Opposition pledge to boost growing food industry $10m for rice sector

Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Mander with operations manager for Sunrice Peter Mcdonnell. Picture: CAITLAN CHARLES

NORTH Queensland’s burgeoning rice growing sector would get a $10m shot in the arm if the LNP win government, in an election promise made just weeks after the industry flagged an uncertain future.

Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Mander, who was in Townsville on Monday, announced an LNP government would front up $10m to triple the size of Sunrice’s processing mill in Brandon, south of the Townsville.

The investment would allow the mill, which currently processes about 8000 tonnes of rice each year, to increase production to 25,000 tonnes per annum and allow it to build a storage facility.

Sunrice operations manager Peter Mcdonnell said rice growers in North Queensland were spread from south Mackay up to Gordonvale, with the crop able to “co-mingle” with sugarcane.

He said the project was shovelready and Sunrice would be able to ramp up once the “go light is on” on government funding.

Mr Mcdonnell said the company had been talking to both Labor and the LNP, at state and federal government level, about investing in the Brandon Mill.

Agriculture Minister Mark Furner, in a statement, confirmed the state government had been in discussions with Sunrice prior to the pandemic and said he hoped discussions could resume.

He stopped short of confirming whether or not the state government would match the opposition’s $10m commitment.

Burdekin rice grower Allan Milan, who has been growing the crop for six years, said farmers had been calling for the expansion for a number of years.

Sunrice has previously said that expanding processing capacity to 25,000 tonnes a year at the Brandon Mill would open the door for the company to quadruple the industry in North Queensland to 100,000 tonnes per annum.