NFF’s new boss wants urgent reforms as issues threaten food production

Australia may be the lucky country but there are real and present dangers to its food production, according to the new head of the National Farmers’ Federation, Hamish McIntyre.

Australia’s new farmers boss warns food production is threatened by a lack of domestic supply of fertiliser, fuel and farm chemicals, and by energy infrastructure and carbon schemes swallowing farmland.

Hamish McIntyre, incoming National Farmers’ Federation president, told The Australian a number of major issues needed urgently addressing if the nation was to meet and build on a target of $100bn in agricultural production.

These included the loss of agricultural land to badly sited renewable energy and transmission infrastructure, as well as carbon credit schemes.

“Energy corridors should be existing road, rail or energy corridors and not interrupt wonderful prime agricultural land,” said Mr McIntyre, a multigenerational farmer from southwest Queensland.

“We are very concerned (about the handling of the renewables rollout). It mustn’t be renewables at any cost. There should be full community support, or near enough to, for new projects. And compulsory acquisition of prime agricultural land that is against the long-term viability of farmers and communities is not on.”

The value of Australia’s agricultural production has increased by 34 per cent in the past 20 years and is expected to reach $94.7bn in 2025-26, on track for a target of $100bn by 2030. However, Mr McIntyre warned continued growth could be jeopardised by the loss of farmland to energy ­projects, carbon credit schemes and critical minerals mines.

“We won’t be able to grow further if prime agricultural land is interrupted or subsumed,” he said.

Mr McIntyre has warned loss of land and reliance on imported fertiliser is hampering Australian farmers.

Large companies looking to offset carbon emissions by buying up farmland to convert to native bushland was a “huge concern” for agriculture and should be capped, he said.

“These companies have very deep pockets and can outbid at auctions the neighbours and farming organisations looking to grow their portfolio or farm.

“We’ve seen human-induced ­regeneration schemes in southwestern Queensland have a detrimental effect on our regional communities. So many families have left farms that were producing food and fibre – beef, mutton and wool – and we now have areas tied up in (HIR) schemes for 100 years. This has to be considered by federal and state governments, so that there is a cap on the amount of land taken out of production.”

Similarly, the NFF wanted to ensure the rush to mine critical minerals to reduce the Western world’s reliance on China did not impact prime agricultural land.

Mr McIntyre warned food production was already being affected by a reliance on imports for key farm inputs, such as chemicals, fuel and fertiliser.

“The manufacturing of the inputs we require to produce food and fibre have basically all gone offshore,” he said.

“We have got to make sure we can manufacture our own fertilisers, refine our own oil for diesel and not be reliant on shipping lanes that can be restrained.

“We must get manufacturing back in Australia so that we can sustain ourselves.”

Australia exports about 70 per cent of the food and fibre it produces, but Mr McIntyre warned its reliance on imports of farm inputs left food production “very vulnerable” to disruption by geopolitical or other crises.

On his own 22,000ha of dryland farming, his crops had been impacted by disruption to supply of imported urea nitrogen fertiliser.

“We missed the opportunity to put that urea on and crop at the right time and those crops we are harvesting now are down in yield by 1.5 tonnes per hectare,” he said.

“That was a real eye-opener.”

He vowed to fight carbon tariffs, saying these would add to the cost of imported vital farm inputs and therefore force up food prices.

“We just can’t afford it – it would add to our cost of production and our growth margins are already squeezed in so many commodity areas,” he said.

“It’s another in-your-face reason why governments should be encouraging manufacturing in Australia of those critical inputs we require to operate our farms profitably.”