Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has conceded Australian food - TopicsExpress

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has conceded Australian food prices will rise as a result of the nations freshly inked free trade agreement with China. Mr Joyce told Fairfax radio on Tuesday that the agreement would mean farmers would be able to demand higher prices for their produce, because they would have more potential buyers for their products. Another market means competition, and competition means that youre going to get a better price. And weve got to do that – weve been asking the supermarkets for so long... well now theyve got somewhere else to go, he said. But Mr Joyce said consumers would not notice much difference in food prices in stores, because only between 10 and 15 per cent of the retail price of food went to the farmer. Speaking to reporters in Canberra later on Tuesday, Mr Joyce sought to calm fears of food price inflation. If the farmer is getting paid more at the farm gate, it is not actually going to make an awful lot of difference to what you pay at the supermarket because the vast majority of the return of agricultural produce is not actually earned by the farmer. Its earned by all the people post the farm gate, he said. I am happy about the competition that will come into the marketplace, I am happy people will get a fairer price and I dont necessarily believe that that is going to bring about a form of food inflation because the vast majority of the return right now is not being made by the farmer, it is being made by the retailer and processor. The free trade agreement includes tariff cuts on Australian beef, sheepmeat, dairy and wine exports to China.