2 January 2024. By Georgie Somerset, AgForce General President.
As we look ahead to the year in front of us 2024, it’s hard not to hear the echoes of last year still ringing in our ears.
The cleanup from the floods caused by ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper in far-north Queensland will be ongoing for some time yet as the true scale of the damage becomes clear. AgForce will be there to ensure our primary producers have all the support they need in the cleanup and recovery.
In many ways that is closely linked to what I see as one of the biggest issues for the year spread out ahead of us – and that is land use.
We’ve got local government elections in March and we’ve got State Elections in October, so there will be plenty of change in governmental circles.
The interplay between renewables, resources and transmission lines is a tussle that AgForce will not shy away from. While a lot of industries are getting a lot of attention and prioritisation, we need to make sure that agriculture’s needs are considered in decision making too.
Transmission lines should not be built without consulting with the caretakers of that land – who are often the primary producers.
Leading up to the state election on October 26 we always aim to have our policies adopted by all parties, so that they respect that our members and policy committees have the best idea of what going on. Again this year that’s what we will try to achieve in the leadup.
We consider local government as important, if not more important too, because they’re a really critical part of the regional ecosystem. They are the ones who get the funding for roads and infrastructure and we need to know there is effective local leadership that considers agriculture in regional planning.
We’ve also got our AgForce State Conference on October 1 and 2, and strategic planning in Toowoomba earlier in the year so that we have a clear focus on our main issues, so we can test our politicians as they lobby for office.
This is also just as the Reef Consensus Statement comes to the fore. It will be interesting to see where that goes.
AgForce will be a big present at Beef Week in Rockhampton in May this year – a great opportunity to engage with our members on the ground in that region.
With all these colliding pressures, just being able to get the cane off and processed is a problem. We are continuing to look for markets other than sugar for our cane farmers to diversify to.
So we look forward to seeing you at some of these important events. Every week you will receive our newsletter, Action, in the form of an email, and don’t forget to keep an eye out for the quarterly Envoy magazine too. Call your regional manager if there’s any confusion or just to confirm the dates from this amazing swag of choices.