Rural Futures Taskforce to deliver report in August

They’re the words of David Mailler, a Uralla sheep and cattle farmer who’s on the newly formed Rural Futures Taskforce.

It plans to deliver a report in early August with recommendations for what governments can do to help create strong, diversified rural economies.

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Supporters of the agricultural advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action have raised more than $20,000 to crowdfund the research.

That group’s chief executive officer Verity Morgan-Schmidt said rural and regional Australia was “facing a range of unprecedented challenges; including climate change and conflicting land use across some of our prime agricultural regions”.

“We’re seeing farmers struggling with high debt levels, increasing pressure from incompatible extractive industries and the widespread implications of drought, and a changing climate,” she said.

“Right now, the government’s taxpayer-funded ‘Resources Taskforce’ is investigating how they can make it easier for new mines to open in rural and regional Australia, but this misses the big picture of regional Australia’s full potential.”

Although it’s a national taskforce, people from the New England electorate make up a quarter of it, with Quirindi mixed farmer Jim McDonald also a member.

Mr Mailler, who is also one of the founders of the recently deregistered CountryMinded party, said it was “time to reshape how we view and shape and power our community”.

“The New England, to a large extent, has been preparing for this moment for a very, very long time.

“We’ve got some very, very passionate people in the New England around landcare, very passionate people responding to renewables, very passionate people responding to social equity and socioeconomic situations: people like Bernie Shakeshaft, Adam Blakester, Southern New England Landcare and some of the Landcare work being done around the region.”