Biosecurity, manufacturing, supply chains and telecommunications could all have used more investment in this year's Federal Budget, agriculture industry groups say.
Agriculture industry groups have given the budget mixed feedback, praising new funds for regions but saying other initiatives don’t go far enough.
In its statement, the National Farmers Federation (NFF) welcomed the launch of the Regional Accelerator program, designed to assist with the adoption of digital technologies through an investment in manufacturing and supply chain resilience.
These include $500 million for regional modern manufacturing and another $127.4 million to expand the Digital Services to Take Farmers to Market platform to modernise the Government’s agricultural export systems.
In an announcement, NFF CEO Tony Mahar said he was pleased to see the move but added that “significantly more investment was needed to bring the vision to life”.
“Agriculture is on trajectory of growth, now is the time to supercharge the industry and the rural and regional communities that rely on it,” he says.
“Despite crippling labour challenges, the farm sector continued to power the nation’s COVID-challenged economy. It’s disappointing therefore not to see the Government take this opportunity to outline significant agriculture skill development initiatives.”
While welcoming more investment ($27 million) in an expanded National Stewardship Trading Platform, Mahar questioned the absence of further support to develop the Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework.
He also added that the Budget had “again” failed to deliver sustainable funding for the modernisation and expansion of Australia’s biosecurity system, saying there was not enough money invested to properly address imminent biosecurity threats.
“An investment of $15 million in financial year 2023, to ward off a lumpy skin disease incursion falls short given the serious risk to international market access,” he says.
That said, the NFF praised the dedication of $1.3 billion over six years to improving regional communications, including last week’s announcement of $481 million to expand and improve the NBN, plus $811.8 million to address mobile coverage, connectivity, resilience and affordability in regional Australia.
“These commitments acknowledge the significant challenges highlighted by regional telecommunications users through the Regional Telecommunications Review,” the NFF says.
GrainGrowers chair Brent Hosking echoed the statement, saying the Budget was “stable”, but that more was needed to advance the industry.
“These announcements will enable growers and the grains sector to maintain its current position, but what the Australian economy needs is growth,” he says.
“There are still opportunities that decision makers need to consider, particularly as they focus on their election commitments. Growers utilise good business decision making processes and government’s role is to make the investments and the settings that support this.”
GrainGrowers says it is seeking commitments to improve critical input supply chains, telecommunications, freight infrastructure and Australia’s biosecurity system.
“There have been some good announcements, including $17.9 billion for new or to improve infrastructure, but we are calling for funding on the basics such as money to keep our existing infrastructure in a reasonable condition so we can get our grains to the local site or onto the freight corridors to ports,” Hosking says.
Tractor & Machinery Association executive director Gary Northover echoed the statement, saying the industry was experiencing real supply chain bottlenecks which are currently the subject of a Productivity Commission review.
“We’re suffering lengthy delays with equipment coming though ports – it’s painful today and we were hoping to see something to address that,” he told Farms & Farm Machinery.