"agricultural ministers now have "food security" somewhere in their title.. this is egregious nonsense which, hopefully, will not last."

Yes, Curmudgeon, yesterday my wife heard of the existence of the "Department of Broadband", which prompted her to cry "Department of Broadband! What next? A Department of Flat-Screen TVs?"

"The fact that 80 per cent of our diet comes from local farms, as opposed to 90 per cent 10 years ago............."

Does it? Dr Mark McGovern of Qld UofT claims that Australia exports only about 25% of its agriculture at second-stage production, not 80% as has so often been supposed.

L.B. Loveday - I was just quoting what was said in the article and I am prepared to be guided on this point, but I have looked at export and import stats for both processed and unprocessed foods.. which happened to be on my desk. In 09-10 we imported $23.23 billion worth of food, processed and unprocessed, and imported $10.7 billion.. that's proably a fair indication of what's happening than the 25 per cent of processed food figure.. (DFAT Composition pof TRade, Australia 2009-10).

Happened to see other stats while I was looking for the export figures and its clear that a lot of farm land in Australia is falling out of production. It would be the more marginal areas, but the trend has been going on for a decade now. I know some of it is reverting to forest.. That fact alone makes a mockery of the food security business,. difficult to see that there would be a problem..

This 60% keeps being put out I believe it is one product only grains.

We cannot just live on bread.

We are a net importer of all other food including fish.

"I was just quoting what was said in the article and I am prepared to be guided on this point"

C,

Me too - I have no personal knowledge and that's why I did not state it as a "fact" as you did (another stated "over 60%", again without citing the source); my article is from News Weekly, which I've come to trust.

They are trying to commission a research project, to be headed by Dr McGovern, into Aust food security. The article is at:

http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2011may14_cover5.html

"That fact alone makes a mockery of the food security business".

I suggest Dr McGovern and others would disagree. Who is right? I've not done enough research to confidently form an opinion, and doubt I will.

*that Australia exports only about 25% of its agriculture at second-stage production*

Well yes, because most of it goes out as commodities, at first
stage. Boatloads of wheat, oats, barley, sugar, canola, etc.

*We are a net importer of all other food including fish.*

Nonsense. One of our biggest exports is meat.