate rates, the decline in the numbers of agricultural science and agribusiness academics, the decline in the levels of agricultural sector research and development, and the slowing rate of agricultural productivity growth are all indisputable and well-documented facts.

On the other hand, the opportunities for agribusiness production and domestic and export sales are growing exponentially. We are in a situation where we could meet the demands; but we are starving the sector of trained personnel. The number of agricultural graduates produced nationally falls short of the calculated needs by a factor of as much as 6 to 1. In particular, there are very few graduates taking up the opportunity to take a higher degree by research in agriculture— these would be the innovators of the next generation. This is not altogether surprising, given that the postgraduate research scholarships on offer hover around the poverty line level of support, paying much less than a graduate salary, and there is also a focus on short-term projects funded by soft money, as many have observed. As a person in your late 20s, if you want to go into postgraduate research you really have to have someone else paying your way. In comparison with other sectors in the economy, agriculture has a far lower proportion of graduates working in it. It has also been found that when an agricultural enterprise employs relevant graduates they have measurable increases in productivity. If you can find yourself a graduate, you know that they are going to do more than earn their keep in a very short time. In a 2009 submission to the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture stated:

Maintaining the productivity of agriculture and helping the industry meet future challenges, including climate change, will require underpinning research together with strong professional input and a well trained production workforce. The low number of graduates and doctoral students entering agriculture puts this at risk.

We know the farm dependent economy represents about 12 per cent of the national GNP. The industry exports around two-thirds of what it produces and contributes in the order of 15 per cent to 20 per cent of export earnings to the national economy. Yet there has been a steady decline in the output of graduates in agriculture from universities, TAFEs and anywhere else you can find them over the last decade and that is despite the fact that jobs are going begging.

Why have we got this enormous disconnect between jobs available and future demand for the output of the sector and younger people prepared to go into this industry? Another dimension of this is the ageing population of the agricultural sector. What is the problem? The problem quite simply is a loss of a sense of a future in this industry sector. It has been hard hit by government policy, particularly in the last five years. Take, for example, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. We have just met with representatives of the National Irrigators Council a few steps from here and those irrigators right around the Murray-Darling Basin say to us: 'Give us a break. We can prosper in the agribusiness sector of Australia. We are some of the world's most innovative and highly productive rice growers. We still have the capacity to grow some of the finest wool fibre in the world. We do a magnificent job with our fruit and dairy production at low costs. Our competitors internationally are 40 per cent subsidised. Australia's highest level of agriculture subsidy never gets above four per cent. We with New Zealand are the lowest in terms of government support in the globe in a developed country.'

Farmers are being hit hard by the carbon tax costs coming down the line and by the taking of irrigation water for no justifiable or demonstrable environmental outcome. Farmers are environmentalists. The people who work in agribusiness are environmentalists—they have to be to survive—but when they are told that they will be the ones who will earn the green votes for Labor by transferring their water from the food and fibre production account to the environment in the Basin Plan with no demonstrable outcome for the environment then farmers lose heart. No wonder their sons and daughters, the younger generation of rural based people, who could be going to regional universities, TAFE colleges or RTOs, look at their parents working so hard, investing incredible amounts in assets—$2 million to $3 million to start a farm—look at the high risk in the sector, given this government's response to it, and say: 'It's not for us. We will go and earn a salary somewhere in the public sector. We will go across to the mining sector. Agribusiness is too hard for us to invest years in training and then expect a reasonable career.' This is a tragedy for this country. This really must be re-addressed.

The Australian population has to understand where food comes from. We have just seen amazing research which found that a lot of our children think that avocados are manufactured and that a dairy product is not something that comes from an animal. They do not know that socks are made of a fibre that is grown on a plant. There is this enormous disconnect between what our Australian population understands about their food security and their fibre, and who produces it and how. This has to change if we are going to have a future for agribusiness in Australia. Our universities have to be given a lot more support in terms of bursaries and cadetships. Our younger people have to be resold the notion that agribusiness is a magnificent sector and one with an enormous future that they have to grasp with both hands. We have to make sure that our smaller primary schools and secondary schools which have land attached to them—they often do—are developed for agribusiness studies. A whole range of jobs have to be done right now. The sector cannot do it by themselves. They need a partnership with state and federal governments. That partnership is going begging as far as the federal government is concerned, and I am sure that in a few minutes we will be told by the government's representative that it is all okay because a few hundreds of millions or a billion or so were thrown at it in the last budget. That is not good enough. We have to make sure that our training establishments have the resources to offer good courses and that the marketing of agribusiness is effectively and appropriately managed in Australia. It is not just a case of changing the name 'agriculture'; it is about making sure that the prospects for the sector are well understood and that we have our brightest and best men and women entering agriculture. That focus will probably need to be with our tertiary institutions in the regions.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my birth mate, the member for Murray, for putting this motion forward. I agree with many of the sentiments of the member for Murray but I just do not agree with some of the political assessments that came from it. But I will agree with the member for Murray when she quite rightly mentioned that we have had decades of neglect and not necessarily neglect in just the last five years. There is no doubt that we very much need active, realistic partnerships with industry and with local, state and federal governments.

We recognise that Australian farmers do the hard work involved in producing, processing, handling and selling produce from something like 136,000 farm businesses across the country, 99 per cent of which are owned by Australians. The work generates something like $405 billion each year. This is a staggering figure. In addition, Australian farmers make a significant contribution to feeding people in a range of countries overseas and to global food security. In our own region, by 2020 half the world's population will be on Australia's doorstep, which represents an unparalleled opportunity for our farmers and the farm sectors.

More recently, positive news was put out by ABARES and by KPMG, in its Expanding horizons report. Most of the data clearly indicates that the Australian agricultural sector has for the first time in many years something positive to look forward to. We need—and I agree with the member for Murray—to encourage, nurture and support this vital industry.

The other thing we need to be careful of is the matter of people associating agriculture with farming—and there is nothing wrong with this. Farming is absolutely crucial but agriculture is more than just farming. The industry itself goes right across the board. It is like the food chain. One end is developing technologies and innovations that follow right through the whole chain of farming and agriculture, and these developments go right through to transport, to developing things in labs, to developing different species of plants or fibres or whatever else the case may be. This extends through to the transport system, to people providing for those on farms and to scientists—right across the board, as the member for Murray quite rightly pointed out.

So, when we talk about agriculture we are talking about exciting prospects. Yet, as the member for Murray quite rightly pointed out, in the Food fibre and the future ACER report, which was released recently, what was terrifying was not so much the trivial pursuit stuff about where yoghurt comes from. We have to be fair about this. In our day we had families related to people on the land so you actually visited the farm and had some idea of what farmers did and what was involved in farming. You saw a relationship between what happened there and what was going on in the supermarket shelves and what was happening in your house, because you actually did it on the spot. So, I can understand the trivial pursuit thing: where is yoghurt from—some kids thought cotton came from the moon—and so forth. What really upset me about this was the lack of appreciation by teachers and students of associating innovation and agriculture. I have just been doing some reading about the early New South Wales colony, and we would not have survived without innovation by those very early farmers. The whole history of Australian agriculture is a history of innovation. Yet in the Food, Fibre and the Future survey, barely the majority of students associated innovation with agriculture. There seemed to be no relationship. It was phenomenal. What made it even worse, when you analysed the figures, was that many students thought there was little relationship between science and agriculture, little development and change of inputs into agriculture for a productive outcome. It was extraordinary. I do not know what they think happens in our farming enterprises and in agriculture, but all I can tell you is that that survey was a worry.

How do we go about trying to correct some of this? That is part of what the Member for Murray has raised. This government is keen to do something about it in a practical sense. The National Farmers Federation is doing something, with its Blueprint for Australian Agriculture, and we are, with the national food plan, trying to develop with the industry. I attended a workshop recently hosted by the National Farmers Federation—a very good one with many industry representatives. One of the things that came out from that forum was that the industry needed to talk with one voice.

Everybody in this chamber is very supportive of this industry. I know you are. I have listened to you over the years. You have come forward with terrific ideas. Irrespective of the politics, we need to get it on the agenda. When you have 100 representatives from different aspects of the industry and they are all asking for different things at times—yet when you really sift through it they are asking for similar things—you have to say to yourself that the industry has a responsibility to get itself organised so that it presents an appropriate image to the public, to the government and to itself about what it is and where it wants to be, particularly by 2050. I do not know, colleagues, whether you have had an opportunity yet to have a look at the KPMG's Expanding horizons: key highlights, agribusiness in Australia 2011/12. It is worth a look. It looks towards trying to get some coherence in terms of industry, government and community about where agriculture and agricultural businesses should be in the future. That means working more collaboratively, having a coherent view and being able to present that.

One of the other things that tends to emerge from this—and I do not want to be too negative about this—is to do with the image of the industry. The industry has a responsibility in this regard—along with us; we are stewards equally with the industry, both the government and the representatives of parties that may form government. What is the image of the industry itself? The industry has been going through very difficult times for well over a decade. The problem is that what the public tend to get and the media tend to push is the negatives, the challenges, the problems. Yet when you meet and talk with farmers, farming organisations and representatives, you find energetic, enthusiastic, hard-headed, realistic, frank-talking people who tell it as it is. They often tell you how serious it is and then, when you dig deeper with them—excuse the pun—when you go beyond the surface, they also tell you how fantastic it is, what prospects are available, what opportunities exist. The ABARES materials, which we are all aware of now, clearly point out that agriculture has a fantastic future, not just here but in feeding the world.

I had the great privilege recently of leading a delegation into the ASEAN region, and some of the messages that came out of it were very positive, including, first and foremost, Australia's fantastic reputation for having innovative food and fibre manufacturers and producers. So take a pat on the back. We do not encourage or nurture that enough. The second thing that came through is the whole framework of food safety about our agriculture products, in particular, and the produce that we export. It is food security in the sense of not just being able to grow it but also certification. I know we overregulate; I know we get problems with this all the time. Australian food is safe and secure and we can develop and expand it—and they want it. We have a burgeoning middle class ready to buy premium product, and we need to get on that wagon. The third thing they said is, 'Why are you afraid of our investment? We want to co-invest with you; we want to be part of your production; we want to be part of your processing. Use our marketing techniques and our abilities and networks and come over here and train instead of us going the other way so we can participate in this with you.' So we do have terrific opportunities. I agree with the member for Murray. We all have to do a lot more about it, and that goes for the industries and training organisations as well.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to congratulate the member for Murray for putting this motion before the House. It is one of those very critical issues that could be lost in the general discussion or the political thrust of this place, but let us hope it is not. Let us hope that people on both sides of this House will rise to the challenge that is before all of us.

This year has been designated the Australian Year of the Farmer, and there is no better opportunity than to keep a debate like this going every week in this place. Too often I hear people on both sides of the House talking about people in a derogatory way and saying, 'They're just farmers; that's over in cockies corner. Those people—who may come from leafy suburbs or from outer metropolitan areas—are fed by the Australian farmers each and every day and their families are fed by farmers each and every day. The importance of agriculture cannot be understated. If we do not look at the alarm bells that are now ringing and do something about making sure that we get a new generation moving into agriculture, we are going to find that in 30 to 40 years' time not only will we be flat out producing enough affordable food for ourselves but many parts of the world will find themselves in a situation of starvation. There are also many right now that are in a state of starvation.

Australian farmers—and there are 135,000 farms in Australia—do an extraordinary job, but too few of their children or relatives are taking up the challenge of agriculture in the future. Those 135,000 farms feed 60 million mouths every day: 22 million Australians—we produce almost 98 per cent of the food we eat in Australia, and fibre—and another 38 to 40 million people in many other parts of the world.

We are talking about jobs here in Australia, and that is what this motion is all about. Something like 1.6 million Australians are employed directly or indirectly in the agricultural sector. The parliamentary secretary who spoke before me spoke not just about working on the farm but also about the agricultural industry beyond the farm gate—the extension work, the agribusiness, the food technology areas. There are a whole lot of very exciting sectors that young people should be made more aware of as a career path. There could be no more noble an occupation than to be a food or fibre producer in Australia and to participate in the great challenge that the world is facing in meeting the need to feed the world in the years to come. It should start at school, as the member for Murray highlights in her motion. Where is it in the first year reading book when kids, at that very impressionable age, are starting to understand where food comes from? When I went to school, in the year 1 reader—it might have been the prep 1 reader—there were stories about visiting a farm and about the very basic forms of agriculture and food so that children young enough to be in their first year at school could start to learn about the source of the food in their lunch box or the food they had for little lunch or at home at night. It sounds very basic but we have to start there; it is all about education. The other thing is to make sure that in our national curriculum there is an opportunity to promote the importance of an agricultural career as a pathway to a very noble occupation in the future. The other thing I want to see is money invested in research and development. For far too long, not only in Australia but around the world, agricultural research has taken not second place or third place but is way down the end of the line when it comes to money being invested in research and development. There seems to be more money going into developing new and faster chips for computers, iPhones and all that other gadgetry than there is going into agriculture—so that we can meet this huge challenge that the world has in relation to feeding the world by 2050, when they say that we have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have produced in the last 1,000 years. It is a huge challenge. Do not quote me as being accurate on those figures, but it is of that magnitude.

I commend this motion to both sides of the House. In this forthcoming budget, let us make sure that there is more money for R&D for agriculture in this year of the farmer.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure I take this opportunity to speak on the motion moved by the member for Murray before the House today. I managed in my office to catch some of the contributions before I ran very quickly to get here to join the debate. I certainly acknowledge the great thought and commitment to this important area of industry that has been expressed by all of the speakers in the debate today.

It is certainly the case that the government agrees that the Australian agricultural industry does offer great opportunities for higher education and vocational education and training graduates. We acknowledge the importance of ensuring that key industries, such as the agribusiness sector, have the skilled workforce that they need.

While we agree with the spirit of the motion, we believe that agreeing to it as this time would be premature, and I will outline why we have that view. As members opposite would be aware the important issue is currently being examined across a number of inquiries. The Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations is conducting an inquiry into all aspects of higher education and skills training to support future demand in agriculture and agribusiness in Australia. As well, the Senate Select Committee on Australia's Food Processing Sector is due to report by 30 June 2012. Australia's Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, is leading a review of Australia's science, education, research and development outputs, which is set for publication in the first quarter of this year. The government is also developing Australia's first-ever national food plan, to ensure that the government's policy settings are right for Australia over the short, medium and long term. Once these inquiries are concluded, we will examine those findings closely in order to respond appropriately to them.

The government is aware that research by the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture, for example, points to a shortfall in the number of university qualified graduates needed to meet the number of jobs in the agribusiness sector. We also understand that a decline in agricultural science enrolments is resulting in shortages of agricultural scientists and consultants, particularly for more senior positions and in remote areas.

The Labor government is committed to supporting up-skilling and participation in key industries, including this one. The government provided the University of Western Sydney with nearly $1 million to create an agriculture and food alliance with the University of Sydney. This alliance, among other projects, will build interest in agriculture among high school students. The previous speaker talked about the importance of teaching children at an early age to take a love for this particular area. It will also establish outreach programs in order to help increase student enrolments.

Nationally, a third of Australian universities offer places in agriculture related courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with most universities offering related courses in business and science fields as well. The learning and training opportunities are there, and this government is making information available to help people make decisions about study and careers in agriculture. This includes the Job Guide, Australian Jobs and the My University website. The importance of getting new students into agriculture related courses is not lost on the government. Agriculture units of study receive the highest rate of government funding, $20,284 per Commonwealth supported place in 2012. The Labor government's higher education reforms will have a positive flow-on effect for participation in agribusiness education and training. As the government transforms the higher education landscape, agricultural science will be among the many disciplines benefiting from a boost to the number of enrolments around the country as well as improved access for regional students. The Australian agricultural industry offers a diverse range of careers requiring a wide range of skill levels, and agribusiness will be a beneficiary of the reform agenda.

One of a number of challenges for all Australian governments under this reform agenda is to deliver a more responsive vocational education and training system which includes supporting growth in the system that is targeted to the areas of industry need. As part of the negotiation of the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development $1.7 billion is on the table for states and territories to work with the Commonwealth in transforming and reforming the training system, in particular to target it more effectively to meet the area of skills need by industries.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to use this opportunity to support the member for Murray in this private member's motion. So much has been done recently in relation to investigating the situation, and reports will be written, and I would like to think that some of those reports will be heeded and actual budgetary amounts will be allocated to the problem. But more often than not that is not what we have seen, especially from this government, and I am sorry to say I cannot see the point of view of the opposite side that this is a shared responsibility. Since Labor came to office we have seen agricultural investment reduced from $3.8 billion to $1.8 billion and of course half of the $1.8 billion is funded at industry level. So it is all very well to say that both sides of politics have not done the right thing and made the investment, but the evidence is there for all to observe that never has funding been slashed to the point that it has in the last periods of Labor government.

We need to do more. We need to realise that today an agricultural career is not seen as a sexy pursuit. It is not a case of there being bad press for agriculture; the reality is that in the big wide world of advertising and social media there is no press. That is what we are suffering. We are seeing cuts by government in spending, we are seeing an under-rating of the whole food task by the Labor government, and we need to prove with budget measures that we really do have an equal view of this issue. There is a lot being said today of a platitude nature and we need to see hard cash. When you take money out of the agricultural industry it does not matter where it hits, whether you take it out of quarantine inspections and therefore expose us to threats to biosecurity or whether you take it out of direct funding or whether you avoid putting it into tertiary courses and allow other courses to be better subsidised, and you have a situation where overseas paying students are paying full fees and they are all doing professional courses other than agriculture because their parents back home in Asia see agriculture as a peasant pursuit and do not value it highly. All these things are a problem.

In 2050 we are expecting a world population of nine billion. Australia needs to double its food production. We need to double our food production task today. To do that we are going to need an increased value of science and of quality of science. We need to be ever vigilant in relation to biosecurity, because it is no good simply looking at the current situation. As the world evolves we are being more and more exposed to biosecurity problems and we need the top performers, the top scientifically minded tertiary students, to devote their studies to agriculture, to science generally, and we need to make sure that we have got the best minds working into the future giving us good, solid biosecurity in this world. We need a government that is prepared to put money into customs inspections also, not take it away. We need to have a situation where we are making the investments that this industry is truly due. We have all manner of things competing with tertiary education for agriculture today. The professions are getting the status of being where young students with bright minds ought to go. It is an easy life. It is a clean life. It is a highly promoted life in the media today. Who reads on the front page about the goings-on of Farmer Brown back in the boondocks, as the city viewers would see it to be? No-one. It came to my mind while I was researching this that Sylvania Waters did more for the house construction industry than all manner of talking in parliament. Maybe we do need to see a future where shows like The Farmer Wants a Wife are a little more promoted, because we need to get the idea that there is a future for agriculture back into the minds of young secondary students so that they are prepared to take up tertiary education in the field.

Mr Sidebottom interjecting—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should think so, Madam Deputy Speaker. The agriculture sector has a huge job ahead of it: feeding nine billion people by 2050. If we do not do our bit, we will have failed.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Murray, who, as we have just heard, spoke on the importance of career opportunities in the agricultural sector. With this year being the Year of the Farmer, it is a fitting topic for discussion. As I said when I spoke recently about this year being the Year of the Farmer, agriculture offers a special way of life for so many families around Australia. Some farms are handed down over generations. Other people are brought into farming life. It is estimated that approximately 319,800 people are in the agricultural workforce in Australia. Working in the agricultural sector is open to a wide range of people from different backgrounds who all have differing skill levels. Farming is not just about knowing how to work the land; it requires a high level of knowledge and includes many skill areas of science, innovation and business. It also requires a hardworking attitude and strong commitment and passion.

The agriculture sector in Australia is vibrant and has a strong future. With this in mind, we need to be growing our workforce in this sector to keep up with demand. With Australia producing so many quality items, the demand is sure to continue to grow. As a society we need to be strongly encouraging more people to consider careers in the agricultural sector. Figures indicate that there are not enough students graduating from quality tertiary institutions to meet the requirements of the industry. This is concerning, and that is why we need more students to consider working in the industry. The opportunities in the industry are enormous and it offers great rewards. To keep our nation clothed and fed, to grow and to sell wonderful fresh produce and importantly, to see their bumper crop being harvested and know that all of their hard work has paid off are the greatest rewards of a farmer.

As a nation we need to encourage new people into farming. The exciting career options for young people in the agricultural sector need to be constantly highlighted to ensure that our farming communities remain strong and resilient into the future. While a career in the agriculture sector may not be the first idea that crosses a student's mind, as a society we need to make this a consideration for people. Industry, government, farmers and education bodies should work collaboratively to encourage more students to actively consider a career in agriculture. Agricultural units also receive a high rate of government funding at university level.

We need to educate our children from a young age about farmers and their vital role in society. I have heard stories recently about children who do not understand where milk actually comes from. Recent studies have also indicated that many students, and even some teachers, are not aware of the importance of innovation, research and development in agriculture. This is concerning, as concepts such as this are the core of the farming industry. To research, create and develop farming practice and then put it into action is at the core of most farming enterprises. It is concepts such as these that students need to be taught in schools, so that the agricultural sector is more widely and better understood. Let us make sure that students understand that there is more to the industry than the image of negativity that is often shown in the media. Yes, there are hard times but there are also great rewards to accompany a special way of life. It is important that our children know, understand and can contribute as farmers to society. Let us start educating our children and our communities so that we can support our farmers and recognise exactly what they do for our nation—such as providing fresh produce for everyone to enjoy. Let us also encourage our youth to consider agriculture as a career. There are so many exciting career possibilities in the agricultural sector and they require a range of skills and an ever-increasing workforce to meet the increasing demand.

The agricultural sector requires inventors, innovators, adaptors and researchers—those who can battle the vagaries of nature and who are rewarded by the product of hard work. If we as Australians are to maintain our quality of life, we must encourage people to be educated and to work in the agricultural sector.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak on this motion moved by my friend and colleague the member for Murray. Globally, agricultural commodity prices are expected to continue to remain strong. Rural exports increased 4.7 per cent in the December 2011 quarter. The gross value of Australian farm production in 2010-11 was $48.7 billion. There are approximately 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, and Australian farms produce almost 93 per cent of Australia's domestic food supply. It was indeed agriculture, not mining, that saved this country from the global financial crisis.

The opportunities offered by the agricultural sector are enormous. Huge and increasing demand by our Asian neighbours provides Australia with a market on our doorstep. As these nations become more affluent, so their demand for the high-quality produce of Australia will grow. Unfortunately, far too many employment opportunities in the sector go begging. Australians are not seriously considering the benefits of working in the agricultural sector. And it is not just one-sided. I do not believe that the institutions that offer courses are truly stepping up to the plate. It is well known that it is expensive to offer courses in agriculture. It is expensive to take students to visit the areas where they might one day work in agricultural science. It is expensive to bring that expertise into a university, which is why the regional universities are so well placed to do this. But Hawkesbury Agricultural College was unable to offer a first-year program this year, as fewer than 10 students had enrolled. Unfortunately this is a growing trend. With Australia failing to graduate sufficient students to fill the available positions, 2.5 jobs go begging for every student that graduates.

The array of possible jobs on offer is incredibly vast. Agricultural college students learn about animal husbandry, weather patterns, environmental issues and farm management. There is a strong science focus, meaning that those who will work with our farmers of the future have incredible knowledge and expertise.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12 : 08 to 12 : 33

My own electorate of Farrer is built on agricultural foundations: cattle; cereals; wheat; rice; grapevines, citrus, table grapes and other forms of horticulture; vegetables; and sheep. On the topic of sheep I should mention that the town of Booligal celebrates the annual sheep races on Easter Saturday and even provides the opportunity for you to hire a sheep for the day if you would like to. Deniliquin is also prime sheep country, close to the home of the original Peppin Merino sheep. A hundred and fifty years ago the Peppin brothers managed to breed a merino better suited to the hot and dry plains of western NSW, and they certainly succeeded.

Innovation, of course, is the key to the continuing encouragement and forward momentum of the agriculture sector. The main innovators apart from farmers—they do not need to go anywhere to be innovators, but many of them have completed agricultural science degrees—are the people who work with them in the local and state departments of agriculture. They are the people who need to have the technical training to enable them to bring to the innovation task the tools to really drive forward the agriculture sector in this country. That is why the workforce issues around our jobs in agriculture lead back to the planning issues, which are where the training task that has to be done by agricultural colleges, schools and universities is failing so very, very badly. I am very pleased that the member for Murray has brought this motion to the House today. As I mentioned in my remarks before the division, it is not easy for agricultural colleges to run courses, but I encourage them to do just that. Everywhere you look, you see courses in environmental science, and, important though that is, it is really not the whole answer. In rural Australia we have a plethora of environmental science courses, and I meet graduates when I attend university graduation ceremonies—many brilliant people are now very well trained in environmental science—but I wish that there were more agricultural science on offer. I hope that the current government can listen to the words that have been spoken on this motion. On our side of politics, with many members from rural areas, we are very, very committed to this task. We look forward to promoting agricultural graduates into the future. In this, the Year of the Farmer, we must do more to celebrate the agriculture sector.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for bringing to the House this motion on the important role that agriculture plays in the Australian economy. I believe that it highlights what the Australian government is already doing to encourage young people to be involved in ag business as a career and to get people to invest in ag businesses.

Agriculture, of course, is a big part of Australia's history. For many decades, wool has been grown. A bit down the track after early settlement, in the 1800s, it proved to be easy to put wool onto ships and get it back to the mills of England. Further down the track, we got the reefer boats that could take frozen meat, and that market grew as well.

In my electorate of Lyons, in Tasmania, agriculture plays a big part in my constituents' lives. Tasmania has 68,300 square kilometres of land, and one-third of this is committed to agriculture. Tasmania's mild climate, clean water—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:37 to 13:16

Before the suspension I was talking about the need for agricultural skill base in Australia and I was talking about Tasmania having a lot of great water and establishing the water advantage for Tasmania, with about 10 per cent of the amount of water that falls on Australia falling in Tasmania on about 1½ per cent of the landmass. The opportunities to use this is quite good, but we need high-tech agriculture, in irrigation technology, to take advantage of those opportunities.

In relation to the skill base, up at Smithton this government is establishing an agTAS trade college. That will provide great opportunities for young people in that region and other regions to get a skill base in this area. To encourage young people into agriculture we certainly need to have modern work practices and management needs to be modern in the way that they deal with young people. We know that young people want to have a continuing pathway into learning and they want to continue to be well aware of health and safety issues. So those things need to be high on the agenda.

The next generation certainly will not work like the old shepherds of Tasmania that I knew as a boy around the estates where I grew up—and those in the families referred to by Gwen Hardstaff in her book Cider gums and currawongsworking 12 hours a day, riding horses in weather, as those old guys did. So we need to be modern in the way that we look at it. Down in Tasmania the University of Tasmania have a great ag science facility which enables students to study agriculture, but we certainly do need to work on modern and innovative ways to assist the farming communities to deal with climate change and carbon capture and the latest direction in which farms are going. We need modern management techniques to make sure that people have the opportunity to move forward.

In my area the number of contractor workers in the ag area is growing, but they certainly need a skill base. In the poppy industry we have certificate I and II right through to the trades area. Of course, degree levels are very high in that industry—working in the process sector of the poppy industry. And they are always crying out for plumbers and electricians around the pivot areas and making sure that people are capable and competent to be able to keep those areas going. High-tech farming, with a high-level skill base, is what we will see in the future, and it needs to be recognised that the skill base in agriculture is growing. We certainly need to have that direction into the future.

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

It is particularly apt that we should be examining the future of agriculture during the Australian Year of the Farmer. It is estimated that by the year 2050 there will be nine billion people on earth. The recent ABARES outlook conference was informed that demand for agricultural products in that time will rise by around about 70 per cent, and the real value of food will rise by 1.3 per cent per annum—almost 80 per cent over that period. By 2050, it is expected that the value of agricultural exports will grow by 140 percent. That is the real value. It is clear that, far from the assumptions of the past, agriculture is not and cannot be a sunset industry. This is in complete contrast to the last 100 years, with the real value of agricultural production continually falling in real terms. In that period, farmers have survived and in many cases flourished by increasing productivity, not just yields. The increase in area farmed has been substantial, but the biggest gains in agriculture have been in productivity per person. Some of these efficiencies have been provided by technology and mechanical advancement, others by the vastly increased cropping intensity provided by superior agronomic practice and others again by technologies contained within the seed and the genetic makeup of the plants and the animals we grow. All of these advancements have been underwritten by good science.

Well may we ask, what is the problem? Why is there a problem in agriculture if the future looks so bright? The problem is that the enormous advances of the last 50 years have always been as a result of the investment of the generation before. For instance, even today the best science in agriculture is being driven by the generation which is about to retire. It is the result of investment and recruitment of the 1970s and 1980s. The extremely tough times in agriculture in the last 20 to 30 years have diverted high school graduates away from agriculture. The repeated crises in the industry have led to lower wages than in competing industries and prospective students have voted with their feet. But here we are now, in 2012, on the verge of agriculture regaining much of its importance in the world. Our agricultural schools are struggling to fill courses and closing campuses. Entrance marks continue to fall. These are very bad outcomes not just for the industry specifically but also for the nation's economy. As I said earlier, agricultural products are quickly joining the list of world resources in short supply. Such shortages have driven the vast expansion in the resources sector generally in the last 20 years.

Governments have invested significantly in addressing the shortage of skills in the resources sector. It is perceived that Australia will not be able to fully exploit its opportunities unless we have a skilled workforce to meet demand. It is exactly the same position in agriculture. Australia will not be able to fully exploit its opportunities unless we have a skilled workforce to meet the demand. Yet, in the same time that governments around Australia have been reducing their commitment to agriculture, state governments have withdrawn funds for agricultural research and extension and closed a number of research farms and this federal government has slashed spending going to agriculture, including to land and water. The result drives a negative view of agriculture and a reluctance among young people to choose a career in the industry. Yet we know that the research breakthroughs of the 2020s, '30s and '40s will come from those who join the industry now. That is why it is time for governments collectively to lift their heads and look at what industries can realistically perform well in the middle of this current century. They will not be the areas where the real returns are predicted to keep falling. Our cost of production in Australia will inevitably see such industries fall victim to the emerging and well educated classes from the developing nations of the world. Agriculture, by comparison, will play to our natural advantage and it is imperative that governments take the blinkers off the last 20 years and understand that it is far from being a sunset industry—it is in fact a re-emerging industry—and for Australia's good management they must come on board and support agriculture.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As others speakers have noted, this is the International Year of the Farmer. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the importance of the farming sector to Australia and to the world, for that matter. I also thank the farming families of Australia for all that they do. I also, given that this motion talks about education, research and the like, acknowledge the good work that has been done for almost 100 years by the Waite Agricultural Research Institute, just out of Adelaide, and also the Roseworthy Agricultural College, which since 1883 has similarly been doing very good work. These are both colleges that the member for Murray, who has raised this issue, would like to see more students participate in.

This is an important issue and I certainly acknowledge that. It is important for the country. It is important for our economy and for our balance of trade. It is important for the families and the communities whose lives are dependent on the Australian agricultural production sector. I was reading the AgriFood Skills Australia annual report for 2010-11. I note within that report it says that the sector comprises 180,000 enterprises, employs 880,000 people and generates over $200 billion per annum for Australia's economy. Those are huge numbers, very important numbers.

Importantly, it is a sector with huge growth opportunities, producing an essential product in food and producing a product that Australia has the capacity to excel in. With some of South Australia's highest producing fruit and vegetable farmers located in the northern and north-eastern regions of Adelaide, I am acutely conscious of the sector's importance to the nation and to my own region. The Adelaide fruit and vegetable markets are located in my own electorate and I am very familiar with the activities there. I see the produce that comes into those markets; I see the level of activity that is created as a result of them and the flow-on effect that the agricultural sector has to the rest of our region, whether you are looking chemical manufacturers, irrigation suppliers, refrigeration mechanics and refrigeration manufacturers, packaging, clothing, transport, warehousing, retailing, food processing and so on. The list is endless of the community groups and sectors that rely on and benefit from a strong agricultural sector in this country.

In the brief time that I have available to me I want to make two points. In my view, the greatest threat to our agricultural sector comes from the unpredictable and extreme weather events that are confronting this country and the world, for that matter. I have to say, and I accept, that farmers have always been subjected to variable weather conditions. There is no question about that; there is no denying that. But in more recent times, consistent with scientific predictions, we have seen the incidents of floods, cyclones, droughts and bushfires increasing and the extremeness of those incidents also increasing as well as the frequency of them.

Whilst climate change is part and parcel of today's lifestyle, we are seeing it right here and now, when you look at the floods across the country that are occurring and the devastating effects that they are having on the sector as a whole. We saw it this year, we saw it last year and we saw it the year before. Those threats, in my view, pose the biggest risk to the future of the livelihoods of all of those agricultural people who depend on the land and on weather conditions. It was even more concerning when I read in a report that was only recently released by some of the climate scientists of Australia that in the future things are looking even more dire. Some of the comments they made were: 'Very significant reductions in average rainfall, increases in temperature and increases in extreme weather events across the major agricultural production zones suggest future decreases in production for agricultural commodities.' They went on to say, 'The area in which crops are likely to be viable will change significantly and Australia's food surpluses will likely shrink and potentially become negative in some years and in some scenarios.' That is what the climate scientists are saying, and those are certainly issues of concern. That brings us back to the question of putting more research into graduates so that they can better adjust to the changing climatic conditions, and I think that is one of the good reasons why we need to do that. Another point, which I do not have time to elaborate on, is that in recent decades we have, in my view, missed out on huge opportunities in the agricultural sector by not allowing to value add to the food that is produced in this country. All too often we are sending food offshore to be processed and, in turn, repackaged and then we are receiving it back in this country. We need to support those industries, which could do that on our own home ground. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.