Agriculture in Australia's north – now that's a plan

But there is another reason the National Food Plan rejects the northern food bowl concept. The Plan assumes climate change will make large scale irrigated agriculture in northern Australia impossible.

It relies on a 2007 ABARES report predicting a production decline of 19 percent by 2050 in wheat, beef, dairy and sugar and a scenario in which temperatures rise in northern Australia by 4 degrees. The ABARES report in turn relies on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007.

There is a huge problem with this. Several IPCC predictions have been proved comprehensively wrong and its operations severely criticised. Indeed, the UN has launched an independent review of the body in the wake of a number of controversies.

Its 1990 and 2000 predictions of rises in global temperatures simply did not occur. Flaws in the 2007 report included the claim that most Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, based on a report by environmental group WWF; the claim that global warming might wipe out 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had no scientific expertise; and reliance on non-peer reviewed literature whilst claiming it was all peer-reviewed.

Importantly for the Food Plan, the IPCC has also issued a more recent report in which its predictions have been scaled back.

But even ignoring that, the ABARES report did not dismiss irrigated agriculture in northern Australia. Indeed, it noted that rainfall in northern Australia was unlikely to change over the next 60 years and suggested the impact of climate change could be reduced by adaptation and improved productivity.

While it could be argued that taxpayer funding should be limited to the major infrastructure aspects that the private sector would be reluctant to undertake, such as dams, the idea that Australia should treat its vast northern regions as unproductive and incapable of contributing to global food security (not to mention Australia's prosperity) defies common sense.

It is also inconsistent with the statement in the Plan that, "rising food prices were a contributing factor in the civil unrest of the so-called Arab Spring. As a relatively wealthy country and a responsible global citizen, Australia also has a moral obligation to help alleviate the suffering that food insecurity imposes on billions of people."

Irrigation vastly increases productivity in farming. Australia's north has vast amounts of water that could be used for irrigation. Even if a fraction of the water presently flowing into the sea was harnessed for irrigation, Australian agriculture could become a major contributor to global food security.