TasFarmers Matters - Mapping the future of freight

The fundamental requirement for any agricultural business is market access.

If you can’t get what you grow or produce to those who will pay for it, you may as well not bother.

The same goes for farm inputs – if you can’t get your essential inputs to your farm in a competitive way, eventually others will take your business away because they can produce the same things as you, but cheaper.

For some producers, access to markets is by air or by sea. However, for the bulk of Tasmania’s cropping and meat producers, their key pathway to getting paid is on Tasmania’s road network.

And here in lies the biggest issue.

Every corner of Tasmania has its issues with roads, but perhaps the most glaring example is in the North East.

There are many ways to get to this agricultural paradise with deep red soils and some of the most efficient farmers in the state, all three of them are as inefficient as any you’d have the misfortune to find.

The most direct way to Launceston from Scottsdale is over the Sideling, a narrow, twisting goat track that is barely wide enough for two trucks to pass and with switchback corners so tight a truck with trailer will use the entire road to get around them.

The other way is through Lilydale, again, a twisting, tight and slow road with few places to allow traffic past.

The designated “freight route” is through Bridport, where trucks essentially have to head in the opposite direction that they need to go.

The road is ok, but it is long and creates time and cost challenges.

A semi-trailer of cattle heading for Powranna sale yards from the North East should really head via Bridport and then to Bell Bay, but the most direct route is over the Sideling. 

he Sideling from Saliers Hill to the St Pats River, despite the $50m spent on the section from the Brid River to the Lookout, is not efficient nor safe, yet it remains the most sensible avenue to market.

Similarly, anything going into the North East is more costly than anywhere else in the state.

Even the most basic of all farm inputs, fertiliser, is at least $40 a tonne more expensive than anywhere else in the state.

That puts growers at a disadvantage before they even start.

The North East, along with the North West, East Coast, Huon, Coal River Valley and Northern Midlands have some of the most productive farm land in Australia – mostly irrigated and all fertile.

The biggest handicap holding these areas back is a decent road network.

Back in the 1960s, there was an integrated plan for the North East and Launceston which was termed the Eastern Bypass.

This would have taken all freight, including forestry and agriculture from the North East, South and East Coast, around Launceston’s eastern perimeter towards Bell Bay.

Sadly, that plan is no more, killed by decades of inertia by all three levels of government.

So, there’s the problem, but what is the solution?

To be blunt, the solution isn’t cheap, but it is essential.

Sometimes it is easier for the government bureaucracy to do nothing, but if we are to make this state the best it can be, and that will only be through agriculture, we need to improve access to markets.

The first part of the solution is a plan, starting with where are things being produced, where do they need to be and what is the best and safest route to get them there.

If this state is to truly utilise the natural advantages we have to the envy of all other parts of Australia, governments, especially state and federal governments, need to act together to solve the issue.

Local government has a role too, which is to be the advocate for better road networks that allows their respective municipalities to thrive, economically and socially.

During a conversation with Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins earlier in the year at Scottsdale, the Minister raised that Tasmania has never developed a freight and transport masterplan.

If one were developed, it would open the door to more federal funding as it would contribute towards a long-term focused plan which is the best way to deliver the best outcomes.

Talk to farmers anywhere in Tasmania and they will put the road network at the top of their list for ways to make farming more efficient. TasFarmers’ members across the state highlight the need to do better – develop a plan, fund it and get it built.

The state’s future prosperity relies upon it.