SU McCluskey's role as the Federal government's first special representative for Australian Agriculture is a truly unique and important one for the sector.
The objective of the position, first created in November 2021 by former Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, is to promote Australia's agricultural sector and increase our country's leadership in international agriculture and food policy discussions.
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Besides the New Zealand Government, which currently has a farmer holding a trade envoy role, Ms McCluskey said there was no other government position like hers around the world.
The New South Wales beef cattle farmer provides an industry voice in high level government meetings and its engagement with other countries as well as in the private sector.
"When you think about it, the government negotiates with government around trade and market access, but it's actually business that trades with business," Ms McCluskey said.
"So it's really important we have that business voice in any discussions around trade and market access.
"In my first 12 months I've found that it's been really effective, because quite often you'll be speaking to bureaucrats who actually don't know how things work in practice."
Drawing on her strong agricultural background in policy development, regulation reform and as a farmer herself, Ms McCuskey promotes the sector to our existing and potential foreign export markets.
Just as important are her meetings with Australian producers, in which she acts as a feedback loop, listening to what Australian farmers are doing and the challenges they are facing while also communicating the wants and expectations of our international markets.
First trip to WA
Ms McCluskey made her first trip west in the role last week to meet with a range of industry stakeholders and discuss some of the issues around sustainable farming, a pertinent topic with our trading partners, and the work WA farmers are doing in this space.
In her meetings and roundtable discussions with groups including WAFarmers, the Grains Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA), Australian Export and Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC), the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), CBH Group and Perth NRM, Ms McCluskey said she witnessed a high level of commitment by the WA industry to be involved in sustainable agriculture.
She also received feedback from some industry groups that they wished to take on more of a leadership role with working groups and legislators involved in the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system ( a globally applicable sustainability certification system for agriculture).
"The way they farm in Europe is quite different to the way we farm over here...so there was a bit of frustration around the ISCC and some groups want to work with the legislators to influence those standards and ensure they have a level of flexibility and recognise it is not a 'one size fits all' situation," Ms McCluskey said.
"There was also a bit of concern raised about some of the carbon targets that have been put out there without actually recognising the work that will be needed to reach those, as well as the issue of people taking advantage of the money from their carbon credits straight away, which could have consequences for the sector down the track."
Proving our sustainability credentials
The National Farmers' Federation (NFF) and the Australian Farm Institute (AFI) have been developing a sustainability framework over the past 12 months, which funnels into a range of specific sustainability frameworks for the beef, sheep and grain industries.
While Australian farmers have already been using sustainable agricultural practices like minimum till or no-till farming and stubble retention for a long time, Ms McCluskey said higher demands on the sector to demonstrate its sustainability credentials were becoming much more common among our trading partners.
"One component is being able to pull together all of the great sustainable farming practices we are already doing and then I've had some really good discussions with AEGIC, Grains Australia and growers around the NFF sustainability framework and how we can feed into that and gather data to help demonstrate what else farmers are doing in that space," Ms McCluskey said.
Too hard on compliance?
Having already travelled to many countries around the world to discuss what work is being done in the sustainable agriculture space, Ms McCluskey highlighted Brazil and New Zealand as two countries that had been particularly active in their research and development.
In October last year, New Zealand unveiled a world first scheme to require farmers to pay for their agricultural emissions, including gases naturally emitted by their livestock.
If passed, New Zealand's plan would take effect in 2025 and see farmers who meet the threshold for herd size and fertiliser use pay a government levy every one to three years.
Last year Mr Watt ruled out a methane tax for Australian farmers, highlighting that New Zealand was different in that their agricultural industry formed about 50 per cent of their emissions.
Ms McCluskey said she was concerned the New Zealand Government had "gone too hard" on their farmers, due to the high compliance burden and reporting requirements placed on them as well as the planned introduction of a methane tax.
"I was keen to see what New Zealand is doing around their climate change reporting and when I unpacked it from a farmers perspective it wasn't easy," Ms McCluskey said.
"It's costing their farmers and what they are implementing just wouldn't work in Australia."
Ms McCluskey said there was a need for governments to have a greater trust in their farmers, who need to be provided with the right tools and information to "do the right thing".
"We have a high compliance burden as farmers anyway...but maybe we should have an audit system, where if you pick up things that are not being done right, that's when you take action," she said.
WAFarmers president John Hassell said the groups meeting with Ms McCluskey provided a great opportunity to highlight some of the concerns and challenges WA farmers were facing to someone who has access to high levels of government.
"We discussed the methane issue, as that needs to be re-looked at and re-evaluated, we talked about the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme and how we can help solve the labour issue in regional areas, the costs of machinery as well as John Deere's announcement in the US that farmers are going to have a right to repair - as Australia doesn't have that yet and we need it," Mr Hassell said.
"We also tapped into the issue of more Federal infrastructure funding for our grains industry and of course chatted about the issue of live export."
Mr Hassell said the newly-created government role was important for the sector's international relations and that Ms McCluskey was a proven performer.
