Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Food security is one of the most important challenges we face today. It is increasingly clear that the world is experiencing an unprecedented challenge to the security of its food supplies with food shortages triggering dramatic rises in food prices in Australia and internationally. This setting comes against a projected world population of 9.2 billion by 2050, increased demand for higher protein foods, continued subsistence farming in many nations and smaller average harvests around the world as the climate changes,

At one level, agriculture is the most local of all activities. It is reliant on the very land of the nation. However, at the moment, the three biggest factors in the world also happen to be fundamental to agriculture: the global financial crisis, the global food crisis and climate change.

On Remembrance Day yesterday, we acknowledged those Australians who contributed to our war efforts. At the end of the Second World War, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers was formed. This week the federation has been meeting in Canberra. At the same time that the new federation was being formed, new organisations were being established throughout the world—the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. There was an immediate understanding that, for these organisations to serve the people of the world best, the people who produce the food on which the people of the world rely had to be well represented.

That central belief and central tenet of making sure that food producers were a critical part of the new international framework represents the birth of the IFAP organisation whose members met here in Canberra this week. IFAP’s role has been critical through two generations now, from the period post war when in so many ways so many countries in the world, particularly in Europe, were becoming very hungry places to be. At a time now when we are dealing with food shortages in a new way, following globalisation, we find ourselves dealing with these concepts as a global phenomenon, not simply a local one.

The continued expansion of populations in China and India will continue to drive long-term demand for our primary produce, both for our food and for our fibre. Since the global financial crisis hit, there has been less talk about the global food crisis. In this environment, some of the immediate pressures with the global food crisis have eased slightly. However, it would be a mistake to think that the issues we were talking about a few months ago have in any way disappeared.

The global food crisis was described, particularly in the North American media, as being something that occurred largely because of biofuels decisions in North America. This was an incorrect analysis. The biofuels decisions in North America, particularly ethanol from corn production, may have caused us to get to a crisis more quickly, but we were always heading to this point, and the major structural pressures that were causing pressure on global food supply remain.

Those pressures are affected by lower average harvests. Harvests go up and down each year obviously. But lower average harvests are affected around the world by climate change. They also go to more major weather events—the most recent highly publicised one was in Burma, where major weather events are having a major effect on staple food crops.

Beyond that, though, one of the most fundamental changes which does not get looked at nearly enough is a good thing, and that is that the developing world is getting wealthier. As people get wealthier, there is a standard change that they want to make every time, and that is they want more protein in their diet. They want more meat. And when people increase the demand for meat and meat production starts to increase throughout the world a few things logically follow.

Land that was previously used for cropping is handed over to livestock. The remaining land still used for cropping is used increasingly for stock feed rather than the direct production of staples for consumption. All of that means that on the same parcel of land you are feeding fewer people unless you are making productivity gains. As somebody who is a dear lover of red meat, I acknowledge that people are better fed in this circumstance. But notwithstanding that, without productivity gains you are feeding fewer people and that puts a necessary increase in the value of food and starts to create a scarcity of supply.

The other thing that occurs in nations as they become wealthier and increase their demand for protein in their diet is that they have tended to restructure every part of their economy except for their agriculture. At some point you would imagine this would change. But there are very few signs of it yet. In many nations that are starting to become wealthier, their farming sector continues to look very much like subsistence farming.

That creates both responsibility and opportunity for a nation like Australia. It does create responsibility for agencies like the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to make sure that they are in the poorest nations in the world helping them with the technology to be able to better feed their populations.

The poorest nations in the world sometimes are the victims of aid programs in the sense that a badly targeted aid program can wipe out the livelihoods of all the local farmers by causing them to lose their own market. An agency such as ACIAR in Australia does very important work in making sure that, for the poorest nations in the world, they are not just getting their food supplied through direct aid and through direct provision of food. Rather, ACIAR helps to ensure they are generating their own food supply and learning how to feed their populations.

For the large middle-ranking part of the market out there, food scarcity is an extraordinary opportunity for an exporting nation like Australia. It does mean there are nations where they can afford to buy our produce. But they would buy it at a premium. The government has tried at every opportunity to make clear within Australia we should not simply look at the global food crisis as being an aid issue but also as a productivity issue.

For the poorest nations in the world aid is relevant. And for the poorest nations of the world technology transfer is relevant as well. But there is no end of wealthy nations which will simply demand more of our produce. Part of our response has to be a productivity improvement. Part of our response has to be to produce more food and produce more fibre and take advantage of a deeply significant market opportunity that is there right now for a nation like ours.

The bottom line is that the world is facing a new global food production environment. It is an environment that is constrained by the availability of natural resources and by the uncertainty of a changing climate.

Climate change brings major challenges that we have to deal with—challenges that affect our primary industries directly:

• warmer temperatures
• longer and deeper droughts, and
• more frequent extreme weather events including biosecurity challenges.

And this is a challenge that will impact all nations. All countries must respond to climate change. But, in Australia, we will be hit harder and faster by the impacts of climate change than most nations.

Amid the worst drought on record, it is obvious how vulnerable our primary industries are to those impacts. The seriousness of the challenge was illustrated to me through a report by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology that I commissioned as part of the national review of drought policy. This study—the first of three stages in the review—looked at the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events.

It dealt with a range of projections and it covered three areas:

how often we will get exceptionally hot years,

what is likely to happen with rainfall patterns, and

what is likely to happen with soil moisture.

In the report’s high-end predictions, events of extreme temperature that used to happen every 20 or so years nationwide will occur every other year by 2040. Droughts would occur twice as often and over double the area they currently cover. Worst case scenarios are always open to debate, but the base projections are consistent from this and other studies: longer and deeper droughts, and more of them. That has obvious implications for our current drought policy settings which we are addressing through the national review.

The key thing to recognise with these projections is that they all carry the same theme: the changing climate will bring us challenges that are much tougher than any we have faced in the past. The World Bank has estimated that increased food prices have pushed an additional 100 million people globally into poverty. And for the 1.4 billion people already living in poverty—on less than US$1.25 a day in 2005—their poverty is deepening. It is these people who are being hardest hit.

Recent falls in world food prices provide some relief. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) Food Price Index dropped six per cent in September, falling to a nine-month low. But there is not yet cause to relax. The stark reality is world food prices across all major food and feed commodities are still 51 per cent above their level in September 2006 and are predicted to remain above their pre-2006 levels for some time to come. The FAO points out that the recent reduction in food prices comes largely from contracting demand rather than rising supply.

The financial crisis is slowing global growth. It is reducing confidence and domestic spending in countries throughout the world. This has reduced the demand for food and put further downward pressure on already-falling prices. The lower prices are a welcome relief but developing countries are still highly vulnerable.

The IMF and World Bank have both reported that the effects of the food and fuel price increases are still being felt, despite falling prices. Many developing countries incurred significant costs in responding to the price increases, as well as increased current account deficits and inflation. The current financial crisis is exacerbating their situation by slowing economies and increasing unemployment at a time when the food and fuel price increases have already increased poverty.

So how can we help address the challenges of global food security? Concluding the Doha Round offers us a major opportunity and means to address global food security more effectively by removing distortions to global food markets. It will provide greater opportunities and incentives for farmers to increase productivity and will encourage countries to diversify their supply of food. We must continue to invest in research and development to maintain productivity improvement, increase crop yields and minimise the impact on our environment.

In addition, we need to consider and embrace where relevant new avenues such as biotechnology and new and emerging technologies. We must not be turning our backs on any areas of new technologies able to help with this problem—and I include genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Global action is needed to address the world food crisis. This is why the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has established a team dedicated to working on food security issues. Since May this year the Rudd government has allocated more than A$100 million to improve global food security. This includes a A$50 million contribution to a World Bank trust fund aimed at immediately stimulating agricultural supply in vulnerable countries and A$30 million to the World Food Program’s emergency appeal. It also includes additional assistance to improve food security in Indonesia (A$6.5 million), Ethiopia (A$10 million), Afghanistan (A$12 million) and North Korea (A$3 million).

In addition, the government has taken steps to prepare our agricultural industries to adapt and adjust to the impact of climate change. As we promised at the last election, we have delivered the Australia’s Farming Future initiative. This initiative supports research, development and demonstration projects, communication and awareness-raising activities, training, community networks and capacity building, and adjustment advice and assistance, including for those who make the hardest decision of all and choose to leave farming.

And we are establishing the Regional Food Producers Innovation and Productivity Program which will encourage innovation and improve food productivity for regional food producers and processors in Australia. This program will run over four years and will provide discretionary grants for projects that facilitate innovation, and increase productivity and efficiency of Australian food producers.

These initiatives build on the underlying strengths of the Australian agricultural sector. Most importantly, it is a very dynamic sector with a strong culture of innovation, and commitment to research and development. As a result, our farmers are resilient and adaptable. Similarly, our agricultural scientists are amongst the best in the world. They are well placed to assist not only Australia’s agriculture sector but also countries dominated by tropical and dryland agriculture. Overall, while the global forecast is for difficult times ahead, I believe Australia is well placed to make the most of the changing environment and continue to increase our productivity despite the challenges we face.

Shortly, we will deliver Australia’s message to the world. I will be advocating for Australian agricultural industries and our products. I will raise issues that matter to our farming sector and build productive relationships with our major exporting partners. I will address the 35th Special Session of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, where I will clearly put Australia’s position on FAO reform and the role of that organisation in the food security challenge.

Further, I will hold a number of meetings with industry partners where I will continue to put the case of Australian agriculture and the need to respond to food security and climate change with polices that are practical, responsible and effective. The bottom line is that, wherever you are in the world, it is becoming harder for families to feed themselves. The world needs to act and we need to act now. Our actions need to be targeted, they need to be coordinated and they need to focus on the short, medium and long term.

Australian agriculture is resilient and adaptable. We need to publicly acknowledge the critical role our farmers play as food producers. If we get in front of the game and act decisively, I am certain that Australia’s primary industries will adapt to these challenges and thrive. And the world will continue to look to Australian agriculture as world leaders.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion that would enable the Leader of the Nationals to speak for not a moment more than 14 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Truss (Leader of the Nationals) speaking for a period not exceeding fourteen minutes.

Question agreed to.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I compliment the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on his statement. I heard him make similar remarks last night to the meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. I thought that was a good speech, and he has repeated many of those sentiments today. It is important that the issue of food security be raised in the agenda and that it be implanted more solidly in the minds of all Australians.

We live in a country where a shortage of food has not been an issue for 100 years or more. We take it for granted. Our definition of a shortage of food is when there are a limited number of choices of brands on the supermarket shelves. It was almost a national food catastrophe when we could not get bananas for some months. We have become so accustomed to being able to buy whatever we want and at really low prices. I know we all complain about the prices in the supermarket going up, but by world standards, and by comparison with other things that we buy, food in Australia has been at a very low cost. We have just assumed that there will always be sufficient food for us and, indeed, enough to send to other parts of the world. To this day we still export around two-thirds of everything that we produce in this country. Australia is an abundant country with great capabilities and we have had a very progressive agricultural sector that has been able to perform very well.

I note that the minister is going to Rome, and I wish him an enjoyable visit to the Food and Agriculture Organisation and trust that he will be conveying this message to that forum. I note also his desire to continue the campaign that Australia has been waging for a decade or more to upgrade governance and make the FAO work. It clearly has been an underperformer, and when he goes to Rome he will see the great contrasts in the way in which that organisation operates. He will see quite large delegations from starving countries meeting in a lavish forum with all the pomp and ceremony. One wonders whether some of that money would be better spent on actually delivering food to some of the people in those communities. But I think it is important that there is a regular discussion between leaders and nations about how we can deliver and better share the world’s food resources.

Of course, the current discussion about the availability of food is in a sense replicating something that happened in the 1960s. There was a real concern in the 1960s that the world would be short of food. And then the green revolution came—essentially the development of hybridisation—and there were remarkable advances in farm productivity. Therefore, the concerns that people felt at that time were largely erased by new advances in science. Now we face those concerns again, and I was particularly pleased to note in the minister’s speech his recognition of the fact that there is now another potential breakthrough in technology that can take the world through this current crisis—genetically modified organisms. It has been appalling that in this country we have held back on implementing what science has been able to deliver. The state based moratoriums have been a disgrace and have effectively allowed other farm economies around the world to leap ahead of us in their technology. Countries that have not had the advantages of the green revolution, because hybridisation requires comparatively expensive seed and some skills to effectively take advantage of it, are the ones that will benefit particularly from GMOs, because the plants can be adapted to meet their village needs and, in fact, to reproduce year after year without the need to go back to more expensive seed bases.

It has been disappointing that some organisations, even the FAO, have been trying to persuade some of the poorest countries in the world that they should not embrace this technology because somehow or other it may have adverse side effects. Yes, we need to test all science and all technology, and we have very, very rigorous scrutiny arrangements in Australia that all consumers can have confidence in. So there is the real opportunity to be able to take this next step if we are prepared to embrace the technology. I welcome the fact that some of the states seem to now be prepared to relax their GMO ban. All should follow suit so that we can make sure that Australia can continue to contribute as a major world supplier.

The minister was also right to make the observation that current suggestions that the US’s push towards biofuels is responsible for higher food prices are simply an illusion. The reality is that biofuels fit quite well into the food production cycle because often the grain or whatever is used as the base can be used a second time for another productive purpose, and so it can be complementary rather than competitive. He was also right to demonstrate the fact that the demand for food is being driven by higher living standards around the world. People want more choice. They have tasted different foods from other parts of the world, they have more disposable money and they want to use that on good food. Therefore, there is a particularly important role to ensure that we are able to meet those requirements. So I commend the minister on the statement he made today and particularly on his commitment to seek to ensure that Australia is able to play its part in supplying food to the world.

I know that he will be having some battles in cabinet at present, but to effectively carry this through we cannot continue the practice of taking significant areas of agricultural production out of the task. Decisions like the purchase of Toorale Station near Bourke will effectively put out of production a very significant area of farmland. Those sorts of things have implications if you are serious about food security. The land was purchased, without the minister having seen it, essentially for the purpose of putting extra water into the Murray-Darling system—water that is not there because of the drought.

But even when water does return this will mean a permanent loss of productivity from that property, and indeed others. This was a well-run, 150-year-old station. It will now run wild. There is no plan to control the pests and weeds and therefore it is likely to be a bad neighbour to other farmers rather than a good neighbour. This area had the potential to produce significant quantities of food in good seasons. I am indebted to the shadow minister for the environment, who made the point that this particular property was producing about 8,000 tonnes of wheat, 2½ thousand tonnes of sorghum and 1,250 tonnes of maize, and it has been estimated that that property alone was capable of feeding 80,000 to 100,000 people. We cannot keep taking properties out of production and expect to meet our obligations to provide food to the world. The same applies to all buybacks that are occurring within the river system at the present time. If these properties become unproductive, they will be out of the food cycle forever. Whilst we have environmental priorities, if food security is a genuine priority for this country—as it should be—then we must keep our prime agricultural properties in production.

There are a couple of other comments that I would like to make to the minister. The minister referred in his speech to the CSIRO—and it is certainly one of the world’s premier research organisations, with a proud record especially in plant and animal science. In the last budget the government took $60 million from the CSIRO’s budget. As a result it has closed a number of research stations, including the horticultural research laboratory in Merbein in Victoria. Not only will that mean that 30 agricultural scientists will lose their jobs, but also it is a direct hit on the research being done to improve horticultural crops and in particular to deal with climate change issues. The New South Wales state government was no better. It closed eight agricultural research stations in the minibudget yesterday. It will take years for this loss of research and development to have a direct impact on food security in Australia, because we have a lot to spare. But it will have an effect and it will have an effect on breakthroughs that might otherwise have occurred.

So with the best will in the world I encourage the minister to redouble his efforts with his colleagues in cabinet and to remember when decisions are made that are important for the environment that food security is important as well. It is nice to be planting trees all over the place but if they substitute for productive farms then we might have a cool planet but no food to eat. So both priorities have to be taken into account.

Australian farmers have demonstrated a great capacity to adjust. When difficult circumstances come they are able to develop new farming techniques and new systems to make a world of difference. The single biggest recent impact on food production in Australia was probably the development of no-till farming. It was not done for environmental reasons at the time; it was done essentially because fuel was too expensive and people found another way in which they could farm productively. But it has meant that we are able to grow crops in times when the weather is not favourable, and it has made a huge difference both environmentally and productively in a lot of Australia’s farmland. So we can make those adjustments.

But farmers in the future may also need to move to areas where there is more rain and more water, and governments are going to have to find a way to facilitate that kind of movement. We must be prepared to support migration in agriculture and to open up new agricultural areas, particularly if some of those that have been in the traditional food bowl of Australia are no longer able to be viable because of changes in the climate. We cannot afford to let green tape and red tape and black tape and whatever other tape there might be hold up those kinds of developments. If we are going to deal with climate change and not have a food shortage, then we certainly have got to be prepared to be adaptive. If we do not allow that sort of thing to happen, we should not blame the climate for a loss of food supply. To blame will be governments for inactivity or an unwillingness to take the tough decisions. Let us not have a government-induced food security crisis. Let us work together constructively to find ways to continue to boost our productivity and be prepared to be innovative, recognising that that will mean some compromises in various places. I have great confidence in Australia’s capacity to continue to feed our population and those in other parts of the world in the years ahead. I commend the minister for his vision of the way in which that will happen and ask him to redouble his efforts to ensure that his cabinet colleagues see the wisdom of his comments.