by Jamieson Murphy (North Queensland Register) … Nuffield scholar and a fourth generation farmer Steven Hobbs said if the federal government got the bioenergy strategy right, the industry could be “quite phenomenal”.
He began experimenting with alternative fuel sources nearly 20 years ago, after becoming inspired by one his grandfather’s farming photographs of a horse-drawn plough.
“It dawned on me my grandad used to grow fuel for his ‘organic tractors’ – oats to feed his horses,” he said.
“It got me thinking quite serious that as farmers, should we be looking at harnessing our own energy?”
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He bought a small processing plant in the 90s and experimented for more than decade. Indian mustard, the grandparent of canola, “worked really well”.
However, during that time he saw several regulation changes that eventually made the venture too difficult to continue.
“The biggest issue we face in Australia is, we don’t have the right legislation in place to encourage it,” he said.
“We don’t have certainty for people to invest.”
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“It’s been proven it can work – look at Europe for example, it’s shown what the industry can become when you put in place the right legislation,” he said.
“They’ve legislated national targets, that ensure a certain amount of their fuel mix is biofuel. That gives investment certainty.”
For rural economies, bioenergy could be “a real golden goose”.
“You can provide new markets and new opportunities for farmers to supplement their income,” Mr Hobbs said.
“It’s not a simple matter of growing crops for fuel. There’s value adding opportunities, using the waste to feed animal or to create biogas for electricity.
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“There could be regionally-based processing plants, so farmers have the ability to deliver crops and take back fuel.” READ MORE