Su McCluskey on EU Green Deal; where to get overseas labour and mulesing

Others will be hard to swallow.

Painkillers are not going to be enough to keep mulesed Australian wool in Europe, for example.

And Australian agriculture won't get as good a free trade deal with the European Union as it got with the United Kingdom.

On the other side, there are armies of highly skilled farm workers desperate to put their expertise to the test in Australia if we look beyond the Pacific for answers to our labour shortage.

Singapore is ripe for the picking in terms of ag exports.

And there is no way New Zealand's aggressive penalty-style approach to farming and climate change would work in Australia.

These are just a handful of of the learnings Ms MsCluskey shared at the Rural Press Club of Queensland's February lunch in Brisbane yesterday.

What was really clear was the advantage Australian agriculture has in having such a unique role in place. The ability to influence global rules and policy, along with sharing the work Australian farmers are doing in key areas like sustainability, puts us one step ahead.

Her information from Europe was the hardest hitting.

"My neighbours get very antsy when I report back that pain relief won't cut it in this market - they say there is no alternative," she said.

"I'm just sharing with you that the reality is Europe thinks it is barbaric and they want non-mulesed wool.

"It's challenging - to turn around your flock with genetics takes time and in the end, our farmers will each make the best decision for their business but we have to arm them to be prepared for the future."

Ms McCluskey, previously the chief executive officer of the Regional Australia Institute and the Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations, is also a beef producer from Yass in NSW.

Her access in this role to very high level engagement with government and industry, both here and overseas, allows her to be the perfect conduit.

In London, she said the big question was around how much lamb Australia would ship from mulesed sheep.

"When I told them they'll get lamb from our meat sheep, not our wool sheep, they had no idea there was a difference," she said.

"That's not surprising because the average person on the street here probably wouldn't know the difference.

"What it made me realise, however, was there are people making important decisions that have not yet had some of the basics explained to them; let alone the intricacies of flystrike."

ALSO READ:

In Geneva, the questions showed there was a perception of very high levels of chemical and fertiliser use in Australia.

Being told Australian farmers do everything they can to minimise the use of chemicals because it costs them and they are not subsidised the way farmers in Europe and the United States are was news to them, Ms McCluskey said.

"I visited a cattle feedlot in the US where they'd set up a turkey farm because fertiliser prices had gone through the roof so they grew the turkeys to get the fertiliser from their manure," she said.

"They couldn't do that if they weren't heavily subsidised. The numbers just wouldn't add up.

"What I'm starting to talk about in-market is re-purposing subsidies for a better sustainability outcome."

In NZ, the compliance burden of farmers is so very high as its government looks to move out aggressively ahead of the pack on climate.

"They've taken a penalty approach - if you don't measure and report you pay," Ms McCluskey said.

"My message back to our government is we could not bring that system here, there would be outrage."

In Argentina, she found a highly skilled young set of farmers who would love to come to Australia to work.

And Japan, an attractive market for Australia because its consumers are able to pay a premium for quality, is looking to the EU to develop a sustainability framework.

"The one message that overrides all is sustainability," Ms McCluskey said.

"That is bringing with it real challenges in how we set international standards for trade.

"We are seeing a proliferation of non-tariff barriers and that's something to be really concerned about because we have overly prescriptive standards coming through and some markets are trying to cut us out.

"The Green Deal in Europe is prescriptive and regulatory-heavy and Australian ag will need to do everything it can to push back."

Singapore is one country with few barriers to entry, given it has very little farming of its own.

It is trying to establish itself as an international hub for food and fibre, which presents good opportunities for Australia, Ms McCluskey said.