Our farming future
By Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, David Littleproud MP
In my short time as Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources I have kicked the dirt with as many of our farmers as possible. What comes up day after day is farmers care about their produce and they care about the land.
I care about both of those things too. I’ve been passionate about Landcare for many years. For farming families, our land is our legacy. After all, the land is what we leave to our children and grandchildren. I think all farming families want to pass on land with healthy soils, healthy air and clean water.
Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, David Littleproud MP.
The support Landcare gets from the farming community illustrates this belief. Landcare unites farmers from across all commodities and regions.
Australian farmers are among the most productive and efficient in the world. We also farm more sustainably than just about any country on earth, and our clean green image is already paying off as helps us send our food all over the planet. In future decades, I predict our clean green way of farming will pay off even more as markets all over the world open up and demand clean, green Aussie produce.
The Coalition Government is investing more than $1 billion in Landcare over five years to protect the natural resources that underpin the sustainability and productivity of our agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
This includes programs to help our farmers to farm smarter, not harder, and deliver the sustainably produced food and fibre consumers want and markets increasingly demand.
These programs include the $450 million Regional Land Partnerships, as well as the $134 million Smart Farms program.
The Smart Farms grants will focus on protecting Australia’s natural resources of soils, water, vegetation and biodiversity through more sustainable agricultural practices.
We are going to build on the experience of over 30 years of Landcare to build and continue to engage with local communities to deliver national Landcare priorities on-the-ground.
We want to be using world’s-best practice to help our farmers do what comes naturally to them—caring for the land.
Landcare will continue to deliver the results that have made this movement such an iconic part of many rural and regional communities.
