Bush Summit: WA minister Jackie Jarvies says Australian agriculture needs to tell its sustainable story to the world

Australian farmers are global leaders when it comes to sustainability. They just need to tell the world about it.

Australian farmers, industry groups and governments need to do a better job of spruiking the world-leading sustainability credentials of primary producers to boost exports and stave off efforts to undermine the agriculture sector, Western Australia’s Agriculture Minister says.

Jackie Jarvis said that unless the country was proactive in sharing the story of how products such as beef were produced, Australia risked being lumped in with nations that used less environmentally friendly methods.

Ms Jarvis has ordered her department to find ways to make global buyers aware of the sustainable production methods used in Australia.

“One of the things that’s become really apparent to me in the last couple of years that I’ve been Ag Minister in this state, is we don’t sell our story particularly well to our global buyers,” she said at The Australian’s Bush Summit in Port Hedland.

“WA grain growers are quite simply the most efficient dryland farmers in the world.

“We have a pastoral industry that is raising beef in an incredibly efficient manner, we don’t have those issues with deforestation that we might see in other parts of the world, and indeed, other parts of Australia. I think on a global market we need to be better at selling that story, and that’s one of the challenges I’ve given to our department for our industries and regional development as a trade team.”

Ms Jarvis said the rest of the world was “playing catch-up” with Australia when it came to implementing sustainable farming methods.

“We farm in an incredibly harsh environment; whether you’re raising cattle up here in the Pilbara or the Kimberley, or whether you’re growing grain in the eastern wheatbelt, we are farming in incredibly challenging conditions,” she said. “We need to sell that story better.”

Livestock farmers have faced particular criticism from environmental groups and some non-government organisations calling for less red meat production and consumption to prevent climate change.

In Australia, the red meat sector has raised concerns about a move by the Nat­ional Health and Medical Research Council to incorporate environmental sustainability into the official Australian Dietary Guidelines.

Ms Jarvis said critics were basing their ideology on less environmentally friendly farming methods overseas.

“When we hear about the environmental challenges of red meat, I get concerned that we’re getting all lumped into the same basket of what happens around the world,” she said.

“If you’ve looked at the way we produce beef up here, and also in our southern beef industry, we farm in a very sustainable way.

“We need to be really proud of the way we farm.”

CommBank general manager of WA and South Australia regional and agribusiness David Kennedy said Australian farmers were world leaders in sustainability and had been reducing carbon emissions for decades. “They’re an incredibly resourceful, innovative group … who have managed to change away their farm for the better, and that’s had a really positive impact on emissions,” he said.

“They call it an efficient farm, having a productive farm, having a profitable farm, but at the moment, farming techniques are designed to also reduce emissions.”

The Albanese government last week passed its mandate climate-reporting legislation.

The red meat sector has been working with the federal government to help the European Union understand contemporary vegetation management practices in Australia to prevent producers from being locked out of EU markets when its deforestation regulation, aimed at stopping major landclearing practices such as those in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest, comes into effect this year.

They say Australian agricultural practices do not fall under the UN’s accepted definition of deforestation, despite efforts from some environmental groups to pressure the EU to rule otherwise.