CAMPBELL, Mr Alistair, Acting First Assistant Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry GREENVILLE, Dr Jared, Executive Director, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry [11:06] CHAIR: Welcome. Do either of you have an opening statement? Mr Campbell : No, we don't. We're more than happy to run you through the submission, should you wish, but we don't have an opening statement. CHAIR: No, that's fine. I think all of us have read the submission, so that's all okay. I will kick off with a few questions and then I'll come to the deputy chair. Others can indicate to me if they are also seeking the call. I want to ask, first of all, around the importance of branding, labelling and certification pathways in enhancing the sustainability and growth of Australian agriculture, fishing and forestry sectors. Mr Campbell : Sure. I can give you give a bit of a general overview and I'm more than happy for Dr Greenville to add to this, should he wish. What we know from international markets is that Australian produce, Australian agricultural goods, are very highly regarded. They're highly regarded in terms of quality. In visiting many of the markets, particularly in South-East Asia and South Asia, Australian goods are proudly shown as Australian goods because they reflect a certain level of quality and standards that people have come to expect from Australia. One of the things that is important with that is the brand Australia element. That brand commands, in many cases, a premium compared to other countries' produce. It's something that we're incredibly proud of. Many of the certification systems are industry led, but also the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has a really important role as the key regulator of the sector and of exports under the Export Control Act. As that key regulator, we have a very important role to play. One of the big things that we do is making sure that Australian agricultural exports meet importing country requirements. Those are often the requirements that are set down by other countries. It's the job of the officials at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to assess against those importing country requirements. All of that plays a big part in the ecosystem of protecting brand Australia. CHAIR: In some of the submissions to our committee, we've had concerns raised that there's quite limited direct government co-investment mechanisms to support marketing and brand-building activities to position Australian agriculture globally. I'm interested in your perspective on those concerns raised, and if you could talk us through what you were doing in that space. Mr Campbell : Certainly. The department's role is part of being in an ecosystem with other Australian government agencies. I know you spoke at length with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Austrade, who are the lead on brand promotion, on the brand Australia element, but we have a very important role, particularly as the regulator. We also have Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry officials based in many locations around the globe as agricultural counsellors. They very much are there to assist with the technical market access of Australian goods into those markets. That very much helps the competent authorities, so the officials at the other side of the importing country, to have a focal point to discuss these very matters that you mention so that Australian goods can get access to those markets. We know that technical market access is really important for Australian agriculture, particularly given we export 70 per cent of what we produce by volume terms. Dr Greenville : I'll just quickly add to that. Whilst not directly going to the operation of the department itself, many of the research and development corporation systems, the RDCs, do undertake and support international marketing efforts. We did have a couple of examples in our submission. For example, there's the Hort Innovations market and demand creation function. The Australian Wool Innovation also has a marketing subsidiary, the Woolmark Company, and so there are other pathways to support industry and that brand. CHAIR: Thank you. Could you talk us through some of the challenges that rural and regional businesses in Australia face in relation to transport and infrastructure? Dr Greenville : I can jump in to start with. We understand that Australia is a very large country, and we know that agriculture operates across 55 per cent of the landscape. There are often, at times, sizeable transportation distribution and so forth that occurs in getting product to markets and to distribution centres. For industry, they view that as a critical input into their supply chains. At different times with different weather events and so forth there can obviously be vulnerabilities that exist in that and getting to that. At the moment, that aspect is a significant component of the cost of doing business in Australia, and so the adequacy and the efficiency of those networks is really important. CHAIR: Thank you. In your submission you mentioned that Australia has the lowest emissions of all major producers when comparing equivalent baskets of production. Can you explain to this committee how this can be used as a marketing advantage? What are the opportunities to further advance that in the future? Dr Greenville : Certainly. This is some work that we've done about understanding the emissions profile vis a vis different countries producing what we've termed 'a basket of goods' so that we could compare then, so if you were going to produce that same basket in the US or Europe or the like. At such an aggregate and high level, that's really important for some of the activities to support the government-to-government interactions, be it government-to-government interactions across trade agreements and the international fora and so forth to try to open the doors for industry in various fora, and also across different trade agreements, so there is a direct supporting role in that sense. As we go down to different commodities, often it comes down to the accreditation systems that Mr Campbell has pointed out, which are very industry led and specific and so they require a number of different elements. But I think it can help contribute to the overall brand Australia image. We certainly proactively use that in a number of international fora across the FAO, for example, across the OECD and other government interactions. CHAIR: Thank you. I'm going to pass the call to the deputy chair now. Mr Wilson? Mr RICK WILSON: Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much to the witnesses for attending this morning and giving us your very important evidence. I want to go to technical trade access, and I'll use a specific example from my electorate. I have a sheep cheesemaker who produces a very good product. It's high-value, low-volume. I would assume that there would be significant cost involved in getting the technical information that they require to receive accreditation from DAFF. I assume there would be ongoing testing required as different batches or consignments left the country; would you see that as a barrier to these small, niche operators accessing export markets? Mr Campbell : One of the things is that we have access and we provide an online portal called Micor—the Manual of Importing Country Requirements. That outlines for producers and also for our departmental officials, who are required to sign off on the export, the importing country requirements for a specific product. Many of those requirements are incredibly specific and incredibly technical—as you note. Some of those technical negotiations in order to arrange access take years and, as you point out, require some level of investment. That Micor database is the first point of call about the importing country requirements for the specific use case that you talked about. It goes down to a level of granularity and detail. It covers virtually all markets that we export to—we export to well over 160 markets, and I believe it covers all of those. That is very much the first port of call for what an importing country would require for a product to be shipped there. Mr RICK WILSON: I appreciate that that's a requirement we must enforce, but I would see that as a significant barrier to some of these smaller, niche industries getting a foothold in the export market. In terms of the technical requirements, I suspect that in a broader sense some countries use these technical requirements as trade barriers. Does DAFF form an opinion when a technical requirement appears to be unreasonable? I guess that's up to trade to negotiate different outcomes, but is it something that you guys would form an opinion on? Mr Campbell : A big focus of our work is to make sure that the barriers that are faced are as small as possible. A big focus of our technical market access work is on reducing those barriers. That is not a 'set and forget' thing. Sometimes, as you alluded to, new barriers emerge and it takes technical negotiations between DAFF officials and their counterpart agencies to work out how they would be applied and whether anything can be done to change that. A lot of our work in the technical market access space is focused on reducing those barriers. We've had quite significant successes in recent years in terms of reducing those barriers, which has either allowed new market access or maintained market access. I'm more than happy to go into a few of those successes. Since July last year—the beginning of 2025-26—there have been approximately 18 new and improved market access achievements. A lot of those are new market access or maintenance of existing market access with changed conditions. A good example is new market access for Australian blueberries to Vietnam, which was an achievement made possible by four years of technical negotiations. As a result of that, trade commenced in December of last year. Ms BRISKEY: I'm keen to reflect on information in your submission around how connected the agriculture sector is to downstream industries like food manufacturing, which is a major manufacturing sector in our country and a huge employer. Can you reflect a bit further on the connection between our agriculture in the export sector and our manufacturing sector, and whether there is anything we can think about to better support that link? Are there things that we need to be doing in order to expand the opportunities for export? Mr Campbell : As we all know, the product doesn't go straight from the farm to overseas. The processing sector, food manufacturing, is a very important component of getting a product from a farm to a plate overseas. That is spread right across Australia. I know this inquiry is about rural and regional Australia, but there's a lot of processing that occurs in metropolitan areas, periurban areas and rural and regional Australia as well, and that is an important part of it. Whether a product is consumed domestically or sent overseas, it does require that level of processing, and that is an important and critical part. It also means that the contribution of agriculture flows right up and down the supply chain. So it's not just the contribution of agriculture, but it's the townships that they live in. It's the processing sector. It's through to the transportation sector that we talked about before and through to the retail sector as well. And so very much looking at it holistically across the supply chain is really important. Dr Greenville : Perhaps one other reflection to support is that, when we look at the export profile of Australian goods, many of them are in that more minimally processed category. Part of the reason for that is just a lot of food further processing and heavy manufacturing and so forth goes on close to market. So you've got market-specific risks worn by the processes in those markets. By Australia playing a bit of a more upstream part of that supply chain, it means that our exports can be more pivotable between different markets. And we notice a couple of things. Those trade barriers and those distortions are often higher the further you go down the food chain in trade, but also, as a product—a good example here is wine—you become much more market-specific in your orientation as you go further down that processing link. That means that, if there are shifts in those markets' tastes and the rest, you're much more exposed. And so there is a bit of a balance between where we sit. We would say that would drive the greatest value back into regions and back into agriculture. It's not necessarily the case that further domestic processing will enable that, given that there are risks and barriers downstream. Ms BRISKEY: I'm a Victorian MP, and here in Victoria we've got a big dairy industry, as well as the processing that's attached to that, both in terms of milk and cheese. Obviously there's quite well-established agriculture, and there has been for a long time, hence Victorian dairy. But are there regional and remote areas where we're starting to see growth or there is potential for growth? What's your reflection on growth opportunities in agriculture and connecting that with the whole supply chain stream from manufacturing right through? Dr Greenville : I think there's still fairly solid growth that we're seeing. We just saw the industry hit its $100 billion target just this week. The sector itself is still outpacing productivity growth elsewhere in the economy and growing, and we're seeing that growth across the landscape, be it from our northern beef producers all the way down to, as you say, the dairy production and so forth. Even though dairy production, in a way, is going down in quantity terms, we're seeing values maintain and productivity lift, and so milk per cow and so forth is going up. One of the key things that have driven that has been our openness and our stance and being able to move around different markets and so forth. So, as we look forward, we suspect that there's still growth, and we're seeing, in a relative sense, growth in horticulture industries, which are growing faster than many others. Horticulture has gone from a smaller part to a very large part of our total export and also production value. We're expecting those trends to continue, and we're seeing opportunities across, and there'll be new opportunities that get created through the transition to net zero, be it in biofuels or be it in other areas, like combining carbon into your production systems and the like. So I think it's a bit of a mixed bag across where you are, but the overall outlook and that long-term demand for food, which we're expecting particularly to increase in our nearest borders, like in South-East Asia and so forth, should drive further opportunities as we go. Ms BRISKEY: Thank you. CHAIR: Mr Georganas, do you have questions? Mr GEORGANAS: Thank you, yes. In terms of our biosecurity and protecting our borders from illegal fishing that's going on, what sorts of threats are posed in that area, and what can we do to better protect our aqua-biodiversity regarding our fisheries, fishing et cetera? We know there have been issues on our northern borders. How are they going, and how does the industry look at it? What measures are in place? Mr Campbell : Thanks for the question. I won't claim to be a biosecurity expert. I come from the trade and international space, but what I would say from the outset is that Australia's disease-free status and strong biosecurity rules are seen very positively by other countries from an import perspective. They see that as a really important part of brand Australia. In terms of specifics, as the submission outlines, we're working closely with international trading partners to reduce the risks at source and to keep markets open for our farmers, fishers and foresters. It's very much about protecting the border through inspections, compliance, intelligence and awareness campaigns. That's a really important part of it. As you point out, protecting Australia from illegal fishing is incredibly important. It's part of our rules, and that forms a big part of what we do as a department. I spoke quite a bit about the export regulation. Our strict biosecurity rules also have quite a bit on the import regulation, but they are very much interlinked. Dr Greenville: To add to that, AFMA, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, is actively working with a number of other agencies on that northern border and on those incursions. They've got quite an active program up there to try and deter and deal with the illegal fishing issues and so forth. It's the means to both preserve that biosecurity that Mr Campbell was talking about and ensure that those stocks and resources that we have in our north remain sustainably fished. As these things come and go and increase in intensity, they have a very active role in the whole-of-government response that we see to that problem. Mr GEORGANAS: I have one other question. Being on the cusp of the EU agreement, how prepared are we for our seafood products to be exported to Europe? I say this from some discussions I've had with people over there in terms of their tourist season in places like Spain, Crete and Italy, and we just heard, before you guys came in, about agritourism and how Italy does so well. One of expectations is that, when you go to some of these Mediterranean countries, you eat the local food. That's octopus and calamari. Last year, speaking to one of the largest seafood producers in the Mediterranean, I was told that 70 to 80 per cent is imported during the tourist season because they don't have enough local product for the millions and millions of tourists that converge onto the Mediterranean between the months of May and September. Mr Campbell : What we can talk about is that, where we have seen our previous free trade agreements implemented, there have been quite significant upticks in exports of Australian fish products. The example that I constantly point out is that after the implementation of AI ECTA, Australia's agreement with India, you saw very strong growth in the first couple of years of that agreement of Australian salmon exports to India. Where there is greater access, Australian exporters typically take advantage of that access. That's exactly the way it should be. The past performance has been that, when a new market has opened with reduced trade barriers and with reduced tariffs, then Australian exporters leap at that opportunity. That's certainly what we've seen not just in that India example I gave but over multiple free trade agreements and over multiple decades. Mr GEORGANAS: In terms of maintaining our industry and of the new markets that are opening up—we already see 70 or 80 per cent of our seafood produce going overseas—will we be able to maintain that market to produce enough for the number of exporters that will be asking for seafood? I can only see it growing hugely from here. Dr Greenville : Yes. When we look at production of our fisheries and aquaculture sectors over a longer history, we've seen quite a meteoric rise in the importance of aquaculture in that production growth base. We expect that that would be a continuation source of growth. For our wild harvest fisheries, we're largely operating on that sustainable, maximum economic yield, maximum sustainable yield, kind of premise. So the ability to increase output from those is more limited, but there is scope to increase value, which is where you directed your questions around what Mr Campbell was talking about. I think there's scope to grow value out of our new and emerging trading agreements. In terms of the volume in fishery production, increases in that are likely to come from the aquaculture sector. We've seen growth over time in that sector with new investments in new types of aquaculture occurring, both on land and in sea. That is likely to be where we will see that expansion as we go forward. Mr GEORGANAS: Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you very much for appearing before our committee today and for the evidence you've provided to us. Proceedings suspended from 11:31 to 12:00 .