Regional Australia has "copped it in the neck" in this year's budget, according to Nationals Leader Warren Truss, while the National Farmers' Federation says budget cuts to rural research and development put future productivity gains at risk.
Mr Truss said the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was the only Government department to be hit with an extra efficiency dividend, with $12 million to be stripped away through "identifying lower priority programs that can cease".
Mr Truss said this would result in 312 staff being dismissed.
Land and Water Australia has been abolished and another $12 million taken from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.
"Many regional workers will be among the million Australians looking for work – a part of the price of Labor’s incompetent management of the economy," Mr Truss said.
"Whenever we start to emerge from recession, massive debt will overhang the economy raising interest rates and preventing much needed spending on road and rail infrastructure, hospitals and health and schools."
NFF vice president Charles Burke backed up the criticism of the cuts to rural R&D, saying the productivity of farming industries was at risk as investment was now at "wafer thin levels".
"There is no fat to cut in the agriculture portfolio and so the Government needs to explain which functions will now not be delivered," Mr Burke said.
"The irony is that on the back of these cuts, it appears that $464 million over four years will be spent on supporting food security overseas.
"NFF understands the desire of the community to support people in need, but surely this money should have been spent in Australia first and foremost."
However, the NFF welcomed the fact the budget has locked in a promised $300m for investment in water infrastructure improvements.
"The Government will implement the NFF’s on-farm water-saving infrastructure proposal in the southern Basin, and bypass the states, in a victory for common sense," Mr Burke said.
"It will also invest in on-farm projects in the northern Basin via previously announced state priority projects.
"This will see farmers partner with Government to produce more food and fibre with less water and, in doing so, return more water back to the environment.
"In the process, those on-farm and regional upgrades will create jobs in the bush and build-in efficiency gains for future generations."
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