COMMENT
Last month, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt stated that Australian farmers need to boost our environmental credentials if we want to maintain access to markets.
The Minister's spotlight was on the $72 billion European Union export market - where regulators are steaming ahead with new sustainability requirements on everything from vegetation management to chemical use.
Domestic consumers, too, are demanding fewer chemicals in products - or they want to see farmers operating efficiently without chemistry or fertilisers coming from finite resources.
I, like many farmers in the past few years, have been through drought, then mice, then floods. Then mice and floods again.
These are traumatic, visual displays of how vulnerable farming can be.
But while the memory remains, in time, we draw a line in the sand, rebuild and move on.
It strikes me that sustainability isn't like that.
The line in the sand is always shifting, and be it the EU, US, or even here in Australia, more eyes are on farming's environmental impact than ever before.
Our farm leaders know this and they've been mobilising - with major industries implementing, or developing, sustainability frameworks.
But farmers know that targets aren't enough.
We need practical solutions.
Solutions that meet changing expectations and give us a fighting chance at maintaining market access, yet are easy to adopt, deliver the same - or better - production advantages as synthetic chemistry, and at a low cost.
Biological inputs can tick all those boxes.
Australia has been a slow starter in their adoption.
I've come to learn it's partly a trust issue.
Every year we survey farmers about how they feel about biologicals and learn that there is still skepticism.
For many, "biologicals" still implies a snake oil.
Yet, if we flip the terminology and talk about rhizobia for pulses, or inoculants for sowing - farmers are all for it.
It's been interesting to watch the situation unfold in the EU.
People talk a lot about how far ahead of us they are on sustainability.
For all I know, EU farmers are just as skeptical. But governments are forcing their hand.
To stay in business, regulators over there demand farmers halve chemical use by 2030.
I read recently that there are about 190 registrations for new biologicals pending approval from EU regulators, but less than five for new chemistry.
Agchem companies are working around the clock to capture their share of the rapidly growing global market, tipped to rise from $100 million in 2005 to $30 billion by 2030.
For Australia's part, New Edge Microbials (NEM) is working with CSIRO to solve the challenges that matter to farmers - such as, how we can produce higher yielding crops in a drying climate or speed up the nitrogen cycle or increase soil carbon.
Wearing both my farming and NEM CEO hat, I spend a lot of time pondering a future where Australia still relies on traditional chemicals, and "cleaner" competitors take our market share.
But while regulation undoubtedly speeds adoption, I'm pleased the Minister is so far letting industry drive our sustainability agenda.
- Based in Albury, NEM is Australia's biggest producer of biological products that improve soil and plant health. On February 22, Ben Barlow will be speaking at evokeAG about the global landscape for biologicals development and application.
