Agriculture

We just love supporting farmers by delivering innovative business solutions and sound commentary on the current risks and future opportunities of Ag. Communities rely on farmers daily so we don’t intend to get down and dirty into the stifling Ag political environment - we’ll leave that up to the hard-nosed lobby groups. Our goal is to step outside of all the negativity and present a fresh, vibrant and sensible platform that is completely solutions oriented.

**Digital Transformation**
In 2014 SMEA CEO Dean Logan was working with peak Ag groups to develop a future plan around the Digital Transformation of Agriculture. It was an exciting initiative that stalled due to a lack of funding. Whilst farmers are some of the fastest to take up technological innovation, policy at home needs to move with global trends. Technology plays a massive role in reducing costs for farmers and thereby making farming more efficient. Technology and Ag is a real focus of ours and an area we will be pushing policy makers hard on

**Does decentralisation Actually Work?**
A few years back the Federal Minister for Agriculture was pushing hard for the decentralisation of a number of commonwealth agencies - RIRDC, FRDC, APVMA - to ensure more bureaucrats were stationed in regional Australia. The decision in theory sounds reasonable, but is it? The issue is now back on the agenda with the break-up of the MDBA. Farmers are torn on the decision arguing it leads to higher costs and increased duplication. Many also argue they don’t receive the best and brightest policy makers out in the bush but rather those Canberra don’t want. There is a massive difference between departments and that’s made even harder when agencies like the APVMA are regulatory in nature. What are the facts and how have previous decisions around decentralisation gone. CLICK

We are thrilled to have partnered with Cultivate Farms to make farm ownership a reality. If you are an investor looking for wonderful Ag based opportunities, then give us a call. SMEA - unashamed to be focussing totally on small and medium business. Unleash your potential! CLICK

The Future of Farming

The Ag sector has some real challenges ahead when it comes to an ageing demographic. Children are simply not taking over the family farm in the numbers they did decades ago, choosing instead to head for the city to explore more lucrative career opportunities. The mining sector often takes a lot of young potential farmers from rural and regional Australia and then there is the sheer price of land making it very hard to package up enough cash to even get started with a viable patch of land. Add to this an average age of farming reaching close to 70 and some serious challenges lie ahead. How do we get younger famers and their families onto the land and farming? We explore one very clever organisation doing exactly that. It’s an Ag succession plan that delivers young families into farming, whilst ensuring retiring farmers continue to derive an income into their retirement. CLICK