Posted on March, 26, 2025 at 01:24 pm
Grain producer lobby group GrainGrowers has typecast this year's budget as a missed opportunity for rural Australia.
While applauding small funding wins in areas such as regional housing, market access, sustainable fuel and childcare, GrainGrowers chief executive Shona Gawel said the investments were not significant enough to meet challenges in rural Australia.
In particular she nominated trade and market access as a crucial area for more investment.
In the lead-up to the budget GrainGrowers identified market access for grain into key export markets as critical.
Ms Gawel welcomed the allocation of $20 million to unlock trade with India, a huge market that could potentially be a home for large volume of Australian grain, in particular pulses.
The Federal Government has announced $16 million for an accelerator fund to bolster Australia-India trade and another $4 million to extend the Maitri Grants program, designed to help collaboration between cultural, business and educational groups in both countries.
However, she said given current uncertainties about free trade globally with the protectionist policies of the Trump administration, more needed to be done to forge bilateral relationships.
"We welcome the additional funding to support greater economic engagement with India and the provision of technical market access services.
"However, given the current global trade dynamics, further investment and focus in this area is essential."
She said in order to capture the full benefits of trade globally, the Australian government had to invest in schemes that would help reduced both traditional barriers, such as tariffs and tariffrate quotas, along with broader technical market access issues and multilateral engagement.
She said GrainGrowers planned to keep the onus on government regarding investment critical to the rural sector over the upcoming election campaign.
"While this Budget fell short of delivering the bold investments needed to unlock the full potential of the grain industry, particularly in critical areas like infrastructure, trade diversification and supply chain resilience, we remain optimistic that the upcoming federal election will bring a renewed focus and stronger commitments to regional Australia."
Source: Farm Online