Agriculture exports to benefit from new funding in federal budget
Ambitious plans to have agriculture worth $100 billion in a decade’s time is underpinning the Federal Government’s budget allocations to the sector this year. This is what the industry will get.
MORE than half a billion dollars will be poured into helping agricultural exports, including another $317 million to extend a popular international freight program.
And an extra $2 billion will be made available for building new dams and irrigation networks, tonight’s federal budget reveals.
The spending is geared toward pushing agriculture toward its ambitious target of $100 billion value by 2030 by getting the trade and infrastructure in place, Deputy Nationals Leader and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said.
“I think we’re on the trajectory (to $100 billion) but today we’re laying the foundation stones for that,” Mr Littleproud said.
“The Government then just has to get out of farmers’ way and let them get on with it.”
The popular International Air Freight Mechanism — introduced in April to help agricultural exporters continue to get their product overseas — has been extended, taking the program spend to $668 million.
A further $328 million will go toward modernising ag export regulations, including $222 million to create a one-stop digital service for lodging export paperwork.
Mr Littleproud said exporters and the Department were still using carbon paper, making it a “very manual” and time-consuming process.
“I sat down (with a department officer) and started to work through it as a farmer – I lasted about 10 minutes,” he said.
“This will save a hell of a lot of man-hours.”
A further $35 million will go toward cutting red tape and improving regulation for the plant, meat, live export and seafood industries, as the Government aims to make export regulation for all industries fully cost-recovered.
In the infrastructure portfolio, an extra $2 billion will be added to the National Water Infrastructure Fund to “plumb the nation”, taking that total fund to $3.5 billion.
The program requires state governments to apply and co-contribute to projects. In Victoria it has included the Macalister Irrigation District modernisation and Lindenow Valley water security scheme.
“We’ve got to get the dozers moving and the excavators moving, otherwise we won’t have the infrastructure required to support agriculture,” Mr Littleproud said, adding new projects would also shore up urban water security.
The Minister said the spending comes on top of investments in biosecurity, manufacturing, and research and development reforms, which would all contribute to the 2030 goal.
“It is ambitious but I think at the time of setting (the target) we had to stretch and reach for it,” he said.
“If we can just pick up two or three good seasons we’ll be well on our way.”
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