In June 2023, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) announced $11 million in grant funding under the Australian Trade System Support – Cultivating Australia’s Agricultural Traceability – Promoting and Protecting Agriculture measure.
These grants were intended to improve farmer access to consumers and overseas markets. The funding was released in two tranches: $6 million for innovative solutions through a ‘RegTech grants round’ and $5 million via the Agricultural Traceability Grants Program, for the Food Agility Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) to invest in leading digital solutions.
The $5 million grant to Food Agility CRC will drive industry-led innovation to streamline and modernise Australia’s food data through delivery of a digital ‘AgTrace’ initiative.
AgTrace will feature three data-enabled Proof of Concepts (POC) with demonstrations of live, just-in-time data, for the red meat, grains and horticultural industries.
Where possible, the PoCs will use and adapt existing technologies to meet agreed and existing regulatory standards.
The aim is to enhance permission-based data sharing, incentivise data sharing and identify ways to improve accuracy, verifiability, and confidence in all aspects of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability reporting, accreditation, and associated indicators/attributes.
The PoCs will be designed to test existing industry capability; the mantra being Industry-led and regulation/assurance ready, ensuring minimal effective regulation is the benchmark.
Australia’s ongoing access to international markets will depend on our ability to demonstrate its sustainability credentials.
This is reflected in recent moves by the European Union to enforce trade requirements around sustainability reporting. The Australian agriculture industry has a good story to tell but it must be able back it up with evidence.
Failure to do so will severely constrain its ability to compete in global markets.
AgTrace Australia will be designed to meet these and other challenges, ensuring that it:
- Integrates with ESG, trade and regulatory requirements
- Generates new market opportunities
- Drives sustainable practices
- Improves biosecurity
- Encourages and streamlines data sharing
- Is trusted, secure and accurate
- Informs policy reform