AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE TRUST AND ORGANIC AGRICULTURE ASSOCIATION INCJoint submission from Australian Landscape Trust and Organic Agriculture Association Inc
1. What is the most important thing you think that a national food plan should try to achieve? A national food plan should address the obstacles to food security. These obstacles are outlined in section 3.
2. What do you think the vision and objectives for a national food plan should be? There are 4 objectives:
Food security: The elimination of risks to the supply of food to the populace.
Sustainable land use: The development of food producing systems that increase the productivity of the land without adverse effects on the environment.
Nutrition: Food should contain the right balance of minerals and vitamins for healthy life and contain no additives that potentially harm health.
Rural prosperity: Adequate income and dignity for farmers and farm workers, recognising the high level of skill and responsibility required to produce nutritious food in a difficult climatic environment.
3. What do you see as the major risks to Australia’s food supply in the coming years and decades? How could this be avoided or managed more effectively? Genetic modification: Genetic modification is a technology with high risks that have not been properly assessed. The long term health implications require a cautious approach in order to avoid problems such as those caused by organo-chloride pesticides. Independent feed tests on livestock and rodents have shown significant organ and reproductive damage, which is great cause for alarm. Once genetically modified organisms are released into the environment it is too late for their withdrawal. In North America it is not possible to maintain normal corn and canola varieties that are free of GM contamination. This crossing will be even more serious if GM wheat and pasture varieties are allowed. They will affect all livestock farmers and destroy the organic farming industry which does not allow any GM contamination of produce. GM will also affect Australian exports – already there is a $50 per tonne premium for non-GM canola. There should be an immediate moratorium on GM food crops until the technology has been proven to be completely safe. After that period, the rights of people not to grow GM crops must be guaranteed, with all segregation costs to be borne by the GM industry. Non-GM farmers must have the legal right to sue for genetic contamination of their crops.
Loss of genetic diversity: Large numbers of varieties of food crops have been lost in the last hundred years, including more than 95% of those of peas. As the gene pool gets smaller, the risk of major crop losses increases, due to disease or climate change. The concentration of genetic resources in the hands of a few corporations reduces the control that farmers need over choices of seed stock. There needs to be encouragement for setting up community controlled seed banks and heritage orchards. Government seed banks must be completely free from influence by seed corporations. Plant Breeder’s Rights legislation on food crops must be withdrawn – ownership of genetic resources should not be possible because its consequences diminish resilience of food crops and responsiveness of farmers to changes in growing conditions. Resilience and responsiveness of the food supply to change are in the national interest.
Soil degradation: Soil degradation on a vast scale has taken place in Australia since European settlement. Soil organic matter in temperate regions have dropped from more than 15% to less than 5%, and, in the case of cropping land, to less than 2%. Loss of organic components of soil has caused compaction, water logging, salinity, sodicity, acidification and decreased nutrient availability. It has also exacerbated floods and droughts. There needs to be a massive effort to encourage all farmers to adopt biological farming systems that increase soil carbon and create long term resilience. The Landcare movement is well placed to provide this education and assistance to farmers.
Soil nutrient loss: It must be recognised that agriculture cannot rely on chemical fertiliser inputs because of their rising costs and inevitable unavailability as well as because of the harm they do to soil structure. Cost effective methods of recycling all urban organic waste including sewage are urgently needed. Soil biological processes are fundamental in developing sustainable soil fertility improvement and to increasing water holding capacity of soil which extends growing conditions.
Biofuels: The use of farm land for biofuel production poses a huge threat to food security. Fortunately Australia so far is well behind other parts of the world in the production of biofuels, but this situation may not last. The increasing food scarcity and cost caused partly by land being taken out of food production and used for production of biofuels has promoted food shortages and associated riots around the world. There needs to legislation to prevent the alienation of agricultural land for fuel production. Instead we must move rapidly to developing transport, agricultural and industrial systems that do not rely on fuels.
Imports: Australian farmers should not have to face the ongoing threat of cheap food imports that are too low to allow farmers to allocate resources to environmental and soil stewardship. This threat and its actuality is used to constantly reduce the price farmers receive. Commodity prices overall have been flat for the past 30 years. Many farmers require off farm income to remain on the land. Agricultural products should be taken out of the World Trade Organisation and Free Trade Agreements, and each country and each region within a country should maintain the right and ability to provide its own food needs. Trade in agricultural products must be on the basis of mutual benefit to both the exporting and importing countries and regions.
Mining: Agricultural land must be protected from mining operations. The global economy must make a transition to energy that does not come from fossil fuel and develop full resource recycling systems instead. Contamination of soils and ground water by coal seam gas extraction is of immediate concern.
Urban development: The continuous outward growth of cities reduces the availability of good land for farming. Farmland around cities should be protected from development. The alternative to outward growth is increased population density within existing cities, and the location of urban growth areas to marginal farming land.
Water supply: There needs to be massive reinvestment in irrigation technologies to secure water for food crops which cannot be grown without irrigation. This investment includes greatly reducing water loss from open channels and improving watering systems. There must be sufficient water for environmental needs. In times of scarcity, legislation, and not the market place, must ensure that water is available to fruit and vegetable crops and diverted from pasture production. Urban and industrial water should be recycled.
Climate change: Indications are that climate change will bring about more intense rainfall, drought and heat induced limitations on food production, especially in the main food producing areas of Australia. The country can lead the world in switching from greenhouse gas producing energy systems to renewable energy. Conversion is urgent and requires far more effective incentives than a token carbon tax. In the meantime farmers can significantly improve their resilience to drought by adopting biological soil management techniques.
Food distribution: Breakdown in transport systems because of fuel scarcity poses a big threat to food security. Food miles must be drastically reduced. Food must be produced instead in the region in which it is going to be consumed.
4. What does food security mean to you? How would this be achieved? How would we know if/when we are food secure? Food security means the long term availability of affordable and nutritious food for all people. The right to food must be recognised. Food security for Australia has the following components: adequate purchasing power for all members of the community, ecological sustainability of food production, adequate income for food producers, and freedom from the threats identified in the previous section.
Food security depends on government, producer and consumer action. Governments are in a prime position to provide leadership. To date, the leadership has come from farmers who have successfully developed sustainable agriculture systems, and by farmer and consumer organisations that have undertaken an important educative and supportive role, sadly with no government assistance.
We will know when we are food secure when soil degradation no longer takes place, the average age of farmers has significantly decreased, and most food is produced close to where it is consumed.
5. What are the most important benefits that Australian consumers get or should get from our food supply? Why? Australian consumers generally benefit from an adequate range and quantity of affordable foods free of biological contamination. However they should also obtain the following benefits: high nutritional levels in foods including balanced minerals and vitamins, freedom from chemical contamination (from pesticides and food additives), and good taste. At present, most consumers do not gain these benefits (see below).
6. What two or three actions: 1. by the government sector would most benefit foods consumers?
2. by the non-government sector would most benefit food consumers?
The government sector should legislate to eliminate pesticide residues in food. For many chemicals there is no safe limit; and for some, no testing mechanism. Testing methods currently do not account for the synergistic effects of combinations of chemicals. A complete transformation of agriculture away from pesticide use should be the long term aim; in the short term the most dangerous pesticide products must be withdrawn. The government should also review and greatly reduce the number of allowed food additives to the 30 or so that organic standards allow.
The government should also prevent the promotion of health-damaging foods and drinks, as governments have successfully done with cigarette and alcohol products. There is no point promoting healthy eating while at the same time allowing advertisers to negate the message through the use of sophisticated psychological techniques they have developed. Health-damaging products should include, at the minimum, those with high sugar, high fat and phosphoric acid content. These products should not be displayed at supermarket checkouts.
The government, in concert with food producers, needs to reverse the long term trend of reduced mineral levels in foods. This can be done through balanced soil fertility and increased organic matter levels in soils. Random testing should be used to monitor mineral and vitamin levels and action taken to raise these levels. At the same time, nitrate levels need to be reduced. Large scale promotion of biological farming is a cost effective, secure and long term solution.
Some agricultural industries have an abysmal record of declining taste in products, to the profound disadvantage of their industries and consumers. Worst examples include apricots, peaches, tomatoes and pineapples. Home gardeners recognise this problem with many other crops too. Quality issues are due to a combination of poor plant nutrition, poor selection of varieties (for yield and transportability rather than nutrition and flavour), and harvesting too early. This issue needs to be urgently addressed by producers.
7. What do you see as the major opportunities for Australia’s food industry in the coming years and decades? How could they be realised? The major opportunity for the Australian food industry is a complete conversion to biological systems of production. Biological farming has the proven ability to produce adequate amounts of nutritionally rich produce free from chemical residues while enhancing the natural resource base of agriculture (the soil). There is already an active and growing movement towards biological production, including certified organic systems, as farmers realise the limitations of chemical agriculture. There needs to be a reorientation of research, extension and education towards further developing these systems.
Alan Broughton
