I would be more upset if the CSIRO has been doing proper research into food production rather than than just fine tuning the mantra of monoculture, fertilizer and irrigation water. It is not often recognised that the move towards farm amalgamation and the demise of the family farm has resulted in a loss of productivity as large farms are concerned with production efficiency and not total productivity. In the '50s after the 2nd world war in the UK, more food was grown in backyard veggie patches in the newly sub-urbanised war-time fields than those fields yielded during the war. This is but one example of the TLC ("tender loving care") factor. In times of food shortage, we do not need larger farms, GM crops or better fertilizers (apart from compost). Most of the CSIRO's previous research was dominated by agri-business. What would be nice now, though, would be research into drought resistant pasture mixes, smaller animals that can take advantage of reduced quality feed and, more importantly, Australia playing a role in assisting those most in need to grow their own food using permaculture and other intensive small-scale farming methods. Has the CSIRO ever done any research in this area? But of course, we forget that the I in CSIRO stands for "Industrial", which small scale farming ain't.

I agree with Countryboy for the CSIRO's funding to be set by an independent body. The CSIRO is without doubt, one of our greatest national assets and politicians with dubious religious and sectional agendas such as 'clean coal' just muddy the water.

Rudd has let slip in his Q&A debate, that he is a religious conservative - despite describing himself as the 'Garden variety kind of Christian.' Rudd is keen to impose his controversial and deluded values on us all - much as Bush has done with his presidential bans on certain initiatives in stem cell and genetic research.

It's no wonder Rudd quirkishly saluted George W, and recently awarded John W with Australia's highest honour, whilst splurging millions on World Youth Day. Rudd is no friend of science for the people. Our Prime Minister has firmly locked himself into the laughable 'clean coal' faith, despite the dismal failure to find a single suitable geological 'storage site' for liquified CO2 that can be a leakproof cavity on a geological time scale.

The recent TV series on 'Animal Pharm' has demonstrated the capacity of 'religion free' scientific research to deliver GM agricultural products that could revolutionise farming in the next millenium: vitimin A enriched golden rice, cultivated meat proteins, fast growing tuna and featherless chickns for tropical climates. These kinds of innovations are safe and have the best prospect of meeting the world food deficit.

It's a great shame that the CSRIO is not at the leading edge of GM crops that can grow in arid climates, resistant to pests and able to meet the nutritional needs of the worlds starving populations. Rudd seems content to leave GM research to the big corporates that pursue contoversial GM products - often linked to brand name pesticides - that end up costing us and the environment dearly. Sadly, we are yet to see if any worthy science policy differences have been developed by the opposition or if the Greens are prepared to embrace 'good' GM.

"There also is a looming global water crisis for food production, an emerging shortage in prime arable land, colossal rises in the cost of fertiliser and farm inputs, rampant degradation of the world’s farmlands, a 20-year decline in world agricultural science, ..."

A bit off topic, but there's no doubt that nature does it best. In our desire to replicate farming from the UK, settlers to Australia cleared the land and turned them into paddocks for grazing. It turns out that old man saltbush, which was cleared off the land by the settlers, is a hardy plant that can grow in difficult conditions and is nutritious for stock. One answer to making land use more sustainable as well as improving farming outcomes would be to replant saltbush on our farms.