Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia. Will the minister outline how the Morrison-Joyce government is working to improve the quality of Australian soils and ensure Australian farmers are rewarded for their stewardship of land and water?

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Flynn for his question and for his interest in our soil management, our landscape management, our stewardship, and how that's underpinning agricultural production here in Australia. It is a $66 billion industry and we are hoping to take that to $100 billion by 2030. As part of the Ag2030 plan, one of the key pillars is stewardship of the land. We are making real, tactile investments in that, through our National Soil Strategy, which is being run by the Hon. Penelope Wensley AC, and our Biodiversity Stewardship Program—with real money. In the budget we made sure that we made significant investments in that: in the Soil Strategy, nearly $215 million in real projects, $120 million of that in rewarding farmers, incentivising farmers to undertake soil tests to be able to understand their soil health and what needs to go into it to improve their productivity and to look after it and then sharing that data so that other farmers can learn. There's also $67 million for a practical solution to match households and their organic waste and turn that waste into compost to go into soils. We're working with local government so that households can be part of a solution to improve our soils and improve the productivity and profitability of our farms.

There's $20 million for education of our farmers in making sure that the data is shared. Underpinning that is $40 million through our Soil CRC. That collates and collects the data to make sure that we're able to target government measures in a practical way. That will also feed into the aim and ambition of this government to try to create a test for soil carbon that costs under $3 a hectare. That will change the landscape. That will change the management of our farms. We will have real measures towards not just carbon abatement but improving our productivity right across the country. These measures complement the biodiversity stewardship program. We are the first country in the world to be able to measure the improvement in biodiversity. No other country in the world has been able to crack the code, bar us. We should be so proud of the best and brightest minds in the world that have done this. What we will do with this is to make sure that we reward farmers not for locking up large tracks of land but for rejuvenating unproductive land, landscape that is damaged. They will be rewarded for that financially not just for carbon abatement but for biodiversity improvement. What we intend to do with that is to create a seal, a brand, that those farmers can place on their beef, on their sheep, on their wheat and on their pork that they can then send around the world for a premium. The world wants to know the provenance of their food and fibre. Australian farmers are the best at it, and we want them to be rewarded for it. This is the Australian way of solving problems, not senseless vandalism.