I attended the Global Food Security Public Forum at the Customs House last night. What can one say? Outstanding food and drinks in cocktail setting afterwards. Huge plates of king prawns and oysters and sushi.
Australians will pay more for food for sure. There is huge excitement from National Farmers Federation about the export potential for Australian food. Are they worried about the Chinese buying up Australian farmland? No – “investment” not seen as a problem. They don’t even seem particularly concerned about urban sprawl on good farmland calling it (literally) “the farmers’ superannuation policy”.
Speakers were Malcolm Duthie David Crombie (President National Farmers Federation) Dr Jagjit Plahe (expert on WTO Intellectual Property Rights in relation to food) and Julian Cribb.
The last 2 get my vote for best speakers. Julian Cribb was terrific. He has just published a book “The Coming Famine: the global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it.” His thoughts are clear powerful organised and provide hope to go forward with a clear action plan. We will buy his book.
They say that climate change academics have a vested interest in research funding. It was hard to avoid the thought last night (this was a University of Queensland Global Change Institute event) that agricultural scientists are touting for a lot more research dollars. National Farmers Federation is also placing research at the top of its agenda.
The National Farmers Federation President started with a spiel that didn’t outright deny climate change but questioned whether humans had anything to do with it. He didn’t mention peak oil or peak phosphates at all in his calculations about the future. His line is that the economic growth in Asia is shifting consumer demand there to red meat dairy and fresh foods and this is ‘good news for Australians’. I think he clearly means for farmers producing red meat dairy and fresh foods.
Australian farmers got a big tick for their efficiency and their skills in dealing with dryland farming drought and flood which will be high value skills as drought is on the march big-time across the grain-producing regions of the world.
Hunger is on the march worldwide. It is the number one killer on the planet now killing more people daily than malaria TB AIDS combined. It is a silent tsunami.
The World Trade Organisation and a handful of huge multinationals tightly control world food. Monsanto Syngenta ADM Louis Dreyfus Bunge Cargill Du Point Bayer Nestle Kraft Foods Unilever Pepsico WalMart Carrefour Metro Tesco.
The world’s traditional foods are being scoured in a mad ‘gold rush’ at the moment to patent. In 2 and a half years 710 patents have been granted on foods in Idia (481 to foreigners).
We won’t have enough water to feed ourselves by 2030 (JG).
World arable land is degrading at 1%/years. Peak phosphorous is now past. We will see fertilisers become scarce and very expensive.
We haemorrhage nutrients out of our food chain and it is critically urgent to capture them back into it. Our cities need to turn into huge mines for water and nutrients.
Julian Cribb wants the world’s diet redesigned to one that takes less energy to produce and doesn’t kill the people who consume it.
He is calling for a “food year” for every school on the planet to focus on food how it is produced to teach a new respect for this precious thing that keeps us alive.
He is calling for a “world war on food waste”. Stop trashing food. Stop wasting food. Stop putting food in the bin. Our ancestors would have been appalled (we are – we grew up on ‘Waste not want not’ and ‘Eat the food on your plate.’) In the Western world we currently throw away half the food we produce.
Agriculture is defence spending. The world currently spends $1.5trillion/year on weapons. Start spending some of this on food security. Many of the wars and conflicts in the world are at core about food and water supply.
We need to give farmers a pay rise. They do a hugely important job manage 40% of the world’s land three quarters of its potable water and a big amount of its atmosphere and wildlife.