The future of Australia’s food: Who’s calling the shots?

Despite all the promises and the public relations, biotechnology packages have not increased yields, have not reduced dependence on chemical inputs, and have not brought people out of hunger. The only ones to benefit from biotechnology are the companies who own the rights to it.

Corporate control of seeds is growing rapidly. In 2008, 56 per cent of brand-name, or proprietary, seed sales were controlled by only four companies. This consolidation is allowing companies in the industry to increase their sales and their profits. Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company by sales, increased its profits by 104 per cent between 2007-08.

Further commodifying the means of production for food - land, water and seeds - will not reduce hunger. Nor should we allow ourselves to be deceived that it is intended to. We have more hungry people in the world today than ever, despite the fact that we produce more food than ever. Poverty prevents people from accessing food all around the world, including wealthy countries like Australia where 1 in 20 Victorians were food insecure in 2005 and the United States – the home of biotechnology – where 15 per cent of households were food insecure during 2009.

There is a different way of approaching this issue, and that is to insist that decisions about producing and distributing food must be driven above all by human and environmental need, and not by profit. 

‘Food sovereignty’ is the concept developed by Via Campesina, a movement of 400 million peasant farmers around the world, with 150 member organisations in 70 countries. It supports decisions about food production, distribution and consumption should be made by the people who grow and eat food, not by the corporate sector. 

The ‘solutions’ put forward by the this sector are inevitably self-interested. They have to be: it is the logic of a competitive system. But again, we, as ordinary citizens, should not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of believing that there is a happy coincidence of corporate self-interest and the general public interest. On the contrary, increasing corporate control of all areas of our lives in recent decades has dramatically accelerated inequality within and between nations around the world, with consequences that will negatively impact on the quality of life of everyone, rich and poor alike.

In the final analysis, rebuilding a fairer, more sustainable and resilient food system means building a democratic food system; one in which power and resources are distributed far more equitably than they are at present. The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance was established in 2010 with the purpose of achieving these goals.

Last December, the Federal government convened a National Food Policy Working Group which is dominated by the business sector, and refuses a place to smaller farmers or the thriving community food sector. The global food system is in a crisis of over-production, and shows no signs of emerging. It is compromising the health of our children, and the prospects of future generations to enjoy healthy soils, waterways and a liveable climate.

The work of its transformation will require the committed efforts of millions around this country, and around the world. This is a call for urgent action to ensure that we all have a say in the future of our food.