Page 10 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Delivering for Australian agriculture
AUSTRALIAN agri- culture has much to be proud of in what has been a difficult, emo- tional 2019 for the eight million families who choose to live and work outside our capital cities.
The agriculture sector contributes about $60 bil- lion to our national econ- omy and employs around 700,000 hardworking Australians.
Minister for Agricul- ture Bridget McKenzie said the government was focused on supporting
farmers through drought and delivering on election commitments.
“Since the election our Government has made an extra $1 billion available to support our farmers and their communities through drought as well as making an additional $1 billion in interest-free loans available,” Minister McKenzie said.
“We’ve simplified the Farm Household Allow- ance, making the support that puts food on the ta- ble of farming families in hardship available to more people and for longer.
“Our Government will continue to stand with our farming families through the drought and through the years of recovery – that’s why we have an eye on the future – because we know the best years for our farmers are in front of us and our election com- mitments lay the ground- work to help the sector achieve its full potential.
“There’s $1.5 million in support for our dairy in- dustry to improve finan- cial and legal acumen, de- velop a standard contract, look at new milk price and trading platforms and develop block chain tech- nology.
“And we delivered a Mandatory Code of Con- duct for the dairy industry that took effect recently, shaped by dairy farmers for dairy farmers – ahead of schedule.
“We’ve delivered $3.5 million to the Farm Safe- ty Education Fund to im- prove on-farm safety.
“We’ve made $20 mil- lion available to region- al agricultural shows in grants to upgrade infra- structure so future gen- erations of Australians can grow up with a better understanding of what our farmers deliver to our na- tion.
“We’ve delivered $3 million to encourage the update of cooperative
business models and $1.5 million to promote the role of bees – those buzzy pollinators – in agricul- ture.
“We’ve announced the National Agricultural Workforce Advisory Committee that will de- liver a strategy to gov- ernment by July 2020 to tackle the two issues of encouraging Australians into the super exciting world of 21st century agri- culture through appropri- ately targeted education as well as looking at our need for continued over- seas workers.
“We’ve delivered $3.9 million to Beef Australia to talk up our beef in in- ternational markets.
“We’ve invested $4 mil- lion into looking at how biodiversity management on farm can be turned into profits for our farmers.
“We’ve opened a grant round of the Agricultural Trade and Market Access Cooperation Program – worth $6.8 million to help farmers access new and profitable markets.
“And we’ve started the process of modernising the agricultural research and development system – an important precursor to achieving our future aims.”
Minister McKenzie said the Government had de- livered on their election commitment to make sure farms were safe places to work, with $1.9 million to FarmSafe.
“New export legislation will make it easier for our agricultural exporters to do business overseas,” Minister McKenzie said.
“Trade and market ac- cess is how we grow the value of agriculture.
“That’s why we’ve made $1.5 million available to help farmers access over- seas markets.
“We passed legislation to bring our agricultural exporters a step closer to benefiting from the Peru,
Hong Kong and Indonesia trade agreements.
“We’ve convened the first Indian agribusiness roundtable to help our food and fibre exporters to unlock the lucrative and expanding Indian market and Australia’s world- renowned wine industry will be able to protect its valuable intellectual prop- erty rights in international markets thanks to our Government.
“We’ve passed the farm trespass laws that stop those opposed to farm- ing from inciting others to invade farms and harass farming families.
“And to protect our reputation as providers of safe, quality food and fi- bre we’ve been focused on biosecurity, establishing a new consultative forum between government and industry.
“Our Government has boosted biosecurity fund- ing by $66.6 million to put more officers, detec- tor dogs and state-of-the- art X-ray machines on the front line to protect Aus- tralia against the global advance of African swine fever.
“If this disease gets in it could decimate our pork industry that contributes $5.2 billion to our farm- ers’ hip pockets, regional economies and the na- tion’s bottom line.
“Right now the threat is ASF – there’s no cure, no vaccine and about a quarter of the world’s pigs have been wiped out be- cause of it.”
The Minister said the commitment will contin- ue in 2020.
“We know the agricul- ture sector has a sustaina- ble and prosperous future in front of it, so we’ll keep working to help industry achieve that,” Minister McKenzie said.
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Page 10 – Australian Pork Newspaper, January 2020
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