Also published at Queensland Country Life.
In delivering the State Budget last week, Treasurer Cameron Dick said that agriculture was essential to Queensland’s post-COVID economic recovery. I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say I agree with him.
The Federal Government declared agriculture an essential industry for one reason: because it is essential – to our way of life, to our food security, feeding the nation with produce consumers can be assured is safe and clean, in fact, world class in its quality.
However, take a tour of the regions and ask the families who grow the food and fibre we all enjoy whether they feel their very serious concerns about their own conditions are taken seriously, and you’re likely to receive a deafening NO.
That’s why it’s important the State Government takes a good hard look at legislation that currently hinders the ability of individual farmers’ and agriculture as a whole to work to rebuild the economy, let alone continue to farm.
I’m thinking most immediately about the restrictive, ineffectual environmental legislation that handcuffs our industry at considerable expense, failing to adequately safeguard the environment it purports to protect – with opinion and rhetoric as its backbone, rather than genuine science – while burdening farmers with crippling levels of regulation.
Of course we need measures in place that protect our pristine environments, our Reef, our vegetation and wildlife – we all agree on that.
But much of what we have in place now has been created without farming in mind, without safe, affordable, abundant food production at its centre, and weakens agriculture’s ability to lead.
Consultation and collaboration are cornerstones of any successful enterprise, and in recent years have been in short supply.
AgForce is attempting to change all that. By engaging strongly and positively with Government in pursuit of something approaching a balance – between protecting our animals and the environment, while doing what a world ravaged by the scourge of COVID demands of us: continuing to produce and supply.
The first four-year term in our State’s history will tell us a lot about where we stand. Words can be cheap – action is what we’re looking for.
But if all sides are truly genuine in their commitment to agriculture and in having our regions leading our recovery, four years is ample time to get things right.
