Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Global food security represents one of the greatest challenges that the international community faces. It is arguable that we have a responsibility to raise, debate and address these issues as a regional leader and a stable, developed nation-state. Over one-sixth of the global population, about one billion people, is now classified as undernourished according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN body responsible for monitoring the international food situation. The effects of undernourishment are well documented. Undernourishment leads to lower energy and concentration levels, susceptibility to disease resulting from weaker immune systems, and lower life expectancy for its sufferers—and this happens to many people in the world. Afflicted individuals are also not able to work at their full capacity, they have drops in productivity, and their yields and capacity to work are of course much, much lower. This leads to a drop in the overall economy of the nation or region and, as productivity falls, so does their standard of living. Lower consumption rates lead also to job losses, and drops in income lead to poorer families, making it even harder for them to afford to buy good-quality food, even if it is available.

There are gross inequities in the distribution of hungry people around the world. While ideally no man, woman or child should go hungry, it is deceiving to see the levels at which some states and areas are suffering. This is an emerging complication of the food security crisis that will play out in the next century. It is one we must face and address. Even with one-sixth of the global population starving there are still adequate cereal and food supplies to ensure that each person is fully nourished. The reason many of these people, often from the most disadvantaged areas on the planet, are unable to access food is simply cost. The spike in prices is largely attributable to the failure of global food production to keep pace with growing demand.

The world’s population is projected to increase from the current 6½ billion people to nearly 9.2 billion people by 2050 and anyone who has read the Intergenerational report in Australia will understand the significant challenges that we face not only here but also at a global level. Global food production will need to rise by some 70 per cent to meet this challenge, incorporating the growing use of biofuels as oil prices rise, to further complicate matters. This will need to be concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South America, where the only tracts of high-yield, sustainable and suitable farm lands are available.

The effects of the global financial crisis were not limited to the people of Australia, householders or financial institutions. The poorest people in the world have frequently been priced out of the market, with few options available to them due to the decline of subsistence agriculture. Biosecurity is also a serious threat to global food security. The vast plethora of edible fauna is largely ignored in favour of a small variety of engineered and chemically fuelled high-yield crops. These are corn, wheat, soy beans and rice. As tastes narrow and markets boom, the varieties of these staple products grow less diverse. The refined crops of today are mostly hybrids and increasingly susceptible to crop blights and other diseases that can threaten yields. By diversifying crop production, we can insure ourselves against this threat.

The most typical challenge for ensuring food supplies is something I believe the opposition is struggling to come to terms with—that is, some of the dangers of climate change that are with us today. Global temperature rises will contract food production, dropping yields from current levels while demand rises across a variety of geographical areas. The greatest decline is likeliest to occur where there is the greatest demand and need, such as places like Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is important that we address and consider these challenges concurrently to stave off ecological disaster.

AusAID also does a crucial job in providing funds and guidance to impoverished communities across the world, giving them the means to help themselves and their people. For example, in May 2009, the federal government announced a four-year $464-million global food security initiative, which aims to do a number of things in countries from Africa to Asia, across the continent and the Pacific as well, that are affected by global food security. There is certainly much more that can be done.

I also want to link this motion that I have put forward to what I think is a growing problem in Australia. It is about crop diversity and it is about food security even within Australia, because I think these matters are all linked. One of the biggest problems that we have in Australia is type 2 diabetes, which is linked directly to our diet. There is clear evidence that over the past 30 years our diets have shrunk to a very small base and that people’s lifestyle choices and what they eat are getting narrower and narrower. Our diets are now mostly filled with fructose and sucrose, high in fat and high in salt. There is very, very little diversity in all of that, and people’s lifestyles, particularly exercise, have not kept pace. We need to have a close look at what we can do to improve that. It is one of the biggest challenges that this country and the world will face, with type 2 diabetes causing so many problems for our health budgets as well. (Time expired)

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