THE NSW government has set its sights high for agriculture in the lead-up to the election, releasing a business plan for primary industry targeting 30 per cent growth for the $12 billion sector by 2020.
The Agriculture Industry Action Plan focuses on enticing more investment from public-private partnerships into research and development, boosting skills training at all levels of the education system and moving to capitalise on export opportunities.
The report identifies an industry currently covering two-thirds of the State, featuring 42,000 farms and 39,000 agricultural businesses employing 66,000 people - excluding agrifood businesses - with ag exports valued at $8b.
Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson welcomed the aggressive growth goal and the full list of industry-driven ideas, bulging with 40 recommendations.
"Industry has put the recommendations together and I totally support them," Ms Hodgkinson said.
But, the action plan is more plan than action at this stage and delivered six months later than forecast.
Of the 40 industry-developed recommendations, each is prefaced by prevarication to action - "government will investigate...", "industry to develop", "promote best practice".
The ideas reservoir is deep, but the tap is yet to be turned on.
Ms Hodgkinson stressed the purpose of the plan was to ink the lines on a "roadmap" for the sector.
While ag policy announcements are expected to flow in the lead-up to the March election, outcomes from the plan will evolve across years, not months and will be assessed at two-, five- or 10-year intervals.
Rennylea Angus co-principal and Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) director Lucinda Corrigan chaired the industry taskforce that developed the recommendations to government in consultation with the public and more than 300 organisations.
The report identified four "mega-trends" that would affect the future of agriculture: National and global policy actions to address climate change and water use; demand and competition from emerging economies, especially China and India; widespread adoption of new information technologies, and demographic changes, especially a growing and ageing population.
Ms Corrigan said she was "very optimistic" the plan - dubbed Primed for Growth, investing locally, connecting globally - would deliver policy outcomes to "spur the industry into action".
"The plan is about laying the foundations for where we go, in terms of new processes and approaches," she said.
Ms Corrigan said many recommendations centred on getting industry and government to share the funding burden for research and development, recognising a wider decrease in public spending.
"We took a fairly pragmatic view of the question 'how do we find the resources to do the work we need to do?'," she said.
The plan for skills training had a chief recommendation for the government to adopt the recommendations from the Pratley review of ag education and training in NSW, conducted by Charles Sturt University professor of agriculture Jim Pratley.
The key recommendations called for a review of science training in primary schools, to develop increased pathways into vocational training for students interested in ag.
The report succinctly addressed the need for development of "partnerships, supply chains and operating environment to capitalise on the widely foreshadowed market and export opportunities".
Right-to-farm legislation was also front of mind for review panel.
It said the government should legislate to protect agriculture from "conflicting and competing land use" and protect "pre-existing agricultural enterprises where urban encroachment has occurred".
Opposition primary industries spokesman Steve Whan said the plan failed to develop opportunities to value-add by packaging and processing produce locally.
"Instead the government's industry action plan responds to recommendations by patting itself on the back and trying to pass off existing programs as meeting all the needs of the future - that couldn't be further from the truth."