Fiona Simson: productive NFF stewardship ends

Fiona Simson has closed the book on a lauded two terms as NFF president, reflecting on her centrepiece achievement.

The productive and energetic seven-year tenure of Fiona Simson as National Farmers’ Federation president comes to end this week, with the mixed farmer from NSW’s Liverpool Plains stepping down after reaching her two-term limit.

In a stewardship that began in 2016, the organisation’s first female president has shaken hands and butted heads with three Prime Ministers and four Agriculture Ministers.

She began her first term during a crippling drought and guided the industry through devastating bushfires, boom times, floods and ends as a dry spell again grips the continent.

In a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, Ms Simson said her centrepiece achievement had been hitting benchmarks set in the NFF’s 2030 Roadmap – “our ambitious plan” to grow the farm sector to $100 billion in farm gate output by 2030.

Outgoing National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson on her family's property at Premer on NSW's Liverpool Plains. Picture: John Elliott

She leaves with that figure hitting a record $94bn last year despite Covid-era market and supply chain disruptions.

Ms Simson also helped modernise the NFF, placed the farming perspective at the centre of national discussions such as infrastructure and immigration, and dedicated much of her time trying to dismantle the “us and them” narrative between farmers and consumers.

“We are getting increasingly savvy in facing up to the disconnect and filling the gaps in community understanding with factual information, and in helping (the average voter) feel more connected with real farming families,” she said.

But her headline issue will be the same as for her successor: decarbonisation.

That successor will be known on Wednesday at the NFF’s national conference, following a vote between current deputy NFF president David Jochinke, AgFORCE president Georgie Somerset and NFF director Tony York.

Ms Simson said she was proud to have helped convert many doubting farmers to acknowledge climate change and that agriculture supply chain stakeholders globally demanding climate action had “real consequences for the sector.”

“We’re entering the climate transition with our eyes wide open. We’re alive to the threats – such as the impact of a changing climate, or poor planning of renewables, transmission infrastructure and carbon offsets on agricultural land,” she said.

“We’re also alive to the opportunities.”

President of the Farmers Federation Fiona Simson addresses a press conference about the then threat of foot and mouth disease in Australian cattle in 2022. Picture: Sarah Marshall

But it’s what’s underneath the headline growth figures that gets her “really excited”, the detailed targets and ambitions “where we’re starting to really move the needle towards better outcomes.”

Chief among those are a growing number of NFF initiatives, such as the gap year AgCAREERSTART program and the levelling up of female representation in industry leadership.

“While I might have grimaced to see my gender lead the headlines rather than my agenda, I also understood the significance of the opportunity I had as a female leader,” she said.

“And while we still have some way to go before we see equality in representation, it makes me incredibly happy as I finish my time with the NFF to see those networks flourishing, to see a new generation of female advocates entering the limelight.”

While dissecting her own legacy, she said history would not judge the Albanese government kindly “if it continues to prosecute an agenda focussed more on satisfying factions than facts” on issues such as the looming ban on live sheep by sea exports and Murray Darling Basin water buybacks.

She also honed in on the government erasing the Morrison government’s ‘ag visa’ “before it could deliver any workers”, followed by a slashing of visa programs “with nothing to take their place” as deserving a special mention.

The accidental advocate that first stepped-up when BHP came knocking with a plan to dig up her backyard will now be “focusing more on the global picture” as the Oceania representative of the World Farmers’ Organisation.

“I’ve always been incredibly proud to represent the farmers’ perspective,” she said.