Moving Forward With A New Government

By Kevin Borg, Chairman, CANEGROWERS Mackay
This being our first column post-election, on behalf of CANEGROWERS Mackay I would like to congratulate the successful candidates across the region. We look forward to continuing to work with them as the new term of a new government for Queensland takes office and implements policy and programs.
CANEGROWERS, throughout the election was clear about the needs of the industry to continue to raise productivity, sustainability in an effort to continue to reach and supply our diverse markets. We hope that the Crisafulli Government has taken these matters on board.
We are confident that we can work with our local members to achieve good outcomes on local issues.
The top issue for the Mackay area is cost of electricity, which is preventing irrigators making use of their water allocations and challenging the viability of irrigation schemes.
We will continue to press the case for a food and fibre tariff for electricity, but in Mackay’s case, there is another option. We have a mill that is supplying electricity to the national grid. It would require only a change to legislation to allow Mackay Sugar to establish a virtual microgrid with it supplying its own electricity to its growers as its customers, and without any extra infrastructure.
Irrigation has been proven through projects like the CANEGROWERS Mackay Irrigation Project to deliver benefits not only for productivity, but for reducing nutrient runoff by increasing the cane plants Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). It makes sense to increase the industry’s capacity to affordably irrigate.
Which leads to Smartcane BMP. It is vital that the State Government continue to support the funding for this and to increase incentives for growers to make the practice change that has been proven across (almost) a decade of the best management practice program.
Strong research and development remains a critical area for maintaining the industry, and helping build productivity, sustainability and biosecurity. Funding to continue to improve research into practices and products remains an important way government can keep the sugar cane industry strong. However, it is a fallacy if we think growers can implement change on their own. Previous Federal and State Governments have spent massive amounts of money on water quality, however change is slower than it should be. Actual change and results happen at farm level, leaving us asking the question: why isn’t more of the funding targeted at changes on the farm.
Feral pigs remain one of the region’s major pest species problems, across all agriculture. Helicopter shoots are an effective way to deal with the ever-increasing population. However, these are costly. Farmers are working to control the pest on their land, but the reality is that pigs are using unmanaged state and federal land as a breeding ground. Governments are as big a landholder as it gets, so realistically there needs to be far greater investment by state and Federal Government in control measures, including subsidising community pest control projects like helicopter shoots.
We also encourage our new State Government to continue to support the work that has been done in market diversification by its predecessor and the sugarcane industry. This is work across the development of a sustainable aviation fuel manufacturing sector that sources sugarcane waste as a feedstock, and alternate proteins production that uses sugar as a base. Moreover, we would like to see government policy and practical support for mill co-generation plants to take an increasing role in the State’s energy generation mix. The capacity has been proven at Mackay Sugar’s Racecourse Mill, delivering a third of Mackay’s energy demand.
We also need to see clear support that across any value-add to sugarcane, whether molasses, ethanol, SAFs, or cogenerated electricity, that there is a clear benefit to the feedstock producers: the cane growers. There must be a value proposition across the paddock to mill supply chain.

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Feral pigs remain a serious pest in this region, posing threats across biosecurity, environment and productivity. Photo credit: Reef Catchments

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