Last week I met 100 of our members at Mt Moriac who made it very clear to me that their number one challenge is transport infrastructure.
The employment of 88,000 regional Victorians involved in agriculture and the $13.16 billion of agricultural product from farm to port is built on the vital connection of fit-for-purpose roads.
This connection of road infrastructure supports both the domestic and export economies of which agriculture contributes nearly 30 per cent.
Right now we are missing out on core infrastructure spending through rural and regional council and state government road budgets.
With the state budget just a few months away, we are very clear about what is required to fix this problem.
On behalf of Victorian farmers and rural and regional businesses, the Victorian Farmers Federation is asking the State Government to allocate $1.2 billion a year for five years to repair regional roads.
We need a strategic approach to support the road network to market to meet the demands of the future; we need language that is a foundation for national freight corridors and a food logistics system that underpins economic growth.
And we need to utilise and build upon the findings in existing studies completed by the RACV, VicRoads, Australian Logistics Council and COAG to name a few.
As president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, I spend much of my time travelling around regional and rural Victoria talking to farmers about opportunities for growth, what is holding their businesses back and what we as a community need to enhance.
We are calling for rural and regional local councils to commit budget to upholding local roads, the State Government to commit to significant funding to bring all current and future state roads up to standard and to modernise regional road infrastructure.
And the Federal Government to support the Victorian Government in ensuring rural and regional infrastructure will not diminish the opportunities for these economies.
Farmers in Australia are innovative and efficient converters of funding.
With less than 1.5 per cent of government support into agriculture, we turn every $1 investment into a $12 farmer generated impact. We can do all this however we can’t build the roads.
That’s very clearly the role of government.
