Our reputation for producing quality, safe and disease-free grain is one which no farmer in NSW wants to see jeopardised. Protecting and enhancing this reputation during a time of drought is critical to the sector’s recovery when it rains again.
Australia is largely free of many of the pests, weeds and diseases that blight other grain growing nations – if we are to import grain, we must ensure that we are not also importing these exotic nasties, which will impact our ongoing market access and growing capacity.
This week, NSW Farmers has called for the Australian Government to uphold our rigorous grain import protocols in the event that overseas grain is imported into Australia.
We must not allow a “she’ll be right” attitude to guide our approach to importing grain – protecting our domestic industries must be our number one priority when it comes to upholding our national biosecurity.
The noise about the prospect of importing grain from overseas has also exposed the dearth of knowledge about what grains stocks we currently have in Australia.
We do not have a functioning grains stocks reporting scheme, broken down by grade, variety and port-zone; consequently, we do not know what grain we have in Australia at the moment, and certainly not enough information to know whether we should risk our industry through imports of overseas grain.
The issue is clear – do not risk our grains industry without all the facts. Unless we can demonstrate a domestic shortage of grain, we should very seriously consider the ramifications which could flow from importing grain from overseas. Forecasts suggest Australia can produce enough grain this season – let’s get the reporting mechanism in place to ensure decisions are not being made in a vacuum.
- NSW Farmers’ grains committee chair Matthew Madden
