Australians are now complaining about the rising price of food, not that the shelves are empty.
The issue is price. Australians have been able to purchase cheap food for many years only because the farmers have been able to increase productivity. A cattleman today would need to sell three times as many cattle to buy a basic Holden car as he did in the 1950's. This cost increase applies to everything a farmer uses - machinery, fuel and labour.
Many Australian graziers and farmers can no longer afford to pay staff wages to work their properties, relying on their wives or children to assist them. In the 1940's rural people constituted 40% of the voting population. Due to the drift to the cities, today the rural vote only consists of 7% of the Australian population.

So what are the issues.
The farmer in Australia must receive a higher price for his food product.
The farmer in Australia must be able to access labour. Farmers growing vegetables and fruits often can't get labour, itinerant workers, at the time their crop ripens
Excess Australian food must be sold into other countries.
Most Australian country people are productive and efficient managers of their farms, but are price takers, not marketers.

Australia is capable of more than doubling production of foods, as are other countries like the USA. I believe that at this moment there is no shortage of food in the world, rather an inability of the poor to reach a source of food, purchase food or preserve the food they grow.
Rising incomes in China means that more grain will be diverted to protein production for those who can afford to eat meat.
Rising fuel prices in Australia will mean that more grain will be diverted to ethanol production for those who can afford to drive cars.

1. Pay farmers a realistic price for their produce, which will raise the living standards of rural families all over the world.
2. Enable the poorer countries to preserve their foods so they don't rot before reaching hungry mouths.
3. Arrange transportation of food

Rural Australia is experiencing a labour crisis. Around 100,000 jobs are waiting to be filled. The drought, and a booming mining industry have seen many farmers leave the land, and left many towns struggling to make do with what little skilled labour is left.
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2006/s2206925.htm

With many Australian farmers forced to leave the land it is time to put more priority into Agribusiness. How can we change our agricultural practices if we do not have the labour to do the necessary work? If necessary we should encourage migrant workers

The National Farmers Federation is " calling on the Australian Government to adopt our Workforce from Abroad Employment Scheme and move quickly in addressing this clear and present need – in doing so, delivering benefits to regional Australia, employees and their countries, alike.”

Link: http://www.nff.org.au/read/2451018723.html

Mr. Cribb. You wouldn't happen to be an economist by any chance? I only ask because of the last few lines of your article which states....

"It is also an opportunity like none other for renewal of the natural world, for economic and rural growth, for the relief of human misery and for developing a sustainable basis for civilisation as a whole."

In particular, you mentioned "economic and rural growth" which is very economist biased.

The main consensus of your article is quite correct. Humanity is in big trouble, although we've brought it on ourselves by out breeding our planets ability to provide the necessary food and agriculture to fill 6.7 billion hungry bellies. 9 billion by 2050 if we keep heading down this path to oblivion.

Sorry if I'm wrong, but you sound like someone who believes that throwing more money at a problem can not only fix that problem, but provide a springboard for economic gain at the same time.

When will you people begin to discuss the real problem and that is, humanity can't continue to breed like maggots on a carcass, because eventually, all the meat will be gone and the maggots who are left will starve.

I might also add that the World Bank and it's ilk are one of the major causes of World wide hunger. Their model is also to breed in sufficient numbers to keep the economy ticking over in order to line their greedy pockets.

Time for a new way Mr. Cribb. We have to step off the gravy train of greed and settle into a more mundane and nature friendly way of living. We must legislate to prevent over population instead of offering ridiculous 'baby bonuses.' We have to work to end the slavery and addiction to material things of little real value. Then we might, just might have time to avert a tragedy. But we'd better hurry.
Aime.

The “…the cheap food many of us still enjoy…” is not regarded as being cheap by many consumers; the alarming increases in the price of food over the last decade in Australia have nothing to do with agriculture, or droughts, or climate change. They come as a direct result of the greed of the two major supermarket chains that get it both ways: cheaper (and unhealthy) processed food from China, plus deliberate increasing of margins.

And, it is not “modern civilisation” that is “unsustainable”; it is populations in Australia and the rest of the world that are unsustainable. There is not enough food because there are too many people. The Sahara Desert was once a wheat bowl; the rest of that continent, thanks to over-population and the stupidity of giving aid for more people to breed, will eventually be all desert. So will Australia, if we don’t concentrate on feeding ourselves and putting exports of surpluses way down the list. We have no obligation to feed the rest of the world. We must produce less –enough for ourselves – and rejuvenate the environment

In response to Mr Right Wing, Australia doesn't export food for humanitarian reasons, it exports it to support our rural industry and make useful foreign exchange for the nation.

Comments on population are correct, unless people are advocating limiting population by starving them out of existence. The debate has to be coupled to ethical policy responses.

The population debate is real enough, though also a smokescreen for many in the rich world who are harping on about the insatiable hoards only because resource scarcity is threatening our consumer way of life.

The average rate at which people consume resources (like oil and metals) and produce wastes (like plastics and greenhouse gases) is about 32 times higher in the Western world compared to the developed world. In other words, if everyone gobbled up resources like we do it would be as if the world population was now 72 billion people.

Please do talk about population, but please keep it in a rational context.

(For those who would like to explore this, go to http://www.thestoryofstuff - a real eye opener.)

BINGO ... the overwhelming problems facing humanity is more to do with (un)sustainable development, all else follows.

Problem is ... can we (from diverse cultures, political, economic, social and educational perspectives) work together to solve a threat that will affect us all?

Julian, I wouldn’t hold out much hope of Australian farmers becoming custodians of the land . .cleansing the waters. The Australian Farmer’s Federation are a dystopian bunch of fundamentalists and climate change sceptics.
They have spent the last two hundred years ruining our farmland and are now demanding subsidies to decamp to northern Australia and ruin it too.
As to the poor and starving of the world, nobody gives a rat’s, if they have anything left it will be taken from them by the rich and powerfull . .
Witness …
The Chinese in Tibet
The Jews in Palestine
The Americans in Iraq
Nice sentiments, but I don’t think so.

Those of you who continually harp on about unsustainable economic activity and carry on about corporations are going to change nothing.

Corporations cannot starve to death, they are adaptable and will continue to thrive while a third of the worlds population starves.

What can we do? ... I don't know ... but keep talking and Kev might arrange a summit to come up with a few bright ideas.

Heres a fresh idea. Garden waste to replace oil. Every weekend in every Queensland suburb families can be seen carting truck loads of wasted yard greenery to the local tip. The most obnoxious of this mix are the tonnes of palm fronds that need somewhere to rot. This mountain of suburban tripe takes up valuable space in our waste repositories and as it slowly degrades releases tonnes of that despicable noxious gas, CO2.
Since this stuff consists of carbon based fibrous material would it not make sense to kill three or four birds with the one stone. Convert it into cellophane and ultimately packaging and other structural materials that would otherwise be made from oil.
Ah lets put that silly idea away, we've got bigger problems to deal with, like rising fuel and food prices and global warming and so forth. That's the problem. Australians have a status quo that takes about thirty years for anything to happen. It's like the idea of recycling grey water. A smart idea that was quickly put to bed. We deserve what we get.
And also why do so many Australian suburban yards get full of useless palm trees but no fruit trees. And they have the hide to whinge about the price of food.

Great, timely article. Julian Cribb may not be aware, though, that Australia (together with Canada and USA - and possibly the UK) were the only countries that did not accept the IAASTD report i.e. it declined to support its findings saying "Australia cannot agree with all assertions and options in the report." This is, in effect, to reject the thorough scientific assessment, carried out over 4 years by 400 scientists. The 'assertions' it refers to are scientifically derived 'findings' that were peer reviewed twice. Does Australia reject inconvenient science? Not much hope for young Australian scientists if the government rejects the IAASTD advice.

Australia made it clear that its negotiating mandate in the final plenary that approved the report was to spike the assessment and ensure that Australia can continue with business as usual - i.e. the coporate dominated, agrochemical-dependent food and agriculture system now peppered with GMOs and 'race to the bottom' free trade - the cause of the current problems.

Julian Cribb is optimistic: "If ever there was a beacon to draw gifted young Australians in search of a life's mission back into science or agriculture, this would have to be it." But with a myopic government, what hope for their future?

Australia, with few friends, will isolate itself and go hungry, if it does not radically transform its domestic and international food, trade and farming policies to support local, more organic and smaller scale farming in all countries - the solution to restore health to our global farming systems, as the IAASTD concludes. The droughts across the country are a warning shot.

I am in complete agreement with Julian Cribb's argument that we are living on our national capital. It is probably more correct to say we are mining our land. For example,each year we export up to 7 million sheep to the Middle East. How much loss of soil, water, etc does that loss represent?

One serious omission in Julian Cribb's article is his assumption that we will continue to consume meat and animal-based products into the distant future. If this is the case, we are inviting disaster. It is a luxury we cannot afford if we wish to conserve water, our soils, trees and other species. I am in my 70s and maintain good health on a diet of soy-based products, whole grains, fruit and vegetables.

As for those who write disrespectfully of human beings as 'maggots feeding on a rotting carcase', they don't know what they are talking about. People are hungry because the developing world exports grains that it could feed its people. Visit Woolworths and you will find the shelves stacked with rice and other grains imported from countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey. People go hungry because they are too poor to purchase food.

Just more empty words from a mediocre thinker.

If all these scientist (of any old persuasion) were to address the issue of global population, the sustainability and climate change issues would disappear,

I see our resident scientific wannabe has proclaimed “Bingo” in accord, presumably with the author, to display his own failure to see the elephant in the room.

Fix (find a way of reversing) the population explosions in third world countries and the world will need:

Less food, resulting in cheaper prices

Reduce pressure on deforestation, fish stocks, international substainability.

Less government interference in your sovereign rights.

That sounds like the germ of a plan which might produce real outcomes, rather than all the other bulldust which will only produce soft grants for wannabe scientists to parade their egos around on

Maggie S,
I agree grain fed beef will be limited in the future, however since most of the land on earth is unsuitable for cultivation, there will always be a place for grazing animals. They will continue to be an important source of food, if not an essential source.

Imperial, I think you really mean the National Farmers Federation, what difference their views on climate change(or society) make I don't know, but you're telling the story. The NFF president may however disagree with your "sceptic" synopsis.
http://www.nff.org.au/read/2433921808.html

I'm guessing you don't know many farmers if you believe they aren't custodians of the land. I'm not so sure city planners have been anywhere near as concerned about land and water resource constraints.

An interesting URL from the BBC, discussing rice production in
Ghana.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7350856.stm

The story kind of highlights some of the problems in the third
world. Whilst it has been cheaper to import cheap overseas food,
why bother to grow it at home? As they say themselves, its
about attitude, as much as anything.

The thing is, with our food production methods, in the past they
have relied on cheap oil, gas, phosphates, potash etc. They are
no longer cheap. Mining the soil for nutrients, is not a long
term option and not sustainable. Farmers won't grow increasing
amounts of food, unless it is profitable.

Many markets can in fact afford higher grain prices and the raw
materials are only a small % of the final cost of food. Why
should say the ME, which is rolling in billions of $ from high
oil prices, not pay more for grain etc?

It should not be the role of farmers either, to subsidise food
for the poor. Wealthy Govts seem to have plenty of money for
EU/US farm subsidies, buying military hardware etc. They are free
to subsidise cheap food for poor countries, so that all taxpayers
contribute, not just farmers

Rojo, I think the NFF president is one of a small minority. In his article, Julian was proposing to give farmers the role of custodians of the land, my point is they have had 200 years of stuffing it up. Julian’s proposal is like giving the job of rebuilding Rome to the Vandals.

Rojo,

you are correct in stating that most of the world's land is suitable only for grazing. This fact does not negate my statement. Cattle are increasingly fed with grains that should be directly consumed by humans. Even in Australia, cattle are 'finished' in feed lots for up to three months, many of them owned by Japanese companies, who require the (fat) marbled meat desired by Japanese meat eaters.

Another issue is the huge amount of water used to sustain cattle. From memory, I think the ratio of water necessary to produce a kilo of grain is about one-tenth the amount needed to produce a kilo of
beef.

Technological fixes are not enough to solve Africa's crop problems
Solutions should come primarily from within the continent, not from outsiders, says Chris Wardle

A relevant article from today's UK Guardian newspaper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/06/food.internationalaidanddevelopment

(abridged version pasted below)

[The] suggestion that Africa needs a green revolution along the lines of Asia, with the implied emphasis on technological solutions, is too simplistic. We need a change in the approach to rural development.
Certainly, a lot of aid was spent on agriculture in the 70s and early 80s. This failed, not so much because of "the self-interest on the part of western donors and advisers", but because the large-scale rural development projects, funded by the EU and others, did not consult local peasant farmers. They were imposed from the top down. Often the technologies promoted were inappropriate - such as reliance on fertiliser which was frequently unavailable - and not suited to local conditions.

But the current failure in food production goes much deeper than this. All over Africa, peasant farmers are mono-cropping their staple food simply to have enough food to feed their families. This practice is unsustainable as it impoverishes the soil, leading to declining yield and lower production.

Over the past 15 years, sizeable areas in Ethiopia, Uganda and Malawi transformed from being dependent on food aid to producing more than enough food. The key is a concerted investment of three to five years that directly involves the peasant farmers. They identify their food production problems and suggest possible solutions. As a result they have a sense of ownership in initiatives to improve production.

Emphasis is placed on promoting sustainable practices such as crop diversification and rotation, using nitrogen-fixing crops (such as beans, which are high in protein) to improve the soil. The farmers are also encouraged to create simple organisations, such as farmers' groups, that allow them to continue activities by themselves.

…technological fixes are not enough: solutions should come primarily from within Africa itself

To all those posters barking about the population problem, be of good cheer, a solution has been found.
It’s called ‘wealth’.
For several decades now, it has become evident that population density and starvation do not necessarily go hand in hand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
As one enlightened soul on Al Gore,s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ put it: “the best birth control is simply knowing your children are going to survive”. Or another, one of the first (Saudi, I think from memory) OPEC oil ministers on asked about the difference oil made to his country: “we were very poor. The common practice was to have 6 or 7 children, in the hope that 1 or 2 might survive”.
In every country where infant mortality has been reduced to less than 4%, populations have achieved close to zero, or even negative growth, putting aside immigration.
No one would deny the common sense of regulating population to available resources, yet countries like Japan and Monaco seem to manage very well, thanks very much. Nevertheless, the facts are clear. It is poverty, not population, that is the greatest killer in the world today.
In fact, -and rather horrifyingly- the greatest killer in the world today is not aids, or cancer, or even war.
It is gastro-enteritis.
If we do not address this shocking state of affairs, I fear a war that will make the so called ‘Great’ wars look like pub brawls, is inevitable.

"Julian, I wouldn’t hold out much hope of Australian farmers becoming custodians of the land . .cleansing the waters."

Touche Imperial. It is well documented that our imprudent method of farming this arid land has resulted in soil degradation, salinity, depletion of our water resources and our native fauna and an overload of agricultural chemicals which have trashed our eco-systems and public health. And yet the bugs remain triumphant.

The South West of WA is now officially one of the most threatened environmental hotspots on the planet.

No worries that our farmers have converted to factory farming. Battery hens by the millions. Pigs, goats, cattle and sheep crammed into trucks to be transported thousands of kilometres around the nation.

A 2007 UN report says the spread of large scale intensive livestock production is threatening the world's genetic diversity and that corporate Australia is one of the prime offenders.

And yet our meat industry is spending millions of dollars of taxpayers money in PR overseas to increase live exports to developing countries, for short term economic gains for an avaricious and irresponsible livestock industry.

On the way, a couple of million of these chemically laden critters, diseased and dying, have been dumped overboard into the ocean, contaminating marine life.

Those couple of million dead animals could have been slaughtered in this country and fed to a substantial number of humans.

And now anything supported by four legs in Australia is transported around the world live. Camels, goats, deer, sheep, cattle etc. Many succumb to a watery grave on the way.

As a result of factory farming, humans in the West are now threatened with zoonotic diseases. Globally, deaths and sickness from animal contagions are on the increase. The majority of epidemics are now of animal origin.

Mother Nature objects as we move ourselves closer to the precipice.

This nation's farming practices and our sycophantic, captive governments, will force us to learn the hard way. Distance is no longer an obstacle to these pathogens (many insidious) and perhaps in the not too distant future, it may be every man for himself.

Imperial, stuffing it up- because every hecatare is not untouched remnant vegetation? because decades ago decisions were made that resulted in salinity? Because drought has denuded pasture? How exactly is this stuffing up occuring?

Or do you mean decisions made by govt's on water allocations, clearing encouragements/stipulations?

If farmers aren't currently custodians of the land who is?

All the things farmers have done, do, and will continue to do is for you the consumer. 20 million people don't simply exist here without farmers, and without environmental impact. Aust farmers can give up farming if you're happy to give up eating.

As the president of NFF, wouldn't it be a tad unusual to totally misrepresent his members? Perhaps you could provide some examples of NFF's general scepticism.

Maggie, I didn't intend to negate your statement, only to say that meat will continue to be highly important part of the human diet into the distant future. Even without feed grains.

You are quite correct that it takes lots more water to produce meat than grain, but that rainwater isn't depriving grains of water on land that won't support grains. Humans just don't eat grass, they require an intermediary like cows and sheep.

Unfortunately you won't be able to buy much Aust rice this year, but you make a good argument for buying Australian produce when we can.

please substitute meat for rainwater in my last paragraph. ie the water that falls as rain on non-arable soil is not going to be helpful to grain production.

The main reason for food shortages, although greed and stupidity also contribute, is that most of humanity is and always has been in a Malthusian trap. Technological advances occur, then population grows to eat up the surplus and restore the customary level of misery. The growth spurt ends, in such societies, when the market for labour collapses, i.e., the ratio of usable resources to people has fallen to the point that not even child slave labour can produce enough to pay for itself. If they avoid collapse, people then find ways, often very brutal, to limit their numbers. The high living standards enjoyed by ordinary people after the Black Death were not matched until the late 19th century, despite more than 500 years of progress, as explained in the lecture on the 14th century in the Radio National Thousand Years in a Day series (2000). The link gives part of a decree of Edward III in 1351, ordering people to work for the same wages as before the epidemic

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/statute.html

By the early 20th century, malnutrition was again so widespread that the British Army had to lower its minimum height requirement (see Barbara Tuchman's history, "The Proud Tower").

We got out of the trap because, in addition to progress, our elites introduced policies (for economic and public health reasons) that made big families expensive, unnecessary, and easily avoidable: compulsory education, civil rights and economic opportunities for women, old age pensions, a (mostly) trustworthy financial system, modern contraception, sanitation and vaccinations so the babies you do want live, etc. Help that doesn't get people out of the trap is ultimately worthless, and degrading your natural capital to raise production now is worse than worthless. There are twice as many Ethiopians now as when Bob Geldof launched his appeals in the famine of the early 1980s. Is it really our fault if they are still hungry?

*There are twice as many Ethiopians now as when Bob Geldof launched his appeals in the famine of the early 1980s. Is it really our fault if they are still hungry?*

Divergence, our religious nuts certainly share part of the blame.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3028820.stm

tells you a bit as to what has been going on in Ethiopia. Its
pointless sending them food, vaccines, etc, if family planning is
not dealt with properly. Many of these women would choose to have
less children, given the chance. Some of our religious organisations
make sure, that they are not given that chance.

I recently saw a documentary on Nigeria. The Western female
journalist was quite shocked. On her first day, talking to tribal
women, 4 of them offered to give her their babies. Many of them
simply can't cope with all those children, but without proper
family planning, that is not going to happen.

Empower these women with family planning of their choice, I think
you would be amazed at the difference.