Southern Queensland is home to intensive animal industries, with many advantages seeing strong investment in beef, pork, poultry and dairy sectors, followed with our reliable grain production.
TSBE Food Leaders Australia recently hosted the Protein 2020 conference in Dalby, which brought together those industries to share best practice, advocate for common policy change, and allow collaboration across the sectors. The key take-out was around feeding the world in a sustainable way for our agricultural sectors.
We have had one contagion, African Swine Fever, affect the world's protein availability. While the immediate response needs to be one of biosecurity to ensure we don't see the disease enter our pig herd, there is also an opportunity for Australian protein producers to capture market share.
Given that the National Farmers Federation's '$100 billion industry by 2030' goal has hit headwinds around drought and bushfires, this opportunity is one we must grab. Not just because it makes good economic sense but because we need to produce more food to feed consumers throughout Asia and domestically.
African Swine Fever and its impacts on the protein markets also shows how each individual farm can't rely on external sources to look after biosecurity needs. Industries like beef, dairy and poultry need to learn from what happened to pork industry and how effectively it was handled.
We need to ask, do we have the leadership and the structure to handle a biosecurity outbreak?
The pork industry has done very well out of having a single source of truth, Australian Pork Limited, coordinating the industry response - do other sectors have unified leadership around such biosecurity threats?
And do they hold a strong relationship with Biosecurity Queensland and Biosecurity Australia to ensure a quick response.
We need a collective voice for other protein industries.
The scale of opportunity in protein markets for export is massive, but you must also be cautious. The coronavirus has proven that you should not have all your eggs in one basket, or country, like China.
You need to have a balanced approach and good leadership with good business growth in red meat sector to ensure very profitable industries.
- Bruce McConnel, TSBE Food Leaders Australia general manager
