WEST Australian Liberal MP Melissa Price is pushing for changes to government policy and taxation arrangements, to help incentivise greater public spending on agricultural research and development (R&D).
Ms Price questioned officials from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources on that mission last week during a public hearing in Canberra of the House of Representative’s inquiry into agricultural innovation.
The first term MP from the sparse rural seat of Durack asked what the Agriculture Department and other government departments were doing - and what the government could do - to strike better balance between public and private sector investments in farm R&D.
“I am interested in what the private sector is doing and how can we help to encourage the private R&D sector to assist in this space - what are the trends?” she said.
Department Assistant Secretary Peter Gooday said his agency had no statistics on private sector investment levels in agriculture.
But he said more products were being brought to market and advanced technologies and different technologies were increasingly being used.
However, Mr Gooday said the Committee could consider how public R&D expenditure could be set up “in a way that makes sure that it’s not crowding out private R&D expenditure”.
“We don’t want to do that - but also it may be the case that there are some regulatory, and other constraints, that are impeding private investment in agricultural R&D,” he said.
“The obvious examples there are regulations to do with Genetically Modified organisms (and) the differences in regulations between States and here and overseas.
“A lot of the increase in productivity that we’ve had has been due to R&D that’s been done overseas, so we need to make sure that our R&D system is set up so that we can take as much advantage as possible of that investment, whether that’s private or public.”
The Coalition government’s Harper Review of national competition policy and regulations identified bans on GM crops in South Australia and Tasmania - while the technology can be produced in other mainland States – as a restriction on competition.
The WA government is moving to repeal its GM Crops Free Areas Act having produced GM canola commercially since 2010, with a significant uptake in the technology from 86,000 hectares in that first year and 337,000ha this year.
WA Agriculture Minister Ken Baston said last week that once a crop was deemed safe by the federal regulator, “I firmly believe growers should have the choice to plant those crops that most suit their production system”.
During the inquiry hearing last week, Ms Price also asked Department officials whether tax benefits were a way to incentivise the private sector’s involvement in agricultural R&D.
Department Deputy Secretary Phillip Glyde pointed to the role and function of Rural Research and Development Corporations - where industry sectors agree to be levied and government provides matching funding for R&D activities – as an investment incentive.
Mr Glyde said the RDCs helped “farmers to band together” to assist with delivering R&D products to market while attracting private sector involvement.
He said one trend the Department had observed was the private sector playing a greater role in R&D extension activities.
Mr Glyde said it was generally accepted that as State and Territory government budgets had “shrunk” they’ve tended to pull back from extension services they offered 20 or 30 years ago.
“What we’ve seen in a variety of industries and a number of States is the private sector moving in to offer those services and they’re leveraging technologies and they’re using technologies from other countries, overseas but also they’ve got specialist expertise,” he said.
The Department’s submission to the inquiry said the 15 RDCs were widely recognised as “world leading practice in agricultural research and development”.
It said the co-funding model provided a “sound basis” for close collaboration between researchers and industry.
"The Australian government provides funding of approximately $700 million per year to rural R&D,” the Department said.
“This funding is distributed to a number of R&D organisations, including the RDCs, Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), universities, and other recipients via specific government programs.
“The RDCs are among the largest recipients of government funds, in total receiving approximately $250 million per year in government funding to match producer levies.”
The House of Representative’s Agriculture and Industry Committee investigation into agricultural innovation is being chaired by SA Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey.
It was established in August after referral by Federal Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce.
Terms of reference include looking at improvements in agricultural practices due to new technology and existing barriers to the adoption of emerging technologies.
The Australian Farm Institute has told the inquiry productivity growth in broadacre agriculture has experienced a market slowdown in annual growth rates since 1997 which economists and scientists have attributed to several factors, including investment levels for agricultural R&D.
