For primary producers, our farms are not just our businesses, they are also our family homes, and ensuring we look after our land and water resources underpins everything we do.
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The reality is farmers are the true environmentalists, and we would much prefer more support for voluntary conservation efforts than more prescriptive regulations that just make it harder to do our jobs.
That’s why AgForce developed a proposal for a simpler, outcome-focussed, landscape scale approach to vegetation management, that is about driving both sustainable agricultural production and good environmental outcomes without strangling farmers in red tape.
Unfortunately, over the past week, the Premier has instead committed to re-introducing flawed vegetation management laws already rightly rejected by the Queensland Parliament.
Rather than always resorting to more red tape, we’d like to see support for initiatives like Nature Assist that help landholders protect natural environmental values on their land, as well as best management practices programs like Grazing and Grains BMP.
I was pleased to join forces with the Queensland Farmers’ Federation and CANEGROWERS this week to call on all political parties to back industry-driven BMP programs as the best way to improve water quality for the Great Barrier Reef.
BMP programs are not just good for the environment, they also benefit the budget bottom line by helping farmers improve their productivity and profitability.
I firmly believe the best way to achieve real practical change is through leading by example, providing incentives and giving landholders a sense of ownership towards the change, rather than hitting them with the big stick of regulation.
Other priorities AgForce highlighted in our State Election policy platform under the theme of ‘Healthy Environments – Protecting Our Land and Water’ include:
- More funding to improve biosecurity capabilities, preparedness and awareness;
- Clear protections for high quality agricultural land and water under pressure from competing interests such as resource developments and solar farms
- A firm, long term funding commitment to cap and pipe bores in the Great Artesian Basin; and
- Revitalisation of Queensland’s stock route network.
I encourage readers to log on to AgForce’s website at www.agforceqld.org.au to find out more about the priorities we are advocating for on behalf of broadacre primary producers this State Election.
