21 September 2026. Brendan Taylor, AgForce Grain President.
It’s been a mixed season across Queensland, and for plenty of growers it has fallen short of expectations. Nationally, the picture looks better. ABARES has lifted its winter crop forecast significantly since June, but much of that improvement came down to a wetter-than-expected winter in southern Australia.
The pressure from rising costs hasn’t eased. ABARES expects average broadacre farm business profit to fall by 39 per cent in 2026-27. For many producers, input costs continue to climb faster than the prices they receive for what they grow.
That is not a gap farmers can close on their own.
Fuel is more than a cost, it’s a productivity issue.
Farmers are price-takers both when it comes to selling our produce and buying the fuel needed to grow it. When both move against us at the same time, something has to give.
It rarely shows up as one big decision. More often it’s a spray pushed back because of cashflow pressure. It’s a machinery upgrade that gets delayed for another season. It’s a paddock that misses out on part of the program. Australian agriculture’s productivity story has been built, in part, thanks to efficiency and innovation, but that only works when farm businesses have enough margin to keep investing in themselves.
You can already see how cost pressures are influencing decisions. This season, many growers put more barley in the ground and less wheat, partly because barley demanded less from the fertiliser budget. Those were sensible business decisions made at the farm gate, but when they are repeated across thousands of farms they become a national production decision shaped by factors well beyond Australia’s borders.
Over time, sustained pressure on inputs quietly erodes the capital that would otherwise be invested in newer equipment, better technology and the productivity gains that help businesses weather future shocks.
When the cost of energy starts influencing what Australia grows and how much it produces, it has moved beyond a farm budget issue and become a food security issue.
What we’re asking for.
AgForce welcomes the Australian Government’s proposed Fuel Security and Resilience Package and its recognition that fuel security is a national priority. The real test will be in the detail, and regional Australia needs to be front and centre in that conversation.
Maintaining fuel reserves is important but reserves alone are not the same as capability. Fuel stored offshore still leaves Australia exposed. Real resilience means having the capacity to store, move, produce and refine fuel here at home. It also means those reserves reaching regional Queensland in practice, not simply existing in a national stockholding figure in metropolitan and port areas.
The same principle applies beyond diesel. As I have raised with ministers previously, long-term fertiliser security depends on building domestic urea production supported by reliable and competitively priced gas. Western Australia is doing it; Queensland has the resources to make it possible too.
AgForce will continue advocating for greater domestic capacity because this is not about subsidies. It is about investing in the foundations that keep Australian agriculture productive and competitive.
