Tasmania’s farm sector needs investment

Tasmanian farmers will lead the way through any pending economic crisis provided the state government adopts an approach of less regulation and more self-management for agriculture.

In its most comprehensive submission to date for a state budget, the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association (TFGA) has told the government that, with the appropriate government infrastructure in place, the industry will fulfil its potential to maximise food and fibre production in the new era of irrigated farming.

“Agriculture has long been the backbone of the Tasmanian economy,” the TFGA said in its submission, and that forms the context for farmers’ advice to the government for the future.

The sector is forecast to generate almost $2 billion at the farm gate this year, about 10 per cent of the overall state income and one in every three dollars of private sector income. With private forestry included it rises to $2.5 billion and is responsible for one in every seven jobs.

“It is important to understand that the future of the farming sector is dependent on one thing: growth. And just as crops need water to grow, the farm sector needs investment to grow. Now is definitely not the time for the government to be cutting its investment in agriculture,” the TFGA said.

In this the Australian Year of the Farmer, the producers are calling for less regulation and more self-management to enable them to compete on a level playing field with other Australian producers.

“Unless we get a more sensible approach to regulation of the agriculture sector in Tasmania, then many of our farms will be driven out of the industry,” the association said.

The TFGA wants all relevant administration consolidated into a new department of Food and Agriculture, as well as a new Office of Food Policy that will maximise Tasmania’s opportunities to meet the increased world demand for food as the population climbs above nine billion by 2050.

Once again, the TFGA gives high priority to the government establishing a HECS-style loan scheme for farmers to develop and enlarge their farms. It would use a pool of money that would be constantly topped up by farmers repaying their loans. Farmers want the scheme because of the difficulties they face in getting bank finance on reasonable terms and often years ahead of their crops actually generating any revenue.

Other elements of the TFGA package include:

• training for farmers ensure that irrigation is used effectively and efficiently;
• a private forest development program, now that the future of forestry runs more to the private sector and farm-foresters;
• a broad program of biosecurity actions, including specific the development of a mixed enterprise biosecurity farm plan;
• government co-investment in a program to minimise damage of high value crops by browsing animals and nuisance birds;
• a FarmSafe program to reduce the high level of deaths and injuries on farm;
• finalisation of the state’s Water Management Plan requirements;
• development of a ‘good neighbour charter’ to ensure farmers are not disadvantaged by having a government landholder next door; and
• immediate commitment to fund 50 per cent of the cost of damage caused to farm fences and infrastructure from fires escaping from publicly-owned lands.

In her Australia Day speech last week, Governor-General Quentin Bryce said that “the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the wine we drink, our shoes, our office stationery, the timber in our houses and in our kitchen tables are all connected to farming. So many essentials of daily life are there for us because of the efforts of our farmers”.

The TFGA’s budget submission urges the state government to heed this reminder, and not to take Tasmania’s hard-working farm sector for granted.

Click here to access TFGA’s budget submission:
http://www.tfga.com.au/about-tfga/