Portfolio — 23 March 2026

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Minister for the Collins portfolio, used both a ministerial media release and Question Time on 23 March to advance a two-track response to Middle East supply disruptions affecting Australia's food and agricultural input chains. The media release announced the most structurally significant move of the day: the commissioning of a National Food Supply Chain Assessment following a meeting of the National Food Council [TA-260323-agricu-f6f6806d3b2e].

The assessment opens with a focus on diesel supply chains before expanding to crop protection products and fertilisers, with an interim diesel report due within one month and a final report by year end [TA-260323-agricu-f6f6806d3b2e]. Alongside the assessment, the Government amended the Minimum Stockholding Obligation to release up to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel from domestic reserves and amended fuel quality standards to secure around 100 million litres per month of new petrol supply through May — immediate measures framing the assessment as the medium-term analytical complement to near-term stock management.

The personnel changes announced alongside the assessment carry their own signal. Andrew Henderson will lead the review on behalf of AgriFutures, stepping away from the National Food Council. His replacement is Simeon Gilding, whose background spans the Australian Signals Directorate, Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Prime Minister and Cabinet — a deliberate injection of national security expertise into a body previously focused on agricultural economics and supply logistics.

The choice of Gilding reflects the portfolio's framing of the Middle East disruption as a structural resilience question rather than a temporary commodity shock [TA-260323-agricu-f6f6806d3b2e].

In Question Time, the Minister reinforced that framing with specifics on fertiliser supply [TA-260323-house-068fade26cde:s235]. She confirmed Australia holds sufficient fertiliser in stock or on ships for the initial cropping season and is monitoring delayed cargoes in the Persian Gulf while sourcing urea from alternative regions. The Minister described a cross-portfolio coordination effort involving the Minister for Industry and Innovation, the ACCC, and Fertilizer Australia to manage prices, secure alternative supplies, and direct supply to farmers most in need [TA-260323-house-068fade26cde:s235].

She also disclosed weekly meetings with the agriculture sector on fertiliser supply — a cadence that signals active operational management rather than a watching brief.

The two streams converge on a coherent portfolio position: the Middle East conflict is treated as a persistent structural test of food-chain resilience requiring both immediate government intervention on fuel and fertiliser stocks and longer-term supply-chain mapping to identify and address input vulnerabilities before the next cropping cycle.