20 December 2022. By AgForce General President Georgie Somerset.
Summer is finally here – and as always it is a bittersweet time for us as producers.
While we love letting our hair down for the holiday season, the extremes of our climate are also likely be on full display.
Rest assured we haven’t forgotten those of you doing it tough in drought this Christmas, and those impacted by flood, and we continue to work with government to make sure you have access to the funds and support required.
But the festive season is also a time for reflection.
Of looking back over the past year, our challenges and achievements, and examining how we could do things better as we hurtle towards a new year.
If anything, 2022 will be remembered as one of the most momentous ones of my time as AgForce’s General President.
We have certainly had more than our fair share unprecedented turbulent times: the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, import bans from China, catastrophic floods and ongoing drought, threat of incursion from animal diseases, and the expansion of misguided vegetation management and reef protection laws.
However, there is also much to celebrate. Throughout all this AgForce has worked with members and regional communities to help strengthen the position of agriculture in Queensland.
That we have been successful is no small achievement. That we have done it together says much about what we have built and the spirit in which we have created it.
Our members’ tenacity, commitment, and faith in us as an organisation has resulted in countless farming businesses increasing their profitability and productivity during the past 12 months, while also continuing to reduce their environmental footprint.
There is plenty more to be done as we continue the journey, but I am enormously proud of what we have achieved to date, and excited to see what 2023 will bring.
Here’s hoping that this Christmas we all receive just what is needed – to grow our crops, to water our livestock, and to put grass in the paddocks.
I’ll certainly raise a glass to that.