IT IS promising to hear the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce kick off 2017 announcing it will be the “golden year for agriculture” and highlighting it is second only to iron ore in export value.
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We don’t hear the virtues of agriculture extolled enough and it is this sort of public display of confidence towards the industry we need more of, if for nothing else to encourage a few more dollars to be re-invested into the sector.
However, there is much to be done to not just realise a “golden year”, but to extend such a period beyond the five years Mr Joyce thought it might last.
One avenue would be to encourage investment dollars away from Sydney – including its fixation on building ever more houses – and diverting it into agriculture.
Before that happens, however, some more of the dollars in NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejilkian’s infrastructure bucket need to make it outside of the Sydney region. Given agriculture is once again climbing in importance as an earner for the country, and the state Treasurer is a big supporter of infrastructure projects, surely regional areas could be afforded a larger slice of the $73 billion infrastructure funding pie than the $6b promised in the 2016 state budget.
We need to be more efficient at getting produce out of the regions and to port. Some careful thought about the efficiency of our existing rail systems would be a good place to begin, as would improved turn around times at port.
More spending is also needed on our roads and bridges, and it needs to be more than just maintenance. But it’s not all down to the state government.
The federal government also has a big responsibility in roads and rail, including the Inland Rail project and better communications to connect regional areas to markets. The government needs to make it easier to move to the regions and do business – and it might even ease the housing affordability “crisis” in doing so.
Better connection to markets and better infrastructure to get produce to and from port would go a long way to improving productivity. The time to act is now – in agriculture’s “golden year” – and if successful might not only prolong the industry’s wave of success, but contribute significantly to paying down the federal government’s debt.
Our governments missed a “golden” opportunity to sensibly invest off the back of the mining boom – let’s hope they don’t make the same mistakes with agriculture.
