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Food bowl or food quarry ?

By Charles Nason - posted Monday, 22 April 2013


The articles in The Australian (18-4-13) summarising papers to be presented to the global food forum should be read with great concern by all farmers and Australians.

They display a very concerning level of “ ignorance” ( the ultimate rural putdown ) about the current agricultural situation in Australia.

On Monday (15-4-13) 1000 wheat farmers met at Merredin in WA to show their concern about their future and to ask Governments to address the unsustainable financial position of the WA wheat industry. The Premier ( Colin Barnett ) replied by saying some must go. How many more farmers does Australia wish to go ?

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The beef market seems to be in free fall and the beef industry will probably be facing the same issues in the near future.

Other industries such as dairy and veg seem to be in a similar precarious position.

The global food forum articles portray a very rosy future for agriculture, one even suggesting Australia could feed 200M people.

The Australian's editorial heading was “Australia has a comparative advantage in agriculture”. Maybe, but why are so many farmers in such dire financial positions? The remaining farmers have been the survivors of the most rigid Darwinian selection process possible. A generation of a purist philosophic pursuit of free trade has selected out the toughest of the toughest. The survivors must be on the very extremes of the bell curve and should be awarded a PhD of hard knocks.

The pursuit of economies of scale or the “ get bigger or get out “ philosophy should have resulted in a lean mean profitable corporatized agricultural sector. I see little evidence of this rather I suggest the family farm is probably in a marginally better position.

Too many are saying our present farming systems are unsustainable. On any of the 5 criteria of sustainability (productive, financial, environmental, social and cultural ), agriculture fails dramatically.

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Rising rural debt, degrading soils and an aging rural population alone suggest that agriculture requires urgent remedial attention, yet no one seems to address these strategic issues.

The repeated claim that Australian farmers are the most efficient in the world seems hard to believe on the above evidence.

The aim of the Queensland Government to open up Cape York seems to suggest the unsustainable shifting agriculture system of primitive societies may be our last resort. This is avoiding the issue not solving it!

There is an old saying about not putting the cart before the horse. The global food forum is falling into that trap. Let's get our own house in order before we try to feed the world.

The editorial says "It would be counterproductive for governments to fall back on old-fashioned protectionism to bolster agriculture and food processing". Why then have most developed countries woken up long ago to the fact that supply and demand do not deliver true cost of production to food producers and thus “subsidise” and “ protect” them. It is very obvious that the overseas interests increasingly investing in Australia's farmland are not doing it for profit but food security. We need to wake up before we lose control of our agricultural means of production. Our slogan should be, export the food, not the profits. We may become the food quarry (but not bowl) but it will not be sustainable and we will be in danger of not being able of feeding our future generations

The statement that we feed 60M people is questioned by some but we still appear to be a net exporter of most food products. However a quick look along most supermarket shelves seems to put a few questions on this belief especially when even a transport input into an imported product can put the “made in Australia” tag on it

Australia may still be producing food but it may not be “aussie food for aussie people by aussie farmers on aussie owned farms".

The editorial refers to "Australia’s fertile north". There may be some fertile country in the north but there are also vast areas of very poor soils. This is a very dangerous assumption to make. The soil surveys that CSIRO made many years ago (a very strategic, valuable and long sighted investment) suggest that most of the soils are poor. Why has phosphorus supplementation generated such big fertility gains?

There appears to be huge amounts of water available but the history of northern development has shown it was not that simple or easy. Why did CSIRO pull out of Katherine over 20 years ago? Why did B.R.Davidson write his book The Northern Myth 40 years ago. Why is the Ord irrigation scheme now growing mostly sandalwood? Those who forget history are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past! Do some research first.

Mr Pratt suggests Australia has a responsibility to feed a "hungry world ". Does Australia have a moral commitment to feed the world and particularly do it below the true long term costs of production? Land is not a depreciable asset, you build it up not run it down. If we are going to feed the world, we should do it at a real profit, otherwise if we go broke we will not be even feeding ourselves – especially if our population continues to grow.

The editorial goes onto to claim that “... farmers..will gain more from free trade...”. I do not see too many gains for farmers from free trade so far and I suggest if there is any further free trade, agriculture will become overseas dominated and Australia will not benefit. Free trade has failed for farmers as it has for secondary manufacturing, and when the quarry is empty, so will be our country.

Mr Pratt refers to rich natural resources yet many of our soils are old and poor. He refers to innovative research yet much of our once world renowned R&D sector has been gutted by both of the major political parties. And as for the risk taking farmers – well they have been worn out by taking on climatic, productive, marketing, legislative and government imposed risk. Their children has learnt to avoid such a mugs game, they gravitate to greener pastures or take off farm jobs to support their hobby. Any agricultural boom will not be built on these shaky foundations.

There seems to be general lack of big picture thinking which Julian Cribb partly addresses. We are very vulnerable to oil shocks and to add to this we are importing diesel and exporting gas. This does not seem very smart from either an efficiency or strategic point of view. What he did not stress enough was that modern industrialised agriculture is completely dependant on fossil fuels. If we run out of these or they get too expensive, agricultural production will be dramatically reduced – a "production cliff". Many of the existing biofuels are energy negative ie it takes more energy to produce them than you get from them. It is just like playing the pokies, the more times you go around, the more you lose.

I hope the other papers to be presented show a more balanced assessment of the fragile state of agriculture in Australia and lead to some urgent remedial action.

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About the Author

Charles Nason is a Queensland farmer.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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