How much will we pay?

There are many issues causing the present food shortage in several parts of the world. I will address two of these issues from an Australian point of view.

Is there enough arable land? What is Australia’s role?

Food shortage is a serious international problem, but I believe that poverty is a greater problem. I have been blessed all my life to have sufficient food that I’ve never needed to experience hunger. My childhood was spent on a Queensland property, which had a dual income from beef cattle and dairying.

Following my marriage I continued to be a primary producer on farms which grew grain, fed pigs, milked cows and fattened cattle.

During the past 15 years I have lived on a non-productive farm on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, using it as a base for tourism. My farm has a river frontage and an irrigation license allowing me to irrigate 4 hectares (10 acres). Once this farm consisted of orchards and fields of vegetables, but now it is currently fallow land growing nothing more than grass and each year the river water is allowed to evaporate.

As a child my father explained to me that I had no shoes in the summer because we were land rich, but cash poor. I experienced poverty, but never hunger. My family killed their own beef and poultry. They had eggs, milk and cream for butter. They grew vegetables and some fruit. Family circumstances changed in 1958 when the USA opened its doors to the import of Australian beef and family income doubled overnight.

Again circumstances changed in 1974. Australia experienced a glut of cattle and was unable to export sufficient meat. At that time my father was one of many cattlemen mooting the idea that one in ten head of cattle should be shot by their owners. If the cattle herd could be reduced (wasted) by one tenth then the remainder would be able to be sold at a reasonable price. As it was, this didn’t happen voluntarily. Instead, many cattlemen were forced to sell their land to pay their debts and cattle sold at less than the cost of production. Droughts took their toll and cattle numbers within Australia were reduced.

In effect this means that if there is a market for beef, Australia is capable of breeding, feeding and selling many more cattle without impacting on the environment of Australia.

At issue is the price that cattlemen receive for beef.

The Granite Belt where I live once sent train loads of second grade apples to factories for juicing. These are now wasted. The trains no longer run, as the factories have ceased buying such apples. Apple juice is imported into Australia from other countries, including China.

Once farmers here grew table grapes for the Queensland market, but due to competition from other Australian regions and countries such as the USA they couldn’t remain price competitive. They were subsidised to pull out their table-grape vines and encouraged to grow vegetables. Their vegetables now compete on price against imports from overseas, as well as interstate produce.

Pear trees and canning peach trees were bulldozed out as the public no longer chose to bottle fruits like pears and peaches. In 15 years I have seen many hectares of arable land fallowed under grass because it wasn’t economic for the farmers to produce a crop.

Every year I see many crops abandoned when it is no longer economic to harvest the remaining tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, eggplant or zucchini because the market price will not pay the cost of labour to harvest the produce.

There are some years when perishable crops like tomatoes rot in the field because the farmers are unable to obtain itinerant labour to harvest the produce.

The issue is not a lack of arable land or water to grow fruit and vegetables. The issue is the price that farmers receive for their produce. The issue is the availability of itinerant labour to harvest produce.

Many of the original settlers in Australia were of convict origin, as were six of my forebears. They were people who due to poverty became petty thieves in an endeavour to feed their families. Once free in Australia they were able to obtain paid work, buy land and feed growing families. Never again were any of them convicted of a criminal offence.

Starting with the loss of young men from the land during World War I and the drift of country youth to the cities that continues today, Australia has become an urban population.

Once city people grew vegetables, nourished a lemon tree and kept poultry in back yards. They watered these in buckets with their grey water or from rain water tanks. This was labour intensive work. As wages rose and rural produce, by comparison, dropped in price it was no longer an economic necessity for families to maintain such a lifestyle.

I believe that Australian farmers have the capacity to more than double the production of beef, lamb, pork and poultry meats, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, grains and sugar if there is sufficient price incentive. Australian farmers are the most efficient in the world. They have survived only due to increasing their productivity. They are well educated and use modern technology.

Australian farmers will cope with droughts and floods as they have always done, if they can sell their produce for an equitable price.

When I was a child cattle and sheep died during times of drought because there was no transport available to take them to other regions. Nor was there transport to bring in supplementary foods such as grain and hay. Now livestock can be placed in feedlots and fattened with grain and hay from other regions providing the market will pay the cost of the finished product.

As a child our property was reliant on creek or well water, but due to the construction of many small farm dams farmers are now able to maintain water supplies for longer periods of dry weather. It isn’t generally recognised, but these farm dams have also enabled several species of Australian birds and animals to multiply. Many cattlemen know they are feeding and watering more kangaroos than their land could carry 100 years ago. Kangaroos could become a future source of protein.

Australians will grow rice in traditional areas like the Murray-Darling Basin if they have water, or they could open up new regions to production if the price is right. Back in 1954 an experimental crop of rice was grown at Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory. This failed for a number of reasons, including flocks of birds that ate the grain, but it proved that rice could be grown in northern Australia.

Australians farmers can grow much more sugar in northern Australia, provided they receive an equitable price for their product.

The issue is always price.

Many coastal Australian cities have been allowed to spread their suburbs across some of the best arable land in Australia. Half of these areas are now covered with hard surfaces, roofs and streets, which cause urban flooding as the water drains towards the sea.

It would be labour intensive, but suburban back yards could be cleared of palm trees and other ornamental species to once more become productive vegetable garden and poultry runs. But this is unlikely to happen while shelves are filled with inexpensive food.

Food costs in Australia have risen in recent years, due to several different factors, but the decision whether food is inexpensive or expensive is a value judgment based on one’s earning ability.

Poverty is the main reason that increasing numbers of people throughout the world can’t access food.
Australian farmers could respond to their hunger with a massive expansion of food production, but unless these people have the money to purchase food there is no incentive for Australian food producers to double production.

There is a comparison between the fate of impoverished people in Ethiopia and other regions of famine, with the fate of livestock in Australia prior to the 1960s. In the first half of the past century cattle or sheep died in times of drought. Now, thanks to transport livestock seldom die in times of drought. Unless the world food bowls, like Australia and the USA, increase production and transport food to nations in famine, those people will either die of starvation or transport themselves as refugees to more prosperous regions.

Australia has the arable land and farmers with the expertise to respond to their hunger, but is Australia as a nation prepared to pay the price?