Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 5:29:59 to 5:36:24
Senators question whether domestic food production is keeping pace with Australia's significant population growth this century.
Topics: Food security, Agricultural productivity
Speakers: Hon Matthew Canavan, Matt Lowe, Miss Victoria Anderson, Senator Ross Cadell, Speaker 23
>> Um my glorious party leader who's sitting to my right started a speech at uh the other day uh eating an apple and talking about our apple dependence. What were the numbers on the apples? Can't
>> Um, we've gone from about 100 apples per person per year to 60 in this century.
>> Yeah. And that's a drop in production, not an increase in people so much on what we do there. No, >> So, what are we doing? Like we've always been proud that we could feed the bowl. We could feed these people. >> Obviously, you're looking at not just feeding food security is primarily Australia, but we're looking at what we are we becoming less able to and a lot of our security becomes we supply energy, we supply food, we it is a very good security basis for us to be >> reliant. What does that feed into your program
um in terms of kind of our ability to continue to supply food to Australia's population. Uh absolutely. It it is I guess one of the principal concerns with the food security strategy that >> and um being able to do that in the long run with kind of if you like long run um pressures on our food production and delivery systems but also short-term
shock of specifically ura and that was handled that's do with that have you modeled a longerterm non-supply or lower supply of ura on Australian farming
>> supply? No, I don't think we have, Senator. Um, we're we're certainly thinking about a range of different scenarios that could impact um Australia's food security. Um, but we haven't I don't think done a long run.
>> I mean, we we haven't modeled any long run shops. know certainly over the last few months we've thought about what the impact on Australian agriculture would be but not uh modeling a long-term sort of increase in the ura price and a structural adjustment in agriculture.
>> It's not even just how long it's when it is too on seasonal stuff isn't it so important you can't predict everything.
>> Okay. What one thing that's probably salient in relation to, you know, for example, a long a long-term structural increase in ura price is um we are um a very competitive producer and uh of of kind of agricultural commodities globally,
>> efficiency
>> and we're efficient and we're productive. Um so our farmers can afford to pay higher prices for ura in general than a lot of competing countries who produce the same commodities. So um while that's not ideal in terms of um farmers paying addition extra cost for ura um their ability to adapt and still um produce and still um remain a going concern is I think something to be really proud of in the context globally of kind and the fact that we exist in a kind of globally competitive environment for the commodities that we produce. J,
do you mind if Senator Can I tic tac on this?
>> Well, thanks. Just going back to the questions that Senator Cadell raised about population growth. You mentioned you're factoring that in, but I note that uh on the uh website for the feeding strategy under the title, why we need a food security strategy uh the department or the government lists five challenges. do say in fairness they're not limited to these five but the five that are highlighted are climate change, economic shocks, biocurity threats, geopolitical factors and supply chain disruptions. Population growth is not there and I haven't really seen uh I must say when I looked at the discussion paper a while back I didn't see a great focus on population growth. Is that something we've had a 50% increase in our population this century it's one of the fastest in the world. Is that really being factored in here about how we keep our food production uh at pace uh with the number of people uh in Australia?
>> I might start and others might might add. So, Senator, I think during that same period of population growth, we have still managed to export the vast majority of what we produce. So, I don't I don't think there's a production problem, there's been increases in efficiency and you know, due to the productivity of our farmers, we've actually kept pace with that population growth domestically such that we're still
>> That's not what the data says. the the production the the the volumes have gone up by about 30%. And population gone up by 50. >> So we're not keeping pace. >> And I also think I I worry a little >> I totally agree point at the macro level. The point I've been making in these speeches and that is we seem to not be focused on the micro level. >> Because I think uh most people don't just want to know we have enough calories. They want to have a healthy and balanced diet. And it's not that analysis does not necessarily hold for all the parts of our food supply chain. Uh some commodities like apples certainly nuts, dairy, uh we're much more precarious position >> if you take meat and grain. Sure, we're way way above, >> but I just worry sometimes we're a little bit complacent here. So are you doing that detailed analysis going down to not just at a at a total level, but also on key household staples? Have we got enough to feed ourselves?
>> Yes. So I think we are Senator going down to that. I understand the point you're making. I think at a at a macro level I was just trying to make the point we're still exporting the majority of what we produce. Not not that the proportions have increased in in line with population. But I think there's a range of factors about diet and modern diet and education and you know there's a lot of things around how people eat what they eat that are affecting you know the the things like the consumption of of fresh fruit and vegetables that we will we will be looking at. Obviously, we're the Department of Agriculture, but the Department of Health and others are part of this process. So, there's a range of contributing factors to to the way, you know, to the modern diet that I think are part of h how we're thinking about it. And we're definitely not just sort of I think I think perhaps historically it's always been pretty glib of we produce lots here as you say, a lot of it's grain and beef and you can't survive on that forever. So I think we are looking to take that into a much more nuanced sort of set of analytics about um how we're how we're how how food is not only how food is produced. Mr. Lo Surdo talked through those steps but but also h how consumers think about food and you know whether there's any gaps in in that area as well.