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

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry, I present the committee's report entitled Farming Smarter: Inquiry into agricultural innovation together with the minutes of proceedings.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the report was made a Parliamentary Paper.

by leave—Australia has always been a world leader in agricultural innovation. Our farmers, supported by researchers, industry groups and other stakeholders, remain at the global forefront of the invention and adoption of technologies. This enthusiasm for change has helped Australian agriculture to retain its competitive edge over other producers.

Technological advances will be even more important to Australian agriculture in the future. The sector is part of a broader boom in innovation across the Australian economy, which is presenting exciting opportunities for farm businesses. Meanwhile, new technologies will help the sector to tackle challenges such as growing competition in the region, resource scarcity, and the like.

The agriculture sector must be able to make the most of this boom in order to support productivity growth and to maintain its competitiveness. At the core of the innovation boom are individual farm businesses that make decisions to adopt new technologies. If the government wishes to support innovation and growth, it must support these businesses in technology adoption.

It was in this light that the committee conducted its inquiry into emerging agricultural technologies, key barriers to their adoption, and what the government can do to reduce these barriers.

First and foremost, the committee was pleased to hear of the vast scope and potential of emerging technologies in agriculture. Agricultural innovation is drawing on a wide range of disciplines, such as agricultural science, chemistry, engineering and information technology. From these diverse roots, the innovation system is developing technologies which run the gamut from monitoring individual animal behaviour, to improving drought resistance in crops, to providing big data analysis on a range of decisions about farm inputs. Importantly, the new technologies set to emerge in the agricultural sector will be set apart from those that have come before. They will perform ever more complex tasks across more and more types of farms; they will collect and share greater volumes of data to support the decision-making; and they will be more integrated across farms and all along the supply chains.

Through the course of this inquiry, it became clear that these complex new technologies will bring their own challenges to farm businesses seeking to adopt them. Some of the barriers to successful adoption stem from the demands that the new digital technologies will place on internet, cloud and other physical infrastructure. In other situations, some regulations may unfairly impede the free use of new technologies, particularly in light of the size of the Australian market.

Another difficult set of barriers to adoption arise from the demand for more people with more advanced skills to shepherd technologies through the innovation system and into the hands of the end user. There needs to be more collaboration between the various organisations involved in the R and D process. There also needs to be a surge in skilled researchers and workers to support the sector.

The government has already taken strong steps to support innovators in tackling the agricultural sector's challenges. For example, the ongoing rollout of the National Broadband Network will support farm businesses to take up the opportunities presented by emerging digital technologies. In addition, the Cooperative Research Centres are widely seen as very strong mechanisms for collaborative research on issues of cross-sectoral importance.

The committee's recommendations have also supported the tailoring of existing programs to the needs of the sector as it undergoes technological transformation.

Some regulations, such as those affecting unmanned aerial vehicles, may be clarified or adjusted to help farm businesses to exploit the full potential of new technologies. In another case, the committee recommended tailoring STEM education strategies to open students' eyes to the exciting potential of careers in agriculture.

These recommendations of the committee have focussed on ensuring that the government is responsive to the needs of farm businesses seeking to adopt innovation. The committee has also recommended ways to support other stakeholders to do the same, for example by the development of a national working group to coordinate our world-leading efforts in agricultural innovation. The sector must move towards a more fluid, collaborative approach to innovation to ensure that it can make the most of the exciting future of technology in agriculture.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank all who have contributed their valuable time and wisdom throughout the course of the inquiry. I also thank my committee colleagues for their enthusiasm, time and efforts, and of course I thank the hardworking secretariat who helped us through this inquiry. They really sped things up so the committee, like many committees at the moment, could meet the time lines of this parliament, finish our report and present it to the parliament today before, inevitably it seems, it will be prorogued sometime soon.

I commend the report to the House.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—We are hearing a lot in Australia at the moment about the importance of innovation and the ideas boom. I know I am amongst millions of Australians who love to hear these exciting stories about young entrepreneurs who start with nothing and have a big idea and end up with a billion-dollar tech company. But the reality of the economy is that a lot of innovation happens in businesses that already exist, and there are huge economic gains that we can make as a country by just adopting the technology that exists in businesses right across our economy.

One of the sectors that does not get a lot of focus in the innovation discussion is agriculture. This is a really important point because we know that as Australia winds down from the mining boom the so-called dining boom is an area where we might be able to see a lot of jobs and productivity growth. There are a lot of important things that will help us make this industry a critical part of Australia's economy. We have this global reputation for clean and green foods, and the reality is that for hundreds of years this country has been very good at producing food and other agricultural goods. One of the challenges facing the sector is that, when we look at the data, productivity growth in the sector has slowed. That means that we are not getting better at farming as fast as we were in the past. If we are going to see this industry flourish to its full potential, we are going to need to do something about that. That is why the Minister for Agriculture asked the member for Grey, as chair of the committee, to look into how we can promote innovation in our agricultural sector.

The committee was asked to look at three big things. The first was efficiency practices in agriculture, the second was new technologies that farmers might be able to adopt and the third was barriers to those new technologies. I heard so many incredibly exciting things through the course of this inquiry and I just want to outline some of the things that I think are going to be really interesting to people who are as intrigued by this sector as I am. We heard that scanners are being used in the wine industry that remotely scan along the front of grapevines and are able to test plant quality and soil quality, and through that water and pesticides can be distributed remotely according to the quality of the plants. We heard on enormous cattle farms the great potential for the use of drones to help manage large properties. We heard about the potential for autonomous vehicles—trucks that do not have drivers and machinery that is able to be remotely programmed or computer programmed to till soil without anyone being present. We heard a lot about exciting developments in genomics—things like breeding plants that will be more appropriate for different climates. That could mean that we can farm parts of this country that have not been able to be farmed to date.

A fifth point concerns some exciting things with the use of big data, which really means that we will be able to collect information on farming practices and outcomes on hundreds of thousands of farms across the country and use that information to help farmers build best practice. In the old days we heard a lot of farmers talk about how they used to share information about best practices. It tended to be down at the pub talking after a day's work or over the fence. But this is a completely new way of doing things, where we could have really solid fact-based information about what is working for farmers in different parts of the country and targeted approaches to spreading those best practices. There was absolutely no-one on this committee who was not blown away by the huge potential for innovation in agriculture, and there are certainly a lot of exciting things happening in the sector.

We heard some pretty concerning things about barriers that are preventing farmers from taking on these new technologies at the moment. I just want to mention two of them that really stood out in the hearings that we held. The first is about world-class telecommunications facilities. I am pretty confident that that was the consistent takeaway of everyone working on a farming business who appeared before this committee. The reality is that despite all of the exciting things that we heard about farmers are just not going to be able to adopt them without telecommunications that fit the bill.

We heard about people that have no mobile phone coverage on large parts of their property. We talk about the exciting potential of big data, but the reality for these farmers is that they cannot even make a phone call from one end of the farm to the other. We heard about farmers who have to get up in the middle of the night to download invoices because that is the only time that they have the bandwidth able to do it. Again, the idea of bringing on these very high-tech solutions that are going to require massive amounts of upload and download is a fantasy for these farmers.

Finding more workable ways to fix these problems is absolutely urgent. The member for Grey talked about some of the steps forward that have been made. It is a bit disappointing that the government has made the decision to walk away from some of the most significant aspects of the National Broadband Network. It would not have given every farmer in Australia 100 megabits per second, but there were real ways that farming telecommunications would have been achieved that we probably will not see under the new model.

I want to say something about the importance of human capital, because, while much of the discussion of the committee focused on the actual technology, what we really need here are people who understand it, can see how it can be used in their farms and are able to introduce it. We heard a lot about the fact that there are a lot of young people who are coming into farming and trying to establish themselves on the land and, in particular, about the critical role that women play on farm businesses these days. We heard wonderful testimony about the transition that women in farm life have made from being the wife of the farmer to today being real business partners. One of the things that I took from this is that there is huge potential here for us to make much better use of those women. There is some evidence that young people and women—those two big groups—are really good adopters of new technology, and if we can harness their enthusiasm for doing things a bit differently then we might be able to see our way through some of these problems.

There is a lot more that is very fascinating in this report. Can I say to the parliament, to the committee: of all the reports I have participated in as a member of parliament so far I think this is the most inherently fascinating and the most readable. I really encourage people at home who are interested in this area of innovation in farming to download the report and have a look.

In closing can I thank the member for Grey, who has done a fantastic job chairing this committee through this 44th Parliament, and the other committee members. I want to say a special thank you to the committee staff: the secretary, Peggy Danaee, and Anthony Overs, Renee Toy, Sarah Codrington, Ashley Stephens, Georgina Horsburgh, who were all ably assisted by Morana Kavgic and Kathleen Blunden. As the member for Grey noted, they really stepped their foot on the accelerator to get this finished in time and they have produced a wonderful report. We are very grateful for their support and their hard work.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Australian farmers are without doubt the most innovative in the world. I may have to argue with some of the members here today, but I think the farmers of O'Connor are probably the leaders in innovation, whether they be on the south coast from Bremer Bay to Esperance or in the marginal farming areas in the eastern part of the electorate or whether they be the amazing horticulturalists in Manjimup—they all do an amazing job of adapting to the environment and the markets, and I applaud them for that.

With the opening of new markets in South-East Asia I believe the biggest challenge for agriculture is going to be supplying enough product and adapting our marketing and production methods to meet those new markets. I want to commend this report to everybody in my electorate involved in agriculture. I ask them to read it. There are 16 very worthwhile, very sensible recommendations, and I think it is a major contribution to agricultural innovation across my electorate.

I want to take the opportunity to thank the committee, particularly the chair, the member for Grey, the deputy chair, the member for Hotham, and all the members who took part. I think everyone was very engaged in the inquiry. It is a very interesting report, and I very much enjoyed being part of it. I want to take the opportunity to thank the committee, particularly the chair, the member for Grey, and the deputy chair, the member for Hotham; and all the members who took part. I think everyone was very engaged in it. It was a very interesting inquiry, and I very much enjoyed being part of it. Also to those people who came and gave evidence, the individuals and the organisations: it was a big effort with a lot of travel involved, so thank you very much to them. And finally, of course, to the secretariat—Anthony and his team, who are here in the House today—thank you very much for your hard work

Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to add my words of support for the report, and to acknowledge the chair and the fantastic job he has done, and to the secretariat: really well done.

I would like to just highlight one aspect of the report that I was so proud to be involved in. The committee came to North East Victoria, to Wodonga, and we had the chance to have hearings in Wodonga, and also to go and make a site visit to the Kiewa Valley, where we learnt about the Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project. And we saw, in real practical terms, how innovation takes place in a community context—we had industry working with manufacturing, working with local government, working with schools, working with the farmers, working with the men and working with the women, and working with the local media. We were able to demonstrate that if you actually get all of the players working together, innovation is created and transformed, and becomes part of the fabric of that community in a very cost-effective, efficient and extraordinarily rapid way. So in acknowledging the work that has gone into this report, I would particularly like to thank the farmers of North East Victoria for the fantastic work they have done in modelling how we can take innovation and have it picked up, on the ground, in under two years.

Like my colleagues, I would recommend this report to all people involved in agriculture, and particularly to the research organisations. It has many recommendations about how we can get that connectivity between research organisations, farmers and community groups, and really work it. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be part of it. I would like to congratulate the member for Grey, Mr Ramsey, on your fantastic work, your leadership and the support that you have given to us. It was a real pleasure to be involved in the project, so thank you.