THE government refused to pick low-hanging fruit for agriculture in its 2021/22 budget and instead focused on the "unsexy" measures that lay the foundation for the industry to adapt in a rapidly changing world, the National Farmers' Federation says.
About $850 million was committed to agriculture, which the government says give the industry a $5-billion boost, pushing it to $71 billion in 2022.
National Farmers' Federation chief economist Ash Salardini said there were "no easy wins" and the government had tackled a number of key issues that had to be addressed.
"The government had done the necessary but unsexy stuff," Mr Salardini said.
Despite the massive spend, some were hoping trade would receive more funding.
However, Mr Salardini warned against underestimating the value of the $100 million dedicated to expanding the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's international network at the World Trade Organisation, and its associated rule making bodies.
"To say that's not necessary or useful forgets how often our trade issues go through those bodies," he said.
From an agriculture perspective, there's a further $15 million to increase Australia's influence in global trade rules and international standard setting, which could cover everything from animal welfare and glyphosate use to sustainability gradings.
"These are the things that will affect our future market access. There's not the sexiest announcements, but it lays the foundation for trade," Mr Salardini said.
The almost $200 million to fund the first four years of the two-decade long National Soil Strategy was another policy that "laid down a solid foundation" and was the perfect example of how the industry could benefit from a net-zero carbon emission policy.
"This is huge, it's a holistic strategy and everything will build off this in terms of ag climate action because it addresses the issue in many different ways," Mr Salardini said.
Money will be set aside to give farmers rebates for testing their soil, the cost of which is currently a barrier to farmers establishing their baseline soil carbon level.
"It's not a zero-sum game, good soil carbon can complement a highly productive farm - a 0.1 per cent increase in soil carbon has a massive impact on the carbon emitted into the atmosphere," Mr Salardini said.
The "very first step" should be a platform that benchmarks data and can track improvements.
"That's a no brainer, it's laying the foundation," Mr Salardini
"The opportunities are huge, so why not hunker down and really focus on it."
There's also a big focus on incentivising farmers to share their soil data to a national database. Mr Salardini said the government would have to allay concerns around data ownership before it rolled out the program.
"It could be comparable to water licences, many people sold them away without realising the value of the and gave them away cheaply," Mr Salardini said.
"It's almost like Colonel Sanders secret recipe, your farm is only as good as your soil.
"In 10 to 20 years, we don't want to be like the bloke who sold the golden goose. Anyone who doesn't think data is valuable, just look at Google - that's the value of data."
Mr Salardini said there was clearly a public benefit to sharing the data, but there had to be a mechanism to ensure farmers still had control of the soil data.
"It's a doable thing, we'll be able to work it out, we just need to get it right," he said.