Rhian, you wrote:

<< We don’t need overbearing governments or natural catastrophes to slow population growth. It’s happening anyway, through billions of individual choices. >>

It’s not happening in Australia, due to one factor; extremely high immigration, imposed upon us by successive overbearing governments of both persuasions.

<< …he points out that Australia’s population growth is slowing anyway, just like global population growth. >>

But it’s not, due to immigration, and also to the baby bonus.

<< That’s what is so offensive to those who think the way to save the world is to dictate how other people behave in the bedroom. >>

But no one is suggesting that there be government control over what happens in the bedroom in Australia. That is; restrictions on the number of children we can have.

Without the stupid baby bonus, our fertility rate would be just fine. No impositions or even any financial disincentives to have kids would be needed. Again, immigration is the overwhelming factor.

<< I don’t support population control or manipulation because I don’t think it’s necessary >>

So this means that you don’t support the baby bonus then?

It also means that you don’t support the current very high immigration rate, which is a direct manipulation of our population growth rate and overall population size?

<< I don’t care whether Australia’s population in 2099 is 25, 30, 40, 50 or 60 million, because these and all other likely numbers can easily be accommodated >>

Wow, that is quite extraordinary!

So you don’t think it should be the responsibility of government to plan for a national population size that is in line with optimum quality of life, environment and the ability of our resource base to provide all that is needed in an ongoing sustainable manner?

Michael Lardelli assembled the statistics on Australia's food production in an article for Energy Bulletin (an abridged version also appeared on OLO)

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/52706

The most important point is that we export about 60% of the grain we grow in an average year and 40% in a drought year. These maps from Dr. Chris Watson of the CSIRO show the distribution of rainfall and good soil in Australia

http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html

Apart from a few alluvial areas and areas over old volcanic hotspots, the average quality of our soil is low compared to Europe or North America, as it hasn't been renewed by mountain building or glaciation. Water is also very deficient, and global warming is a wild card in its future availability. Clapped out old soils can be made "unnaturally" productive by adding enough fertiliser, but fertiliser and other farm inputs are getting scarcer and more expensive.

The real issue is not how many people we could feed in a good year or even an average year, but how many we could get through a long, worst case drought. Nor can we rely on the world market. See the UN FAO food price index and analysis by Donald Mitchell of the World Bank

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/07/28/000020439_20080728103002/Rendered/PDF/WP4682.pdf

Mitchell blames high oil prices as the main factor, directly, by making farm inputs more expensive, but primarily by encouraging biofuels. Oil prices have just been predicted to double over the next 10 years by the IMF. The phosphate rock situation is also critical, and Australian soils are particularly low in phosphate. See the following links for prices and analysis of the situation.

http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/phosphate-rock/all/

http://www2.gtz.de/Dokumente/oe44/ecosan/en-impact-of-supply-and-demand-on-the-price-development-of-phosphate-2009.pdf

Those high food prices have been responsible for land grabs around the world, as food importing countries start to panic, and also for the buying up of agricultural land in Australia by various foreign interests.

Saltpetre

Do you think there was no famine, war or conflict when the global population was a few billion less.

How much difference will it make if Australia’s population reaches 40 not by 30 million by 2099?

Like you I hope, our sort of freedom can be brought to the world’s trouble spots. I just don’t think we’ll achieve it by global coercion, or by changing Australia’s birth rates.

Ludwig
Migration doesn’t raise global population, it just rearranges it. And changing tax and benefits to discourage children IS government meddling in people’s choices about their families. I agree with you about the baby bonus, though, for the same reason.

There is a world of difference between governments adjusting migration and controlling fertility.

No, I don’t think government should plan for a particular population size. No-one knows what population would deliver the “optimum quality of life, environment and the ability of our resource base”. And citizens should be free to make their own choices about fertility without government inducements or penalties. The only part of the demographic equation government should manage is the immigration flow. And what its does with migration is what you advocate – trying to balance economic, social and environmental costs and benefits.

Divergence
Australia could easily import food in the extremely unlikely event that we produced less than we eat. Globally, many countries rely on imports to top up domestic food production. The idea we cannot have a population higher than could be supported “through a long, worst case drought” is silly.

Your grain production stats are also misleading. In a drought year grain exports might be less than domestic consumption (we still export 40% of production), but most domestic grain consumption is animal fodder, and much of our animal products are destined for exports. Presumably in the eco-apocalypse you anticipate we wouldn’t be feeding grain to cattle and then shipping them to Asia.

It’s true that China is looking to improve its food security by buying agricultural land. But I can’t think of any war or “land grab” that can be attributed to food shortages.

Rhian,

I wonder whether you even looked at my links or bothered to think ahead.

People may not be rabbits, but they have shown a remarkable ability to collapse their own societies, often because they overexploited their environment or let safety margins get too thin. A good source on this is "Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations" by Prof. David Montgomery (Soil Science, University of Washington).

Do you seriously think that a doubling in the (already very high) price of oil or skyrocketing prices for phosphate rock and potash (supplying elements essential for every living cell) will make no difference to our agricultural production? Are you prepared to bet your children's future that the scientists are wrong about the possible disruptive effects of all the greenhouse gases we are dumping in the atmosphere? You say that "we could easily import food", but you do realise that we would be competing with the world's poor so that we can keep more people at an Australian standard of living?

From Lardelli's article, we do export about 70% of our red meat, but this is mostly from grass-fed sheep and cattle. Only about 30% of cattle are grain finished (for a relatively short time). Grain is fed to pigs (50% consumed domestically) and to chickens (95% consumed domestically). Our food exports are important for necessary imports, such as the oil and phosphate rock that we need for our agriculture. We could, of course, support a larger population if we forced the lower orders onto a limited vegetarian diet, but why should they put up with it without revolting?

Land grabs are a very real phenomenon, motivated by high and volatile prices of food and concerns about food security. (Otherwise, why not just buy what you want on the world market and let others take the risks?) They have led to riots and revolts. There is good evidence that the civil war in Rwanda was over food security, as arable land holdings declined towards the minimum necessary to survive. See Prof. E. O. Wilson's article in the latest Discover magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_grabbing

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3955006.html

Why do the Pop-growthers keep harping on about food production as "The" measure of capacity for Australia? Food production is just one input into Australia's balance of trade, and offsets the value of goods and services imported. With more people, surely more of the food production is consumed locally, thus reducing its contribution to the trade balance? Perhaps the growthers envisage a future for Australia where everyone grows their own food on little plots of land Pol Pot style? But this view would contradict Cheryl's weird view of population growth as an essential component of Capitalism.

I am treating this article, and most of the resultant comments, as a joke. (Funny, if it wasn't so serious.)

Please do whatever you like in your own bedrooms and cesspits, as long as it is between consenting adults (physical and mental age 18+ preferably), and leave the principles which are the foundation of genuine marriage alone. This is Australia, not Sodom and Gomorrah. Thankfully.

Prefer some other 'libertarian' culture? Please, feel free, don't let any decent folk hold you back. Well, what's stopping you?

>>Secretary of the "Family Council of Victoria"<<??

This must be one very strange organisation (or just very badly misnamed) - perhaps like the 'Forest Protection Society' (or some similar title), which is actually the lobby group (or spokesperson) for the loggers of heritage listed old-growth forests.