National Food Plan
September 5, 2011
Editorial Opinion
Dear Sir/Madam
National Food Plan
The Federal Government is currently seeking submissions on a National Food Plan. The Plan will examine food policy through reviewing the whole food supply chain in Australia, protecting our food security and seek ways to maximise our food production opportunities.
I am more than happy to provide feedback on what a national food plan should cover and aim to achieve. However it would appear hard to achieve these goals when the National Food Plan issues paper is based on incorrect premises.
Page vii states” Australia produces much more food than it consumes, including almost all of its own fresh food, however as the population increases, imports are likely to complement domestic production in satisfying Australia’s food requirements, particularly in processed foods. There is therefore no foreseeable risk to Australia’s food security. However the government recognises there are long term challenges to Australia’s food supply. These challenges include a changing climate, competition for water and land, natural disasters and a slowing rate of agricultural productivity growth.”
This statement claims that as our population grows we will have to import food to ensure “satisfying Australia’s food requirements”. This statement concedes that in effect we will not be able to meet our own food needs in the future. The next statement claims that because we should be able to import foods to make up our own shortfalls, “(t)here is therefore no foreseeable risk to Australia’s food security.”
This logic is deeply flawed at a number of levels. Firstly, we already a net importer of grocery and food products in Australia (Australian Food and Grocery Council – State of the Industry 2010), and that has nothing to do with declining farm productivity or manufactured food outputs. The growth of imported foods in Australia is a consequence of their increasing competitiveness given the exchange rates and the power of the two big supermarkets with nearly 80% of combined market share.
Coles and Woolworths are both pursuing a policy of increasing their home brands, which typically consist of the cheaper imported or local and imported ingredients. The labelling laws in Australia do not allow consumers to easily identify what part or proportion of their purchase consists of imported ingredients, so even those preferring the safety of Australian home grown product find it almost impossible to make an informed purchase. Finally, Australia’s slow, expensive and inadequate anti-dumping laws fail to protect food manufacturers. Rarely can the impact from dumped imports be mitigated before there is material damage to their enterprise.
The capacities or volumes of output of Australian food manufacturers is not the factor accounting for the increase in imported food either now, or in the future. The problem is their declining capacity to compete with the cheaper imported produce, their inability to counter dumped product, the non-transparent labelling regimes, the less flexible workforce now ushered in via Labor’s new workplace re-regulation, in particular where the manufacturing has seasonal peaks and down times, weekend and night as well as normal work shifts.
The tomato sauce factory owned by Heinz at Girgarre is a classic case of what happens to Australian based food manufacturers. The story is being repeated through out Australia.
Heinz has just announced the closure of its factory with all 146 jobs to go. The factory is being relocated to New Zealand which enjoys a thirty per cent cheaper labour supply and will only have a carbon tax of $10 per tonne with concessions. New Zealand does not grow the type of tomatoes used in the sauce. Instead the paste will be imported (very cheaply) from some other place annually, probably Chile.
The Girgarre Heinz tomato sauce factory is located in the heart of tomato growing country in Northern Victoria, and the growers have been benchmarked as producing at international best practice standards. They had no problem, historically, growing enough tomatoes for the manufacturers, even during drought. They have recently suffered reductions in irrigation water access however and higher prices of water in their market because of the Rudd-Gillard Government policies that see water bought out of the farmer’s market (seriously distorting prices) with this water then diverted to environmental flow for the Murray-Darling System.
So the loss of one of Australia’s icon brands of tomato sauce has not been due to reduced farmer or factory capacity. It has nothing to do with any “slowing rate of agricultural productivity growth”. Rather it is a consequence of poor government policy including the sustained high value of the Australian dollar.
The statement that there is “no foreseeable risk to Australia’s food security” also beggars belief. The issues paper states that there are no risks, but rather some “long-term challenges”. The list of these challenges does not include the greatest short and long term challenges or risks for Australian food production, namely bio-security breakdowns, exacerbated by inadequate government funding and the compromising or replacement of strict protocols with business as usual or domestic standard measures, the risk of disease incursion is very real.
The suite of poor government policies impacting the food task in Australia includes:
· substantially and permanently reducing water access for food production, even when the environmental water needs have been shown to be met;
· inadequate investment in innovation, research and development;
· inadequate investment in agribusiness or agricultural science training;
· a failure to protect prime agricultural land from urban encroachment,
· a failure to protect prime agricultural land from ground water contamination and dewatering through unmonitored mining,
· a failure to monitor, audit or account for foreign investment in productive land and food manufacturing capacity in any state except Queensland. Hence no national interest check is being made on the location or extent of foreign investment in food production capacity from paddock to plate,
· a failure of adequate bio-security protection.
In relation to bio-security breakdowns, we have already seen disastrous outcomes with this government’s failure to adequately invest in measures to eradicate the Asian bee. Ten million dollars was required for the task, only $2million was committed. An Asian Bee containment plan is supposed to be under development in Queensland. Instead at least 60 bio-security staff have been diverted to deal with the Hendra virus issue. We are so under-funded that it seems we cannot do both.
Besides honey production, Australia depends on bees for natural pollination for its horticulture and much of its cropping. A destruction or diminution of our European bee population would massively reduce plant productivity and food security. The Asian Bee arrived in 2006-07. It is estimated it could have moved to all parts of Australia in 20 years.
Unfortunately the very recent mis-identification of the Small Hive Beetle which apparently entered Australia via the Richmond Defence Base sees it now spread as far as Beechworth, devastating commercial and wild hives. Miraculously Australia still does not have the Varroa Mite which has decimated hives in Europe, USA and New Zealand, however, given the Government’s failure to understand the rigour needed to uphold quarantine standards, it may only be a matter of time. The Asian Bee is a natural host of Varroa Mite.
Healthy bees are a key to our future food security and Australia’s healthy hive exports are also of critical importance to the productivity of many USA orchards and horticulture.
Perhaps the greatest immediate threat to our healthy hives is the likelihood that we will contract the incurable bacterial pome fruit disease Fire Blight. This risk is now greatly escalated given the decision taken some 10 days ago to allow the importation of fresh apples from diseased orchards in New Zealand, with minimum protocols or measures required to ensure the protection of Australia’s apples and pears from the bacteria. This can and is being carried in leaf litter, on insects in the boxes and many scientists argue, on or in the apples themselves.
It comes as no surprise that only 10 days after the commencement of this trade, a consignment of apples from New Zealand have been rejected by Australia on the basis of leaf litter and an insect found in the carton. The insect was a leaf curling midge, not found in Australia, and listed as a pest species to be avoided at all cost.
Bees, other flying insects and ants are the most effective carriers of the Fire Blight bacteria as they move between blossoms and trees in diseased orchards.
One of the first steps in the Australian strategy to respond to an outbreak of Fire Blight if it is detected in our orchards is the destruction of the bees in the area. Billions of dollars worth of production losses will follow. As well the use of chemicals like the immune compromising streptomycin, not currently permitted in Australia, would have to be used, as it now is in New Zealand.
Bio-security risks to Australia also include a range of other animal, plant and fish diseases. Many have the capacity to seriously erode our food production capacity. Weeds are also often cited by scientists as the greatest threat to productivity in Australia as they not only choke out commercial species, they destroy our biodiversity and natural eco-systems.
The decision to cut the budgets of those at the front line of import inspections and in-country inspections is a false economy. The decision to cut funding for research in this area is also tragically short-sighted.
Clearly there are short and long term risks as well as challenges in Australia as we face the food production task with some of the lowest rates of government assistance in the OECD. While the Australian government fails to assist the sector with adequate Research and Development support, education and training, labelling laws, fair trade regulation, workable anti-dumping regimes and adequate bio-security protection, the challenge to retain the commitment of the primary producers in this country will grow.
Already many of our food manufacturers, almost all multinationals, are finding it just too hard and are exiting to kinder economies. The impost of the carbon tax with its effect of higher inputs, in particular energy costs will hasten these exits.
We urgently need a careful consideration of the challenges and opportunities if Australia is to retain a capacity to produce clean, green and moderately priced food for the nation and for the world.
Yours faithfully
Dr Sharman Stone
Federal Member for Murray
There are currently no comments, be the first to post one.