Funding to fight off biosecurity threats must continue to be a top priority, NSW Farmers warns, as a new report exposes the true cost of the state’s ballooning pests and weeds problem.
The Invasive Species Management Review released by the NSW Government this week found the cost of invasive species in NSW skyrocketed to $1.9 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
NSW Farmers Conservation and Resource Management Committee Member and Tenterfield’s Bronwyn Petrie said as the state’s pests and weeds continued to explode, a coordinated and concerted effort to ramp up biosecurity had never been more critical.
“There’s no doubt we have a problem; pigs the size of footy players are running rampant across the state, weeds are spreading like wildfire and wild dogs are bleeding through our borders,” Mrs Petrie said.
“The state government has made a strong start when it comes to supporting us in this battle against invasive species, but we’re at a point now where the problem is spiraling out of control.
“In the blink of an eye, we have gone from a multi-million-dollar dilemma to a multi-billion-dollar one, and farmers can only spend so much more of their own time and money trying to control these species before they can no longer front up to produce our food and fibre.”
With the report projecting new biosecurity incursions could cost the state $29.7 billion annually by 2030, Mrs Petrie said significant steps must be taken to bolster the nation’s biosecurity systems before the problem escalated too far out of control.
“There’s no doubt we need a cross-tenure, cross-landscape approach to managing weeds and pests that’s more intensive and enforceable than anything we currently have in place,” Mrs Petrie said.
“Pests and weeds are the problem of all land managers – not just farmers – and our plan to tackle them needs to recognise this shared responsibility, if we are to shift the dial.
“Real action, plans and progress on protecting our state from these threats needs to be put in place now, or else a few years down the track we could well lose this battle on biosecurity.”
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