Plans to enhance bumper agricultural profits with on-shore value-added manufacturing to rebuild resilient economy are top priority for Federal Labor with plans to sow the seeds of innovative enterprise.
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Federal Labor's assistant minister for manufacturing and trade, Senator Tim Ayres, spruiked his party's plans for industry at AgQuip saying investment in the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund fund was the greatest push by any government since World War Two.
For local ag-tech entrepreneur James Lyon, Tamworth, the potential for government support to continue refining artificial intelligence to pilot drone operation would be more than welcome.
"We're still growing. We're developing the coding behind our software and converting it to a cloud-based service," said the ag entrepreneur who employs three software engineers to prototype improvements to AI mapping used to define drone flightpaths.
Mr Lyon's field team then trials the new tech and feeds suggestions of improvement to the coders.
The end-goal is to take Australian ingenuity to the world and improve the efficiency of drone spraying and seeding.
"But it takes investment," he said.
Nimble on-shore research and development is exactly the kind of value-added push that is being supported by Federal Labor's manufacturing fund which aims to work with private investment to tap into a potential $30b.
The aim is to build new factories in places like Dubbo and Tamworth.
Within the fund are allocations of $3b for green metals, clean energy and agricultural methane reduction.
A further $1b will be invested in robotics and artificial intelligence and the same again for advanced manufacturing including agricultural and food processing while $500m will be reserved for agriculture, forestry, fisheries food and fibre.
In the wake of three decades of manufacturing decline Australia has dropped to 93rd in the world in terms of economic complexity - the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - and Senator Ayres says building economic resilience lies in capturing the "real value" of our agronomic products.
Along with developing market diversity, to avoid future lock-outs for products like our barley and wine, the assistant minister for manufacturing and trade emphasised the real need to "push our agricultural products up the value chain, to present a broader range of products to the world of higher value".
Senator Ayres, speaking in front of NSW Farmers' members, singled out Australian agricultural technology as some of the best in the world that should not only be developed here but commercialised too.
"That is where the good jobs in country towns come from - in manufacturing," he said.
Senator Ayres said the push for greater manufacturing independence would not lead to a return to protectionism, given that Australia remains a trading nation on the edge of the fastest growing economies in human history.
