Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister of Agriculture and Northern Australia. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison-Joyce government's technology driven approach to reducing emissions, which includes its significant investment in protecting and improving Australia's ancient soils, will ensure our agriculture industry can continue to grow and thrive?

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question. He represents a very rich agricultural region, and he understands the important role that agriculture will play not just in this technology road map for reducing emissions but in what it has already achieved. The agriculture and land sector has reduced emissions by over 55 per cent since 2005, and we've increased agricultural production from $36 billion to over $73 billion over that same period. We've done that through investing in technology and, more importantly, through our soils. Ninety-five per cent of what we produce in the agricultural sector comes from the soils. There is a symbiotic relationship between our soils and reducing carbon, because the more carbon we can put into our soils the better will be the agricultural produce that we produce. So we are putting investments through our National Soil Strategy to make sure we can have more carbon abatement through our soils and increase agricultural production. That is common sense. That is what this plan is about.

We are doing that with specific programs like $67 million to work with councils to ensure that household organic waste and food waste will go into compost, to put that carbon back into the soil to produce better crops, with better protein, just from using simple modes of working with councils and making sure we can use that carbon. We're also working with $20 million in a science challenge to ensure that we close gaps in knowledge and understanding of our soils and how they can be used better to get better productivity. We have the best minds to be able to achieve that. There's $120 million for working with farmers to incentivise them to do more soils tests and also to use the data that came out of their previous soils tests to build a greater database not just on carbon abatement but also on the productivity of their land. There is $54 million to have boots on the ground, extension officers, working through that data with farmers to be able to understand what their management practices should look like. There's also $40 million for our Soil CRC, which is ensuring that the collection of this data is collaborative and that the data is used across sectors to ensure that the productivity and profitability of farmers and the abatement of that carbon work to our farmers' advantage but also to reduce our emissions.

Through the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, we're also working with over $36 million in the soil challenge to crack the code of reducing the cost of a soil carbon test, bringing it down from over $30 a hectare to $3 a hectare. This will incentivise farmers to take advantage of the more than 90 million hectares of agricultural production area, on which they can not only produce better crops, with better protein, but also abate carbon and play an integral part in helping us meet our international commitments. That has the potential to abate carbon by nearly 90 million tonnes a year, going a long way to living up to our international commitments. This is a commonsense Australian way of solving an international problem and increasing Australian agricultural productivity along the way.