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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-02-09 Daily Xml
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Agriculture Sector

The SPEAKER: Did the member for Chaffey have a supplementary?

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:08): Yes, I did, sir, to the Minister for Agriculture. With regard to the New Horizons program, when will the data and the costings be released to enhance South Australia's agricultural economic benefit?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (16:08): I thank the member for Chaffey for the question. The people who work on New Horizons go out to the field days constantly. They are out there trying to spread the word and inform farmers. They are showing the core samples of the plants, and you can actually see just how far down the roots go. The data is just in, but we want to share that with as many people in rural South Australia as we possibly can.

All the indications are that it is going to be a huge winner. There have to be bigger trials done in future years over greater areas to make sure that we can prove it up, and, as you know from our visit to Karoonda, there was actually debate amongst the scientists working on it. Some were sort of advocating for more clay, some were saying more organic matter and some were saying go down deeper.

Mr Whetstone: When and how much?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Sorry?

Mr Whetstone: When are you going to release the data and the cost of this? Farmers need to know.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Well, the data has just come in. We plan to announce that and get the data out so that farmers right around the state can see it. I have also been over to the West Coast and seen the site over there, and we know that there is interest from neighbouring farmers. South Australia has a good tradition of leading in research. Being up at Minnipa with many of the members opposite last year, for the centenary, it was great to see all the field trials that are done up there. Farmers do like to go there and see technology and different farming systems proven up in those sorts of trials.

We will share that information as far and wide as we possibly can, because we want to get as many farmers as we can on board. It is a very good system, and there is a lot of science being done around it. If we could get even a tiny bit of that $800 million improvement for our farmers and get that money into our economy, it would be a terrific thing.

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