The filthy foreigners will cart our farms away on ships.

And we'll all be rooned.

Good article Sophie. Welcome to OLO.

We’ve also got to be very mindful of the demand side of the equation. That is; Australia's rapidly growing population, which demands ever-more food and changes the balance of exports and domestic consumption, and thus reduces export income, all else being equal.

Great article.

Let's see.

The critical thing is to change the FIRB conditions for foreign investment in food production and crop production. Ensure that what is grown here stays here, to the benefit of the Aussie population first. Limit the financial considerations.

Ask yourself. Where will "our daily" bread come from?

Wheat harvested here, pre-processed, shipped to China and imported as frozen goods to either bake in the supermarket or at home? And all that because its "cheaper"?

We also need to be mindful of climate change here. In WA's SW at least, rainfall has been and is still diminishing.

We have an issues that transcend the petty arguing our our so-called leaders.

The only bright spot is that with peak oil biting harder, there will be no way soon that the 'furriners" will be able to cart the food away.
Maybe we can find a way to replace our politicians with a new lot that actually have brains?

<when are the pollies going to catch up?>

It's not just the pollies you need to be concerned about Sophie; they are only the more visible part of the self-serving Class who rule over the rest of us.

Individual pollies come & go, but their 'parties' and those who 'manage' (control) their agendas behind the scenes live on. Same as our career public servants ...oops, sorry, EXECUTIVE Public Managers!

Driven by a lust for money, power and a privileged lifestyle for themselves and their families, these narcissistic men and women create 'strategic alliances' with their counterparts in the Australian and foreign corporate sectors, aided by the privately owned, for-profit media. Using words and phrases such as 'growth' and 'progress' and 'there is no alternative', they sell out their fellow Australians to satisify their own greed.

When are these people going to catch up? ... when they too are made redundant, placed on the dole and given plenty of time to reflect upon the true nature of the anti-social, anti-democeratic Capitalist system.

A really insightful and extremely intelligent article!
Farmers should read it and re-form/rebuild local cooperatives or farmers markets.
And wouldn't that make a pleasant change from the eternal whinge, or price taking, debt laden farmers, blowing their flamin pea-brains out; because they believe they simply don't have any other WAY OUT!
I have no beef with foreigners. Even those I have to stand upwind of, and welcome all those, who want to relocate here and bring their cash with them; to invest in Australians and their better ideas!
I just don't want them shipping/trucking my food halfway round the world at considerable cost to the environment; and then irradiating it or adding a pharmacological warehouse to it, simply to extend the shelf life?
Why?
To save a couple of centavos or keep slave labour outcomes alive and well?
Why?
To protect the bottom lines of, too big to fail, entirely heartless dehumanised tax avoiding multinationals alive and well?
This practise is being reversed in the USA, because of the tyranny of distance, ever increasing transport fuel costs and behaviour changing tax breaks, local industry is now receiving, to process/manufacture at home!
Utilising high tech and much lower costing energy options, [around a third of ours, and they do have carbon trading schemes,] which allow the most advanced nation to compete, with a dollar a day slave labour!
Cheers and hear, hear! Rhrosty.