A BINARY theme of challenges and opportunities coexisting in the Aussie farm sector captured the imagination of several high profile speakers at the GrowAg conference. Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh neatly characterised the opposing forces at play.
The forecast boom to the global population, rising from 7.3 billion to 9.7b by 2050, will not deliver a step-change in farmers’ prosperity, according to Mr Keogh, who is also the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s agriculture representative.
Here we are saying this is a great opportunity, the world will be starving and farmers will be rich. But the requirement is less than what has been achieved over last 30 years
- Mick Keogh
“Productivity in agriculture required to meet that demand works out at 1.7 per cent compound growth per year. Over last 30 years the average increase in agricultural output is 2.5pc compound growth,” he said.
“Here we are saying this is a great opportunity, the the world will be starving and farmers will be rich. But the requirement is less than what has been achieved over last 30 years.”
But China’s pivot to a manufacturing future around 2000, which saw it shift from food production-focus, increased global demand and had helped to reverse the “inexorably down” food price trend of the previous three decades. Future trade agreements could increase this trend, Mr Keogh said.
Turing to industry representation, Mr Keogh said “the sector needs to be able to respond to ongoing challenges”, which included production method controversies and policy battles such as the backpacker tax.
Deregulation and growing specialisation in farm enterprises had reduced the clout of representative bodies, which once formed a powerful conduit between government, commodity prices and producers.
“Local production groups must now to come to the fore.”
Citing the American Farm Bureau Federation’s success, which “focuses 95pc of its effort at the farm level, while 5pc of members worry about the politics”, Mr Keogh said “coalitions of interest groups, rather than grand structures” are the best way forward.
