7 April 2026. Jane McMillan, AgForce North Regional President.
As we reach the end of our wet season in the North, it’s great to hear that I don’t think there is anywhere that hasn’t received significant or sufficient falls this season.
A month ago we were thinking what could go wrong! Fat Cows and Green Grass. Not so much now though.
It’s no surprise to us that fuel security has reared its head. Fuel storage and the lack of it has been a top priority for the North Regional Council for some time. We have always known there’s a fuel shortage in Australia long term, and the risks that forces us to take.
Primary producers are unable to apply levies like all others across agricultural industries to cushion this blow. It doesn't matter what the government's doing with the excise, with anything, it's still going to be driven by supply.
And of course those ever increasing prices are rolling out across all of our suppliers and services - the trucking industry, veterinarians, you name it, the price of living just keeps going up with the price of fuel. The lack of availability of supplements particularly Urea for animals and crops will affect production - there’s now no doubt about that.
While we lobby all levels of government hard on fuel, we haven’t taken our eye off other big issues for our region. Over-regulation remains one of the greatest risks to Agriculture across all three levels of government. Pests and weeds continue to thrive and are a big concern even with the very good support we’ve received from the State Government.
We will continue to lobby the powers that be that Buffel Grass is not a weed, while we also grapple with the ongoing rollout of changes to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity (EPBC) Act.
Improving essential infrastructure is something that we really need to be focused on for the whole northern region - I’m talking dams and roads and fuel storage - it’s imperative.
Even though we’ve had such devastation across the north, and everyone’s been isolated for so very long, all in all we have a fantastic season unfolding. In saying that, some people have had a pretty tough run at it, but hopefully we can support them and everyone will come out the other side.
It is great to see the support of the AgForce teams working to get us - the members - the information we require, and sharing informed plans of management moving forward with State and Federal departments.
We do have a lot coming at us, but this also shows the value of organisations like AgForce with the membership base creating connectivity across the state and across members, to share ideas and thoughts and whatever else to actually come up with solutions, and a united voice.