Govt called on to assist farmers' access to financial planning services amid drought disruption

The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) has called on the government to help provide farmers with access to financial planning services amid "significant" disruption caused by droughts.

The advice body's head of policy, strategy and innovation, Ben Marshan, cited the existing national drought agreement — put forward by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment — which states that the Commonwealth, states and territories ae responsible "for the provision of rural financial counselling services".

“When considering what assistance would be most appropriate to facilitate farming communities’ recovery from the significant economic disruption caused by drought, the FPA believes that it would be beneficial to include the provision of financial planning services,” Mr Marshan said,

“Such support would also assist in the development of farmers, farming families and farming communities’ resilience in the face of future droughts.”

Earlier this year, commercial law firm Cowell Clarke released a handbook aimed at assisting advisers working in the agribusiness sector and offered practical advice for advisers understanding and acting on key issues such as strategic agribusiness acquisitions and sales, intergenerational succession planning and taxation.

“Increasing regulatory complexity presents many challenges and it is critical for those involved in the agribusiness sector to be able to access practical advice,” Cowell Clarke stated in March.

The call to support farmers comes only a week after Mr Marshan and the FPA threw its support behind a regulatory framework for crypto-assets, on the basis that it is consistent with their equivalent non-crypto versions.

In a recent submission to Treasury, Mr Marshan said that the technology which underlies an asset is irrelevant when considering the regulation of a financial product.

“To this point, investment in crypto-assets is as much in relation to the asset itself, such as an ether [ETH] coin or a non-fungible token [NFT], as a bet on the sustainability of the technology platform supporting the asset, for example, the Ethereum blockchain,” Mr Marshan said.

“Ensuring consistency will reduce confusion for Australian investors and financial service providers.”

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.