A new normal for South Australia’s Farmers, and a system that must change
Every season brings its own challenges, but increasingly those challenges are no longer isolated events. They are compounding, overlapping and arriving with little warning. For South Australia’s livestock producers, the past 12 months have been a clear demonstration of this shift.
For years now, across South Australia, producers have been enduring extremely challenging conditions. From some of the lowest rainfall periods on record in the South East, prolonged dry periods in the Mid North and West Coast to the historic flooding and infrastructure damage in the North, there have been trials and tribulations for just about every single farmer in the state. And to make it worse, they are happening simultaneously, stretching businesses, families and supply chains in different directions, until something inevitably breaks.
Added to this, is a global environment that is becoming more volatile. Market access can change overnight, with shifts in global trade policy and tariffs reinforcing just how quickly external decisions can reshape the operating environment for Australian agriculture. And that was before we discovered just how vulnerable we, as an island nation, are to a disruption in international trade routes.
As much as I hate to say it, this is the new normal. It is the context we now operate in.
The question for South Australia is whether our systems are set up to deal with that reality.
At present, support mechanisms are often reactive, fragmented and constrained by process. While governments consistently show willingness to assist, the structures in place are not always designed for the speed, scale or complexity of modern agricultural shocks. Assistance can take time to activate, time to assess and time to reach the people who need it most.
In a crisis, time matters.
Other states have recognised this and taken a different approach. Queensland and New South Wales have established dedicated rural finance agencies that are permanent, statutory bodies with a clear mandate to support agriculture. These agencies are able to deliver concessional finance, disaster recovery support and resilience programs in a coordinated and timely way. Just as importantly, they build long-term relationships with producers, creating trust and certainty in times of need.
South Australia does not currently have an equivalent. And our farmers, and the people who eat what we grow, are all the more vulnerable because of it.
What is needed is not more bureaucracy, but a more effective structure. A dedicated rural finance and resilience agency would provide a single, trusted point of delivery for support, with the ability to act quickly and adapt to different circumstances.
It would allow investment in preparedness before a crisis hits, rapid response during events, and targeted recovery support afterwards. It would also create a mechanism to attract greater co-investment and deliver programs that are designed specifically for South Australian conditions.
Importantly, this is not just about supporting individual producers. It is about protecting a sector that underpins regional communities, supply chains and a significant portion of the state’s economy. When agriculture is disrupted, the impacts flow well beyond the farm gate. They’re seen at the local footy club, at the netball club, at the schools and regional events, and at the supermarket checkout. The average South Australian is already finding it hard to make ends meet – we don’t want to make it worse, but we too have families to feed and bills to pay, and many of us are stretched almost to breaking.
Establishing a dedicated agency is a structural reform that would strengthen resilience, improve delivery and provide confidence to industry at a time when it is most needed. The upcoming state budget presents a practical opportunity to take this step, to provide the support needed to keep farmers farming, and to keep South Australian food on the shelves of South Australian supermarkets, at a price that is affordable for the South Australian people.
We cannot control the climate or global markets. But we can control how prepared we are to respond.
If volatility is now the norm, then our systems must evolve to match it.
by Gillian Fennell - Chair