Interview with Sally Sara, ABC RN Breakfast
22 April 2026
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST
WEDNESDAY, 22 APRIL 2026
SUBJECTS: Fertiliser underwriting, food security, pest management
SALLY SARA, HOST: Well, staying with federal politics, and as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, our farmers are worried about what it will mean for Australia's food security ahead of winter cropping. Julie Collins is the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and joins me now. Minister, welcome back to Breakfast.
JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Thanks very much, Sara, and it's great to be with you today.
SARA: It's Sally with you, Minister.
COLLINS: Sorry.
SARA: That's all right. What's the situation for fertiliser supplies at the moment? Is the Government confident that there is enough here and enough on its way, particularly to deal with the cropping season?
COLLINS: The 250,000 tonnes that we managed to secure with Indonesia last week, we estimate, is about 20 per cent of the shortfall of fertiliser required in Australia for the current season. We certainly have enough fertiliser in Australia or on the water on its way to Australia already for the initial planting season, so this is about further down the season, making sure that we have those supplies.
SARA: Australian agriculture imported around 3.85 million tonnes of urea in 2024, most of it from the Middle East. Have we seen a decline in those shipments since this conflict started in February?
COLLINS: Certainly, what we have been doing is working with the industry through our fertiliser working group to secure fertiliser from other parts across the globe. As you quite rightly point out, a substantial amount of it did come through the Strait of Hormuz, and obviously, that has not been able to occur, so we have been sourcing it from some of our trusted relationships and some of our South East Asian neighbours in terms of getting that fertiliser into Australia.
SARA: So are we getting less fertiliser in now?
COLLINS: Well, that's what we're trying to do, and that's what the agreement today with Export Finance Australia with CSBP and Incitec Pivot will do is it will allow commercial operators with Government support to go out and secure more fertiliser for Australia.
SARA: So there's less coming in than normally would come in?
COLLINS: We certainly have a shortfall, but we are getting, in terms of future months, but what we're doing is we're outsourcing more fertiliser right across the globe.
SARA: Last month, the Federal Government announced it would underwrite the purchase of extra fuel and fertiliser by the private sector. Nearly a month on you're today announcing the first companies that will be part of this deal?
COLLINS: That's correct. CSBP and Incitec Pivot have made an arrangement with Export Finance Australia. As you pointed out, we have done the same for fuel, and since that has occurred with Export Finance Australia, what you've seen is over 200 million litres of diesel come into Australia additional, so what we want to do obviously is to get more fertiliser into the country, and that's what we will be doing.
SARA: Australia has onshore reserves of petrol and diesel. Is something similar needed for fertiliser?
COLLINS: As I have indicated previously, we are investing in getting urea production here in Australia, more fertiliser production onshore. Certainly, the Perdaman plant, when it comes on in the middle of next year, will produce a very large amount of urea for Australian sources, so that will be terrific when that's up and running. That has been provided with around $220 million of loan support through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, so we are looking at securing more production of fertilisers here in Australia.
SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is the Minister for Agriculture, Julie Collins. Taking a look at food security, is the Government planning to fast-track a food security strategy in the wake of the fuel and fertiliser shocks for the agriculture sector?
COLLINS: We are doing two things there. What we've got obviously is the long term Food Security Strategy that we announced prior to the election, and we have been working on that, and we've stood up the National Food Council, but the other thing we have done is to get a short sharp analysis done of the food security in light of what is occurring in the Middle East and its impacts that are happening globally and how that will impact Australia. We're particularly looking obviously at the impact of diesel in the first instance and then more broadly along the supply chains, and we expect to have that report and that information soon, but as you would expect, we are meeting with industry regularly, and we're talking to industry about the effects of this war on industry here in Australia, and we're dealing with immediate challenges, but we're also working with them and planning on medium and longer term challenges and how we might deal with those.
SARA: We're seeing some reporting, just finally, from parts of New South Wales and elsewhere raising concern about the number of mice in agriculture areas at the moment. How concerned is your department about those numbers right now?
COLLINS: We have been hearing stories in relation to pests, such as mice, around the country, and certainly, our state governments are responsible with landowners and managers to deal with that, and obviously, the more things that are impacting our farmers, the harder it is for them to keep farming. What we'll continue to do is to work with them. Our farmers in Australia are some of the best on the planet, they're very innovative, and they're able to deal with a whole range of issues; this war is an additional issue, and then when you talk about things like additional mice obviously impacting, they are also dealing with that too, and we know that there's a lot on their plate, and what we want to do is keep them farming.
SARA: Minister, thank you very much for your time.
COLLINS: Thanks very much.
SARA: Julie Collins is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.