Media Release

December 09 Principal John Mason, ACS Distance Education
For further information contact: Denise Hodges denise@acs.edu.au
P: 07 5562 1088 F: 07 5562 1099

Will Australia Starve?

 

Australia is facing the risk of a nationwide famine unless something is done to halt the haemhorrage of expertise from farming industries. Agriculture and Horticulture industries had lost around 70,000 employees in recent years (Reported by Agrifoods Skills Council Conference, in Sydney, Sept 07). Farm produce has declined, agricultural imports are increasing, and Australia’s pool of expert agriculturists is decreasing.

In September 09 the Agrifoods Skills Council issued a media release that stated: "A National AgriFood Conference in Sydney will hear that the world demand for food and fibre will double within a single lifetime, eclipsing climate change as the world's next great challenge".

 

It seems certain that in the near future we will have far fewer experts who know how to grow food. At the same time, we may also have less capacity to find food outside of Australia. As fuel costs increase, and with talk of carbon trading schemes, it may well become unfashionable, not to mention economically unviable, to replace locally grown produce with imported food.

 

So where did we go wrong? There has been a flood of negative publicity about the downturn in agriculture due to drought and global warming. It all makes for dramatic, attention-grabbing journalism but the full story is potentially quite alarming.

 

In addition to the flood of experts leaving agrarian industries, the number of students training to replace them has dropped dramatically. Enrolments are declining at many horticultural and agricultural colleges and some have even closed down. Still others are considering closing because there simply are not the student numbers to make continued operation profitable. People seem to believe there is no future in the industry after years of hearing tales of doom and gloom.

 

What does the future hold? The Australian media has been reporting steady increases in Australian food prices for years. Droughts, floods, heat waves and other unseasonal conditions have been delivering one catastrophe after another for farmers, causing interuptions to food supply and uncertainty for farm income. Experts have recently called for an increase in farming activity, and farmer training; but these calls are only repeats of alerts that have been raised repeatedly for years.

Everyone seems to know that we need to do something about training farmers, but the only thing that seems to happen is increased frequency of conferences, seminars and media articles.
No matter how much we talk about needing more trained farmers, you don't solve the problem by just talking about it.

Starvation may not be inevitable but we may have to adjust to a more limited variety of food than we are used to right now. Growing our own vegies and keeping chooks in the backyard may even become a necessity.

 

 

Perhaps now is the time to hunt down a veggie or fruit book and sign up to a garden course!