The Land | 5 January 2014

Agricultural policies back on the table.Tree in canola field - © lonewolfshome/Fotolia.com

Farming smarter acknowledges Australia’s agricultural needs.

Labor is revising their agricultural policies in the hopes of capitalising on economic opportunities into the ‘Asian century’. Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon aims to show that Labor is just as serious as the Coalition. Mr Fitzgibbon has been critical of the governments ‘Agricultural White Paper’ and its lack of reference to the sustainability of natural resources. CPD’s report Farming smarter, not harder addressed the need for Australia to find a solution to depleting natural resources.

“Mr Fitzgibbon said Australia’s policy setting capacity in the areas of natural resource management were central to attracting foreign investment to help capture opportunities from the future dining boom.

“Winners of the food boom will be those countries with less fossil fuel intensive agriculture, more reliable production and access to healthy land and soils – it’s just common sense,” he said in quoting[Farming smarter not harder] the report.

“Any kindergarten kid would understand that you can’t grow more food, maybe twice as much or even three times as much food, if you don’t lift the productivity of our natural resources and at the moment, those resources are in decline.”

Read the article at The Land

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