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Minister's CEDA speech June 2008
Presentation to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) Queensland Branch
24 June 2008, Townsville
The Honourable Tim Mulherin, MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries
Member for Mackay
It's time for a fresh approach
Acknowledgments
- Member for Townsville Mike Reynolds
- Members of the Opposition
- Host Anne Kruger from Landline
- Dr Andy Stoeckel
- Professor Sandra Harding, Vice Chancellor, James Cook University
- Peter Kenny, President, Agforce Queensland
- Gary Sansom, President, Queensland Farmers Federation
- Glenys Schuntner, CEO, Townsville Enterprise Ltd
- David Edwards, CEO, CEDA
- Malcolm McKay, Australian Agricultural College Corporation
- Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries acting Director-General, Robert Setter
- Ladies and gentlemen
Last September I attended this same forum in Brisbane. It was a significant day for me and for my department. At that gathering I signalled that the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries had reached a fork in the road. We had a choice... continue along the old path, conducting business in the same the same way, because that is what we are familiar with...or take a fresh approach.
The Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries has a long tradition of contributing to the growth of the Queensland economy. It will continue to do this...but in new ways.
I believe that Queensland agriculture has the potential, by the Year 2020, to be earning in excess of 34 billion in today's dollars towards the State's economy nearly three-times today's value of $12.47 billion.
As Dr Stoeckel pointed out just moments ago, the challenges and opportunities facing the industry now and into the future require new thinking and new approaches. For the last five to eight years the demand for food basics such as grain has exceeded supply. This food crisis is being exacerbated by the demand for feedgrain to supply a rapidly growing demand for proteins in countries like China. Added to this is the demand from the emerging biofuels industry.
In trying to meet this demand, farmers face rising fuel and fertiliser costs, labour and skills shortages, and crop failures due to an increasingly unpredictable climate.
And while this demand should be met by an increasing investment in agricultural R&D (research and development), some of the biggest producers such as the United States and Europe have reacted by trying to impose artificial controls on the market.
I do not believe in this approach.
I believe that innovation and productivity growth is the answer and that Queensland has a major role to play in the next green revolution - particularly in the Pacific region.
Innovation must grow our knowledge in farming systems and create a culture of continuous learning from new-entrant farm hands, to research scientists to seasoned farmers.
That is why at the CEDA function last year, I spoke of the need to make some tough decisions...the need to set a new agenda...to operate differently to meet this challenging agenda.
The simple truth is that our investment cannot be spread so thinly across the entire range of industries or across such a vast real estate network that costs $34 million just to turn the lights on.
Our fresh approach is what I want to share with you. A fresh approach to support industry to help meet this ambitious target that I have set out here today.
This fresh approach is based around three pillars:
- building skills for the future
- delivering innovative research partnerships to grow investment
- driving profitability from the 'farm gate to plate'.
These three pillars will be underpinned by new strategic directions for biosecurity and fisheries management which I will be announcing over the coming months.
This will not be done in isolation.
Crucial to the fresh approach is collaboration - with industry, with the educational institutions and with all tiers of government.
Firstly let me elaborate on building skills. Addressing skills is a key pillar for the growth of the sector. Earlier this month I announced that the Australian Agricultural College Corporation would move into my portfolio from July 1 this year. There are five Ag Colleges in Queensland located at strategic centres of primary production - Emerald, Longreach, Dalby, the Burdekin and the Atherton Tablelands.
Our intent is to leverage the Ag Colleges to upgrade skills across the sector and to promote the agriculture sector as a first choice career option for young Queenslanders. That is to create a clear and attractive pathway from school to vocational and academic studies ...from Pre-voc to PhD, if you like.
We need to revitalise agri-science and attract more of the best and brightest.
There are two significant benefits to this approach.
The first is that it will give people access to the knowledge and the practical application needed to accelerate growth in an industry that increasingly needs qualified, technology-savvy workers.
The second is to build a system that will assist in reversing the worrying trend of declining enrolments in agricultural science.
Bringing the Ag Colleges together with DPI&F will link the science and technology of our research centres and extension services with the college's skilling programs. These will, in turn, be linked into the secondary school curriculum through the establishment of Gateway Schools for Agribusiness.
Our intention is that enhanced vocation, education and training outcomes from these arrangements will inspire and assist students to transition to the undergraduate programs offered by our university partners. This is vital.
The University of Sydney found that demand for people with agricultural qualifications is expected to rise by 36 per cent over the next six years. Yet the Australian Councils of Deans of Agriculture found that universities are currently producing less than half the number of graduates required now.
Student intake into the Bachelor of Agricultural Science program at The University of Queensland has declined from 50 students in 2003 to less than 20 students in 2008. At James Cook University the student intake into the Bachelor of Tropical Agricultural Science is less than five. As Dr Stoeckel said, we have to sell agriculture as an attractive career option against other better paying areas.
At our 'revolutionary science' event earlier this year, the department, together with Education Queensland, AgForce and the universities, showed 600 young science students, from all over Queensland, that agricultural science is an exciting career. Our young scientists demonstrated how their work has a positive impact on what we grow...what we eat...and what we sell to the world. And with climate change and the looming food crisis, not only Queensland but the world needs people with these skills and with the skills to apply new technologies and practices.
My department is already making a commitment to invest in new skills in emerging technologies such as systems simulation modelling, bio-informatics and quantitative genetics. We need these people now as such skills are going to be vital to achieve our growth target.
The second pillar is how industry and government work together to deliver an innovative research platform that attracts additional investment to drive the sector's growth. This is a national imperative.
The fact is we will not continue to attract industry and government funding unless we are smarter in the way in which we do our research, our development and our extension.
Our fresh approach aims to allocate investment based on agreed national priorities to support high-quality science, which underpins industry's competitive position. It involves the development of a coordinated, efficient and effective national research program with clear leadership in addressing priority industry issues. This approach will see DPI&F become lead provider for our major industries, such as beef, horticulture and summer grains.
We will lead research into sub-tropical and tropical industries. And we will lead in the science where we have strong national and international collaborations.
Under this approach our aim will create 'centres of excellence', supported by world-class experimental and field facilities. This will be achieved by divesting ourselves of old, outdated facilities and reinvesting with a collaborator in new state of the art facilities. We are already implementing this model in South East Queensland in the development of two centres of excellence in Brisbane - the $300 million Ecoscience Precinct at Boggo Road and the $70 million Health and Food Sciences Precinct at Coopers Plains. Supporting these centres of excellence are world-class experimental facilities such as the $33 million Centre for Advanced Animal Science at Gatton and the Queensland Crop Development Centre at Redlands.
At these centres we are co-investing with universities, CSIRO and other research organisations to attract international interest and private investment in order to generate intellectual property for commercial gain. For example we are currently negotiating with Associate Professor Paul Wood, Director of Pfizer for Australia and New Zealand, to conduct commercial vaccines trials at CASS.
This fresh approach to investment in agricultural science is already producing results and needs to be broadened to North Queensland.
To reinforce this new direction, I will be signing a 'statement of intent' with Professor Sandra Harding, Vice Chancellor at James Cook University, to establish an Australian Institute of Tropical Agricultural Sciences. This Institute will focus on tropical agriculture, aquaculture and biosecurity ...for real outcomes for industry. We intend to work together to attract and retain outstanding scientific staff to North Queensland and maximise the integration of research disciplines to support industry growth. Co-investment by DPI&F and JCU will enable economies of scale to be realised in the future when undertaking costly laboratory infrastructure investments. This alliance is both an exciting and a challenging development which will redefine how the R&D capability and capacity of DPI&F and JCU is consolidated and coordinated for the benefit of the tropical agribusiness sector. This collaboration will extend throughout North Queensland.
The third pillar, in our fresh approach, is to ensure that DPI&F's products and services are modern, relevant and will support industry to drive growth on a sustainable basis. As I told our industry groups recently, one of the hallmarks of this department is that it has a history of progressive changes. This began with the introduction of a Travelling Dairy in 1889, just two years after the department began. This unit demonstrated good farm techniques and assisted farmers to process milk on their own farm. Then, in 1897, the department took a visionary approach in establishing an Agricultural College at Gatton. Throughout the century that followed, DPI&F continued to drive growth in primary industries through far-sighted research, development and extension projects.
Given R&D is the powerhouse of innovation and growth ...and our agribusiness services are critical to the uptake of this innovation ... DPI&F's current regional infrastructure has increasingly limited capacity to foster this innovation. The department's future investment will be guided by where in the supply chain, the department and its industry can have the greatest impact...from the farm gate to the plate. This investment strategy should ultimately make Queensland's primary industries more internationally competitive and adaptive, to economic, market and social trends.
To give you an example of how I see these three pillars being implemented under the first stage of our plan; let us look at the Tablelands.
We have had a close look at the Ag College there - what DPI&F was currently doing on the Tablelands and who might be interested in partnering with us in addressing skills, which would support industry growth. Excluding our Mareeba office, the department has, since the acquisition of the Ag Colleges, four facilities on the Atherton Tablelands, of varying degrees of under-utilisation, age and fit-for-purpose. These include: Kairi, Walkamin and Southedge. All three of these ageing facilities are within a 50-km radius.
Kairi was originally a State farm established in the early 1900s to demonstrate good farming practices and provide seed and animals to farmers. Southedge and Walkamin were established in the 1950s, principally to service the tobacco industry.
While that industry has gone, the research stations remain.
My plan would be, subject to continuing community and industry input, to replace these with a new purpose-built facility that capitalises on the uniqueness of the Tablelands and the potential for economic growth:
- This new facility could be established on an existing site or a greenfields site.
- It would incorporate both training facilities for skills development and extension services for the beef and dairy industries.
- It would be equipped with facilities to support in research into areas such as tropical maize, horticulture and new bio-industries.
- It would not look the same as what we have now because agriculture practices, our science, and the way that we encourage the uptake of innovation, has changed.
- It would be my intention to liaise closely with the Tablelands community regarding the location and nature of this facility and the timetable for any divestment from existing facilities.
Moving south, the plan in the Burdekin/Bowen basin would be to create a network of sites, around the Burdekin Ag College and our research and agribusiness services centres at Ayr and Bowen, which would capitalise on the great potential growth for this area.
The economic needs of western Queensland would also be strengthened by positioning Longreach as a crucial applied skills and animal research centre.
This would position Longreach as a leading centre linked to the newly opened world-class Centre for Advanced Animal Science that I mentioned earlier.
The mechanics of how we would proceed in the Burdekin/Bowen basin and in Longreach are yet to be determined, and once again, any decisions would involve both community and stakeholder consultation.
Moving to the Darling Downs we could make better use of the Ag College at Dalby by initially relocating the important tick-fever herd from the Brisbane suburb of Wacol.
The Central Queensland region is also critical to my target of a $34-billion industry and in particular the Emerald region. To achieve this potential growth target, it is important to achieve critical mass in training and research services. For this reason, my initial thinking would be to amalgamate the Ag College and DPI&F facilities.
I am also committed to establishing an agricultural corridor precinct along the lower Fitzroy River to attract new private sector investment in the cattle feedlot industry.
I also see an opportunity for improving accessibility to agricultural training, particularly in the important horticulture industry.
An example would be the potential to locate Ag College staff on DPI&F sites, such as Bundaberg and potentially South Johnstone in the north, to better link extension and training.
All that I have mentioned would not happen overnight.
We would undertake a phased approach to minimise the impact on our people and to develop and implement new service delivery approaches.
As I have said, the focus of these proposed changes is on enhanced skills for the agricultural sector, world-class R&D in areas of competitive advantage to support industry growth.
As part of this fresh approach the department has just recently completed a major review of our current client services.
This review was undertaken by Jan Taylor and Associates and I know that a number of you had input to it.
While some of the outcomes of this were negative it must also be said that everybody who participated made it abundantly clear that in providing criticism, their intention was to ensure the department had the knowledge base, resources, and will, to facilitate changes.
Changes, which would result in increased outputs and improved profitability and sustainability of primary industries.
In response, I am committed to working with the department to revamp its service delivery and in particular to focus on areas such as supply chain analysis; investment attraction and client-relationship management.
Equally, I am placing considerable emphasis on the tools used by the department to deliver these services.
Services will target opportunities and address impediments to growth as we are already doing in our successful Asian Markets for Horticulture Initiative - an initiative that successfully facilitated the first direct shipment of mangoes and citrus into China.
This export initiative benefited from a whole-of-supply chain focus that will now be translated globally into other export markets such as Europe.
As I have said the new and improved services offered will be delivered using the right mix of tools - from personal interactions, either face-to-face or using virtual technologies such as web conferencing, to mobile offices that reduce the need for permanent or stand alone office space in remote areas.
In fact, parked outside today is our new mobile service centre. This mobile centre, supported by our regional extension officers, will travel throughout Queensland to participate field days and other major agricultural events. It will offer online access to training, financial counseling, and biosecurity, fisheries and business development services and products. It will work closely with local government to ensure that our services are more accessible than ever before.
What I have outlined for you today are my preliminary thoughts. It is early days.
While the consultation will continue, I do not shy away from the fact that there is much work to be done and tough decisions to be made. I have already invited Agforce and QFF to join our design and consultation team as we map out the path ahead.
I understand that some aspects of what I have outlined today may challenge some people, but changes must be made sooner rather than later. We must dis-invest to re-invest.
If we are going to succeed in making Queensland the knowledge capital of Australia, and ensuring that primary industries plays a key role in that program by driving an agricultural science revolution, we have to move forward in a partnership.
To ensure the future for our children we must have the building blocks in place to ensure that Queensland remains a key food producer - a $34-billion industry by 2020.
That is our challenge.
I would now like to invite the Vice Chancellor of James Cook University, Professor Sandra Harding up to the podium so that we can sign the 'statement of intent'.
