3 March 2009
DAFF09/92T
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke
ABARE Outlook Conference 2009 Doorstop Interview
E&OE
Subjects: Farm productivity; water buybacks; ABARE commodities forecast; bank credit; soil carbon and emissions research; agriculture and the CPRS; trade protectionism
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned that perhaps some of the Government’s environmental policies might be affecting farm productivity, with land being taken for water conservation?
TONY BURKE: Certainly the work that’s being done at the moment through Caring for Our Country is very much in line with improving farm productivity. I think anyone involved with the Landcare movement for a long time will hold strong beliefs that you can get an environmental win and a productivity win.
If anybody objects to the levels that the water buyback ended up at after it had been negotiated through the Senate, as opposed to what was in Government’s original package about a month ago, the reason the negotiations had to take that path is that the Opposition flatly refused to vote in favour of jobs.
JOURNALIST: Minister, how worrying is the forecast drop in our commodities exports this financial year?
TONY BURKE: The commodities forecast that’s come out today from ABARE with respect to agricultural commodities is actually reasonably optimistic. There’s significant improvements forecast there. The one caveat I’d put over it was [that] it presumes a return to more favourable seasonal conditions.
So that’s the caveat over those figures. Certainly it does come as a relief that Australia is well-positioned to take advantage of growing world markets.
JOURNALIST: But overall, export earnings are still going to drop by a substantial amount. That’s concerning, isn’t it?
TONY BURKE: There is a global recession going on. The Government has never pretended for a minute that Australia is immune to a global recession. Certainly if you’re going to be anywhere in the world, you would want to be here.
And certainly in terms of different sectors of the economy, agricultural exports and agricultural production has been a critical part of keeping Australia’s figures as good as they’ve been.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned about the downturn’s impact on secondary tier levels of agriculture, such as processors and abattoirs, particularly being affected by this [inaud]?
TONY BURKE: There’s no doubt that the impact goes beyond the farm and into towns. And processing – the whole value chain – is part of that. There’s no sector of the economy which gets to be immune from a global recession. And the Government’s job is to try to make sure that we’re as well-positioned as possible the whole way down that value chain.
JOURNALIST: Who’s the credit crunch hit the hardest?
TONY BURKE: It’s hitting hardest with the people who, in terms of farming, already have significant debt. The stories are starting to emerge of people having difficulty in getting consumer credit. And certainly if you’re a long way into quite a number of years of drought, the likelihood that you’re in significant debt is a lot higher. So that’s the front line of it in terms of agriculture.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
TONY BURKE: Look, as I said in my speech, the guarantees that have been given to the banks in terms of trying to make sure that availability of credit remains in Australia has been an important part of that. But once again, while there are some things the Government can do, we’re not going to pretend – and never have pretended – that we’re immune from circumstances affecting every nation around the world.
JOURNALIST: Can you just summarise the funding initiatives that you’ve spoken about in the speech this morning?
TONY BURKE: Sure. The funding that I’ve announced today is about making sure that we can get greenhouse gases and sequester some of that carbon into the soil. That’s what it’s about. It’s giving farmers an extra set of tools so they can be part of the answer to climate change.
JOURNALIST: Minister, what’s the connection between that and the decision of 2013, as to whether agriculture gets in the Carbon [Pollution] Reduction Scheme?
TONY BURKE: There’s a few challenges for agriculture to work through. We still don’t know, come 2013 to 2015, precisely what the global rules coming out of Copenhagen will be. That information will be important because there’s a lot riding for agriculture on the outcome of those discussions.
There are also some difficulties with measurement at the moment. Parts of the research that I announced today go directly to improving management systems and national standardising of those. The final thing is it gives farmers an extra tool to be part of the solution – whether they’re in the [Carbon Pollution Reduction] Scheme or not.
My determination is if we can align it with productivity, [even] if they’re outside the scheme they’ve got an incentive to get involved anyway. If they’re inside the scheme, they’ve got extra things they can do to reduce their emissions.
JOURNALIST: What should farmers be doing now to prepare? If the decision is made [inaudble] they should be getting ready now?
TONY BURKE: A lot of the work that’s available at the moment, as I said in the speech, has been done for a long time under Landcare. A lot of that work is part of the answer. We don’t have many answers at the moment with respect to livestock, which is why we’ve announced major research last week.
There are some answers with respect to soil. But there’s a whole lot of disparate levels of science on this; a whole lot of people with very strongly held, but quite different, views on soil; and it’s important for the Government to take that investment a step further in research.
JOURNALIST: All these scientific issues are going to take a long time to resolve, aren’t they, both in terms of [inaud] and in terms of what farming practices are linked to emissions?
TONY BURKE: The nature of all scientific research is that you can put it in a direction. Sometimes things are found very quickly, sometimes big discoveries take longer. And it’s impossible to give a precise prediction of what will be discovered when you commence a research project.
There’s no doubt though, that a lot of work in soils has already been done. We want to see how much further we can take it. A classic example of where more work needs to be done – and some work has already been done in Caring for Our Country – is in biochar.
We already know that with some biochars in some soils there can be great improvements. But if you don’t match the right biochar with the right soil, then you can sometimes have no impact and actually the productivity can have a hit in the area. So there are a lot of areas where we know a little bit, but we need to push the science much, much further along.
JOURNALIST: Is it possible the science won’t be ready in 2013 for the Government to make a decision?
TONY BURKE: We’ll be making a decision in 2013 about whether or not agriculture is included in 2015. Scientific research never stops. You never get to a point where scientific research is over. It’ll continue to improve. And by today’s announcement, it will be a lot further along the track by 2013 than it otherwise would have been.
JOURNALIST: Minister, [WTO Director-General] Pascal Lamy this morning has congratulated your Government for being at the forefront in resisting a retreat to protectionism. Is he wasting his time here in preaching to the converted?
TONY BURKE: I think it’s very important that we have the chance to sit down with Pascal Lamy, as the Prime Minister will be doing, as the Trade Minister will be doing and as I’ll be doing to work through some of the issues on international engagement.
I can’t begin to tell you the level of rise in protectionist thought, particularly among agriculture ministers in some parts of the world at the moment and the dangers that can pose. So, it’s not only important to go in and argue with the people you disagree with. You need to work together on planning and some of the strategic issues with the person who is in the pivot role of trying to make sure we can get a reasonable outcome on Doha.
JOURNALIST: Is most of that in Europe?
TONY BURKE: The conference I’m referring to took place in Europe. There was a United Nations special rapporteur speaking there on the right to food.
JOURNALIST: But a protectionist sentiment, do you see that mainly on coming out of Europe?
TONY BURKE: Well the classic example with respect to Europe is what they’ve done on the dairy subsidies, which we’ve made objections in the strongest terms on.
But there’s also different concerns throughout the G77 [Group of 77] nations and conflicting views as to the extent to which they believe trade is the solution. These are arguments we need to win. We’re on the right side of the argument. But you can’t pretend there’s not a rise in protectionist thought at the moment.
JOURNALIST: A lot of the good science work done on soil carbon was put in the ‘too hard’ basket by the CSIRO. Do you expect there to be a change of attitude from the CSIRO now that there’s [inaudible]?
TONY BURKE: There’s some work that the CSIRO is still mid-way through. And so on those areas, they don’t attract today’s announcement. And we’ll look at those current projects before we go further forward.
I think today we’ve sent a message to every research institution around Australia, and I hope globally, that we’re serious at looking at soil carbon as part of the solution.
JOURNALIST: Will you be talking about that at Copenhagen and lifting international support of the research?
TONY BURKE: We certainly won’t be waiting for Copenhagen to have those discussions internationally. The answer’s certainly yes. I’m reminded of discussions that I’ve had very recently with the New Zealand Government on this area as well. It’s a deeply significant area of research. It’s in our interests to push the envelope on how quickly that research can advance.
JOURNALIST: Thank you, Minister.
ENDS