Building ag means building regional Queensland

Tony Perrett stood before industry on National Ag Day as the newly installed Queensland Minister for Primary Industries and pledged to lead a “whole of government approach” in supporting state agriculture.

Then last week, we got tangible insights on what that may look like when Bernard Salt AM and his team at The Demographics Group shared their data-shaped vision of the future of Australia, agriculture, and regional Queensland at a QFF-organised breakfast.

Salt, along with data scientist Hari Hara Priya Kannan, and demographer and geographer Simon Kuestenmacher, painted a wide-ranging picture of population movements and what was needed for Queensland and Australian agriculture to prosper.

And prosper we should: current UN projections see us reaching peak humanity in 2085 with a global population of 10.8 billion people, but Salt’s data suggested it would more likely be 9.8 billion people in the 2070s.

This means at a minimum, Australia needs to increase its food production by 25 per cent from current levels, but—according to Salt—we should strive to increase food production by 40 per cent over the next 50 years.

But how to make this happen in our great state? The Demographics Group were clear that we must build “strong, vital, and vibrant regional towns” to grow agriculture, and the services needed to support the industry.

What is needed for that? What are our regional towns currently missing? Kuestenmacher points to four key requirements: jobs, affordable housing, healthcare, and schooling/childcare.

Kannan added the importance of migration. Without migration, our population would age faster, our workforce will decline.

“Our country would shrink,” Kannan said.

Knowledge work, and work that involves empathy and human connection are where workers will be required. With an aging population, aged care worker will overtake sales assistant as the country’s number one occupation.

If we’re to keep families together as one generation moves off farm and another onto it, we’ll need those care and healthcare facilities in the regions.

If we need schools, we’ll need teachers to nurture these young minds.

And with multimillion dollar machinery supporting our farms, we’ll need the knowhow to maintain, troubleshoot, and repair these invaluable pieces of equipment in hours, not days or weeks.

There is no doubt in the minds of those who live and breathe Queensland that building agriculture means building regional Queensland—as the two are inseparably linked.

The data and insights shared by Bernard Salt and The Demographics Group make it clear that growing our agricultural sector requires thriving regional towns, underpinned by jobs, affordable housing, healthcare, and education.

These investments don’t just support the communities that sustain our farms; they also strengthen the broader economy and ensure food security for decades to come.

Minister Perrett’s commitment to a “whole of government approach” must embrace this vision: by aligning policies to simultaneously build agriculture and regional Queensland, we can create a future where both prosper together.

This is more than a strategy; the data shows it’s a necessity. Let’s take the opportunity to grow our farms, our towns, and our people as one interconnected system.