“If there is more to do we will do it.” This is the promise Premier Gladys Berejiklian made to farmers facing a fierce drought at the NSW Farmers annual conference.
The Government has also promised a “whole of government” approach to the drought as pressures mount on town water supplies throughout regional NSW.
Mrs Berejiklian said drought response was “front of mind” and that she understood the next five or six weeks would be critical in seeing if a break would alter the situation or send producers plunging into worse conditions and unknown territory if the state’s main cropping areas failed.
The state stood to lose $3bn in its GDP if the grain belt did not get a crop off. Mrs Berejiklian revealed already 1300 farmers had taken advantage of the $500m Farm Innovation Fund, that provides up to $50,000 in loans for farmers suffering in the drought. She said the government was there for the long term to assist farmers and regional communities.
Mrs Berejiklian said though that the Government saw a huge future for agriculture in NSW which was one of the best performing agricultural regions in the world. In 2017, NSW had exported more than $6.2 billion in agricultural products, a massive 20 per cent rise on 2016.
One of the major new export growth areas for markets was India, which had seen a 200 per cent growth in one year in exports from NSW. A food and beverage expo in India shortly would be used to showcase NSW products, she said.
The NSW economy was leaving other states “for dead” and that spending in the regions was large – a third of all infrastructure spending went to the regions. The drought though was on everyone’s minds at the moment. “I can’t help but say how top of mind the drought that is affecting almost all of NSW is with our government. If there is more to do we will do it. we are open-minded to do that.”
Agriculture Minister Niall Blair told the conference the government will have to do more to help farmers suffering though the record dry and harsh frosts.
“We know that if we don’t get that spring break, if people have taken a punt and got something out of the ground… we need to be prepared for what will happen to that winter crop harvest,” Mr Blair said. “What happens if it fails? These are the conversations we are having right now within government. We are going to respond, and we need to make sure what we come up with is appropriate for now. But we’ll probably need to do more depending on what happens when we come into spring.”
The Premier was invited to a Gold Cup race day drought support event at Coonamble on October 7.
