The National Farmers’ Federation is a step closer to its vision of growing the value of Australian agriculture to $100 billion by 2030.
On Friday at Mundulla, 20 SA farmers, industry consultants and PIRSA staff came together to work out how to accelerate farmgate output and set measurable goals for the next decade.
It was part of the Talking 2030 roundtable series being held across Australia.
NFF general manager of digital partnerships Charlie Thomas said the Talking 2030 discussion paper, developed by KPMG, had kickstarted the conversation but the workshops were an opportunity to “ground truth” the ideas.
He said the SA participants had agreed on four priority areas; the need for greater connection with consumers, upskilling the ag workforce and accessing capital for growth, all while ensuring farming businesses remain profitable.
“We had a lot of conversation around how to make sure we have the vocational pathways to upskill and also making ag an attractive option to school leavers,” he said. “Building capacity and skills in the industry to adopt new technology is important to the changing business of farming.”
Mr Thomas said the group also discussed how to encourage additional money to flow into the sector tapping into off-farm investments, superannuation, as well as encouraging foreign investment that met community expectations.
The Greener Pastures report, commissioned by ANZ, shows Australia will need one trillion dollars in additional capital investment to achieve $710b in agricultural exports between 2011 and 2050.
Mr Thomas said NFF had recognised productivity increases must not be at the expense of profitability.
“Farmers only have a couple of levers they can pull when it comes to profitability, getting paid more for their products they are producing, or cut down costs, so we looked at what we can do with both,” he said.
Attendee and Mundulla farmer Michael Hunt became aware of the Talking 2030 meetings as a member of GrainGrowers Limited’s national policy group.
He says the chance to discuss opportunities and barriers to Australian agriculture was important and breaking into small groups during the day had helped “push the boundaries”.
“NFF are one of the advocates for us and if we know what they are doing about it and how they are working with other ag groups that has to be good,” Mr Hunt said.
“The fact that they are getting around the countryside is important because it is farmers at the grassroots that will be affected the most by this.”
The findings of the 15 Talking 2030 meetings will be used to finalise NFF’s new strategic plan, due to be launched in September.
“It will give us a clear road map of how to get to 2030,” Mr Thomas said.
“There has been a fair bit of consistency between the groups which helps us focus our efforts but everyone has got specific ideas where they want to invest, too.”
