Saltpetre, I have been thinking about how to answer your request for
how we should proceed.
I have heard one comment today on selling the farms to foreign govt buyers.
For arguments sake a Chinese government organisations buys up 10 or
15 farms, as they have done and wants to ship out a wheat harvest.
However the available wheat due perhaps to drought is insufficient to
feed ourselves and the govt puts a ban on exports.

However the Chinese govt orders the wheat to be exported anyway and they do so.
Will the Australian govt issue an arrest warrent for the head of the Chinese govt ?
This is a real issue which should be raising some concerns in many countries.
It may not be as dramatic as that, perhaps they might bring in animals
that turn out to have foot & mouth or a crop disease in seed.
I just suspect that this has not had any attention.

Yabby,
Trade (originally) meant you export something you have plenty of, and then import something you don’t have.

That was originally, but the system has become rather contorted.

If we form a co-operative trade agreement with another country, we would be required to show that the products that we are exporting to them are of suitable quality, and are sustainable.

When they export something to us, they must show that the products are of suitable quality, and are sustainable.

A dual edged sword, and it means that this trade between countries can go on forever, and the countries enjoy good relations with minimal possibility of war or conflict.

However, such a system would not be suitable for multinationals who favour a trash and burn method of trade, going from one country to the next, in a continuous search for a new country to plunder.

I also wonder if the Billy bookcase company showed you how many instrumentation fitters, systems analysts, PLC programmers, mechanical fitters and electricians they employ to remove people from the production line, and replace them with automation. I've worked with all of them, and don’t be fooled by a company that says it is fully automated.

No such thing.

Vanna, so why should exports be treated any differently then products
produced for the local market?

The problem with your idea is that the whole thing would bog down
over the word "sustainable". No mining exports, eventually the
minerals will run out. No agriculatural exports, eventually
the minerals in the soil will run out. No manufacturing exports,
eventually the energy systems which we currently use will run out.

Lawyers would have a feast with your laws and would be the only
ones landing up making a quid.

Of course automated factories have technical staff or contractors to
keep the systems going, I took that as a given. But technology is
also constantly improving, so what was a problem becomes less so.
The fact remains that when automated systems are going well, they
can dramatically reduce the cost of production. They don't pay
people peanuts in Sweden, yet they can still grow the wood,
knock out those Billy bookcases and ship them around the world,
retail them here, all for an extremely affordable price to the consumer.
No wonder consumers flock to Ikea.

Yabby,
"The problem with your idea is that the whole thing would bog down over the word 'sustainable'."

The whole world will bog down if it isn’t sustainable.

There are now too many people, and if a country tries to exist by getting hold of another country’s resources, then eventually both countries can go down.

As for automation, been there done that, and we tried everything from advanced multifunction controllers (IE parallel computing), to AI systems that were incorporated into the process control loops and reporting systems.

Automation is still limited as to what it can do, but the biggest stuff-ups I saw where with management decision making, and they decided to invest money in projects that were not viable over the long term.

That is, these projects were not sustainable.

The reasons why the last GFC occurred are an example of what I am talking about on a larger scale.

*There are now too many people,*

I fully agree with you Vanna, so you are preaching to the converted.
It is for this reason that I have been preaching family planning
for everyone in the world, since I was a student in the 70s.
But given that the world does not seem to care, I am not about
to have sleepless nights about it. Reality will hit them one day,
perhaps well after I've fallen off the old perch.

*As for automation, been there done that*

Where you have been Vanna, others are still going and they are some
of the world's most successfull corporations. They continue to go
there, with great results, despite all the difficulties. That is
the reality of it and as technology keeps improving, I doubt if it
will slow down.

Yabby,
I have used parallel processing (16 cpu chips operating at once in the same box), artificial intelligence, relational databases, elaborate trending and reporting systems, and even hot off the press beta software to get more productivity out of SCADA or process control systems.

In most processes, there still remains a need for manual supervision, and in some processes, there requires considerable manual intervention and manual override to get the most out of the process.

I know of a factory that was automated to specifications, but that factory went bust and will probably be sold shortly.

Why?

A series of draughts wiped them out, but the draughts weren’t so bad, it was the cost of pumping water.

Sustainability is more important that automation.