ABARES: Aussie agriculture valued at $81 billion in 2021-22

Australian agriculture has entered uncharted territory with the value of homegrown produce to hit a record $81 billion after bumper crops and record prices.

Australian agriculture has entered uncharted territory with the value of homegrown produce to hit a record $81 billion after back-to-back bumper winter crops and the highest prices paid for commodities in three decades.

Farm produce has performed better than expected with the 2021-22 forecast to eclipse last year’s result by more than $12 billion before values would ease next financial year.

Export values are also predicted to be a record of more than $64 billion this year.

But the anticipated 2022-23 drop-off raises question marks whether the magical $100 billion target by 2030 set by the National Farmers Federation can still be attained given dream seasonal conditions of the last two years won’t be the norm.

NFF president Fiona Simson said to achieve $100 billion Australia would need a combination of positive seasonal conditions and investment and innovation from government.

“Despite our sector’s growth, there are challenges to be addressed including solving farmers’ workforce shortages, meaningful investment in our regions and support for farmers to respond to climate change,” she said.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud remained confident the NFF’s “stretch target” could be reached and major water infrastructure projects and ongoing research and development would make it happen.

“A lot will have to go our way to get there,” he said.

“We’ve smoked it this year, but what we want to achieve and where the NFF was coming from is that we consistently outperform $100 billion as a target, year in, year out.

“The dial that will shift it will be key pieces of infrastructure and that research and development piece.”

Lucinda Corrigan

Riverina cattle breeder Lucinda Corrigan said a perfect storm of factors had contributed to agriculture’s success presently.

“Three years ago we were in the last year of that very tough drought so it’s been a big step up,” the Bowna farmer said.

“There is a lot of work being done in innovation and a lot of this is going to be about value adding into the future.

“We’re still only in 2022, the $100 billion goal is 2030 and a lot of course depends on climate change and geopolitical issues.”

Record exports represents an increase by a third on the previous year and a strong bounce back from four successive years of falling earnings.

The total value of agriculture, fisheries and forestry production will hit a record of close to $87 billion in 2021-22.

The record-breaking results are outlined in the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences commodity outlook released on Tuesday.

“This is an unprecedented result,” ABARES executive director Jared Greenville said.

“It can be put down to a combination of record high crop production, and the highest prices, in real terms, for Australian agricultural produce in 32 years.”

He cautioned that the dream conditions can’t continue indefinitely and a fall in values of around six per cent to $76 billion was expected next financial year due to an expected return to more average seasonal conditions locally and changing international factors.

But the 2022-23 forecast figure would still be the second highest on record and Dr Greenville’s caution was shared by NAB Agribusiness economist Phin Ziebell.

“The reality is we’ve had two incredible years, great seasonal conditions, great commodity prices,” Mr Ziebell said.

“The question mark I have is whether we can sustain the big production numbers over the coming years.

“We’ve had phenomenal seasonal conditions over most of the country and that is not normal.”

The record value of exports represents an increase by a third on the previous year and a strong bounce back from four successive years of falling earnings.

Agricultural goods worth more than $29 billion were shipped to 178 countries between July and December last year.

The majority of commodities are all expected to hit record value levels in 2021-22 with beef and veal topping the charts at $15.7 billion followed by wheat $12.3 billion, horticulture $12 billion, canola $5.8 billion, sheep meat and dairy both $5 billion, cotton $4.3 billion and barley $3.8 billion.