Road funding is high on the agenda in GrainGrowers' budget pitch

GrainGrowers made its submission across six key areas: carbon and climate, people and workforce, biosecurity, grain freight and supply chains, trade and market access and farm inputs.

Chair Rhys Turton said proposed investments aimed to increase the resilience and sustainability of Australian grain growers, which in turn would result in better economic outcomes for the nation as a whole.

"In the 2022-23 growing season, Australian grain growers contributed $33 billion gross value of production to the Australian economy," Mr Turton said.

"As an industry, we significantly contribute to regional Australia and the broader economy."

When it came to grain freight and supply chains, the lobby group has called for funding for a mandatory code on port terminal access charges and a $1 billion increase for the nation's local road infrastructure.

It also wants $900 million per year in targeted funding for key regional freight corridors . to improve the long-term resilience of freight networks, and $100 million in targeted funding each year as part of the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program.

That would go towards rebuilding critical ageing bridge infrastructure.

The Grattan Institute has also called for $1b to be spent on road maintenance.

Victorian GrainGrowers National Policy group member Daniel Keam, Warracknabeal, runs a 2600 hectare mixed farm business.

He said GrainGrowers had decided to put in a submission covering all of Australia "because everyone is in the same situation.

"It doesn't matter whether your are in Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria, NSW or Tasmania, roads are in a dire strait and all need fixing - so we have tried to go for a blanket approach," Mr Keam.

"You can only live in hope - if you don't ask you'll never know."

It would be good if states could match federal commitments, but all governments were struggling with budgets and looking for additional sources of income, he said.

"I don't know of too many good roads, in the area," Mr Keam said.

Brett Hosking, Quambatook, said governments were "always playing catch up," when it came to roads.

"The requirement is much bigger than the ask," he said.

"Something has to give, at some point - even if the government fulfilled that request, I think our roads would continue to deteriorate.

"It's not enough money, over all of Australia, to repair the damage that has been done."

Roads had been neglected for a long time, so the challenge was to bring them back to a state of repair "as opposed to keeping patching them up, to keep going knowing that ongoing deterioration is continuing."

"We are still dealing with the impact of those Christmas Day rains, there are roads that are completely washed out," he said.

Farmers had seen heavy rain events before, but authorities tended to patch roads up to the state they were in before they were damaged.

"How can we weatherproof and climate proof roads for the future?" he said.

That could mean increasing culvert sides or creating better drainage, on the road side.

"We seem surprised, when the same road gets washed out again," Mr Hosking said.

Other key areas in the submission included $50m to assist growers in investing in the adoption of low emission practices, $100m to boost local fertiliser manufacturing and $100m for growing market access for Australian agriculture, including additional agricultural counsellors.

The submission also calls for additional funding from the Community Childcare Fund (CCCF) to fund a pilot aimed at bringing selected prospective family day care venues up to code in regional and remote grain growing areas.

It is also asking for $500 million funding to local councils for infrastructure projects to speed up the release of land and support an increase in key worker housing in regional Australia.