Page 4567 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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A nationally co-ordinated food industry strategy is needed which includes sustainability regarding water, waste, energy and carbon; a focus on the protection of prime horticultural lands (particularly arable lands close to urban centres of population); key investment in research and development, innovation and labour force development and training; and on the supply chain side, a need for action on retailer domination, predatory behaviour and cost competitiveness.
The report concluded:
Government, particularly the Commonwealth, appears to be out of step with every other stakeholder in the area of food security. It appears to be complacent and unwilling, or unable, to acknowledge that food security is a serious concern.
Peak oil and peak phosphate will emerge as major issues with the declining stocks of cheap oil and rock phosphate. Peak phosphate is dubbed as the sequel to peak oil. I refer you to our MPI on peak oil earlier this year in relation to agriculture’s dependence on oil. Our modern agricultural systems also depend on phosphate fertilisers. These are obtained from phosphate rock, a finite resource with current reserves projected to be depleted this century. Phosphate rock reserves could see a global peak estimated to occur in the next 30 years. Finding alternatives will be necessary, with sustainable agriculture using significantly less fertiliser.
We will need to capitalise on any opportunities for improved efficiency throughout the system. Capturing used phosphorus in human and animal waste and in food and crop residues will need to be a part of the ACT’s waste treatment processes, and we will need functional improvements of our systems to achieve this.
Scarcity of clean water has had an impact with a decade or more of protracted drought conditions in our region. Although water restrictions have since been relaxed, we know that a longer term vision for the ACT’s water resources needs to be central to any food security plan.
Other major trends that impact on food security include soil erosion, soil fertility decline, increasing poverty, hunger and the propensity for regional epidemics of malnutrition and obesity. Domestically we are also seeing a loss of sustainable food production knowledge in the ACT with the decline of our agricultural college based activities, teachers and venues across most of our schools. This loss is also reflected in the loss of knowledgeable rural workers moving into the urban areas or retirement.
We must produce food sustainably for ourselves and exports to help meet global demand utilising clean organic waste in soils in the ACT to improve soil fertility, food production and food quality. Being the nation’s capital and a planned city the size that we are, we are well positioned to showcase best practice innovations, training and measures to improve food security in a global and local context. That challenge is before us and the price of failure is too high to contemplate.
I note that through the government’s community engagement process, time to talk, issues around food production were raised and discussed. As a consequence, I believe the government has now acknowledged that food production needs to be integrated
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