Innovation central to agricultural improvements in SA

I have travelled extensively throughout our regions since I became Minister in March 2022, and I am constantly impressed by the passion and resilience that I see in our regions and our primary industries sectors.

Following the challenges of adverse weather events and trade disruptions, the recovery process continues, and a key focus is continuing to future proof sectors within our agriculture landscape.

Working with the Australian government, we have expanded the On-farm Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebate available to all livestock, viticulture and horticulture producers impacted by natural disasters that have occurred since January 1, 2022, including the River Murray floods.

Preparing for adverse events and ensuring our biosecurity defences are robust is a significant and vital undertaking, and the forthcoming introduction of the Biosecurity Bill will help ensure effective livestock traceability.

Obtaining the best possible traceability system is key to protecting our $2.96 billion livestock industry and complements the ongoing efforts in strengthening our defences against emergency animal disease.

Our state government has provided a $9.3 million package to support our sheep and farmed goat industry in the transition towards the January 1, 2025 start of the national electronic identification scheme.

As part of this transition work, two programs came into effect on January 1 - the point-of-sale tag discount scheme and the Sheep and Goat eID Implementation Essential Equipment and Infrastructure Rebate Scheme.

The eID system will enable a quick and efficient response if a disease such as foot and mouth occurs in Australia.

It will also ensure that recovery from an outbreak would be quicker and the path to regaining overseas market access would be shorter.

The battle against fruit fly continues with significant resources deployed to the Queensland fruit fly response in the Riverland, protecting our $1.43 billion horticulture industry.

The $3 million expansion of the national facility at Port Augusta came into production in September and in a few short months achieved its full production capacity of 40 million flies a week.

With a changing climate, our government continues to support our producers in preparing for the inevitable return of dry conditions.

In August, SA received a significant $8 million Federal Government Future Drought Fund grant - the largest to be awarded - towards a new SARDI/Flinders University research program for long-term research trials to develop potential drought-resilient innovations for dryland broadacre cropping, livestock and mixed farming.

Premier Peter Malinauskas visited China last year as part of the significant efforts to stabilise our trade relationship, which is so important to South Australian industries.

The wine and lobster sectors are a key focus which we hope will see changes in the near future, in addition to the removal of tariffs for barley, the lifting of barriers for timber, and some beef exports.

Despite the trade issues in recent years, China remains the biggest export market for our primary industries, with exports growing in other significant markets including the United States, Japan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh, South Korea and Belgium.

Supporting emerging new primary production sectors remains an important government priority and work to develop the fledgling seaweed industry will continue in 2024.

SARDI is leading a two-year $1.5 million project industry development project and is a core partner in the 10-year $270 million Marine Bioproducts Cooperative Research Centre.

Innovation in the forestry sector is set to be enhanced with the development of the Forestry Centre for Excellence at Mount Gambier, partnering with the University of South Australia to position the state as a ground-breaking leader in forestry research and development.

Innovation is also behind the roll out of the first integrated fire detection system to be installed in Australia in the South East forestry fire towers, utilising satellite technology and artificial intelligence to enable early fire detection.

The increased uptake of agtech provides further innovation possibilities. Agtech is estimated to grow the state's agricultural gross value of production by up to $2.6 billion per annum.

Supporting agtech innovation and collaboration through initiatives such as the AgTech Producer Groups is an important step towards this.

I look forward to continuing to work closely with our agricultural, forestry, fisheries, and regional development sectors to build on exciting opportunities to grow, develop, and promote South Australian produce and industries to the world.