I set off to get a better picture of what’s going on in the world. Are we about to embark on a period of population growth that is going to provide great opportunity for farmers in Australia, and if so what challenges will impede this opportunity?
I travelled through many countries and had presentations from an impressive list of speakers from around the world. They included leading farmers, politicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, trade negotiators, lawyers, activists, and food processors. I had presentations about the growing demand in China and India. I met with agriculture ministers from India looking for new research. I heard how Africa has enormous potential and saw the capacity and potential in South America. I saw the challenges and developments in irrigation districts in California and Mexico. I saw millions of tons of vegetables grown in glass houses and across vast acreages of the landscape in many countries. I looked at bio digesters, wind farms, and toured plants that turned human waste into bacteria free water for use in growing fresh vegetables. I discussed yield potential, rainfall, land prices, community values and environmental challenges with people from all walks of life in developing and westernized countries alike.
I found that it’s true. There are great opportunities for farmers in Australia to be part of the challenge to feed the world and meet this immense demand for food that the increasing wealthy will need. Brazil is a great example of this as this country has seen a 20% increase in people who have shifted out of poverty into a middle class in the last 10 years. This trend is set to continue and maybe at a more rapid pace.
The concept of less land to produce food on was evident too. The amount of hill sides across landscapes on the outskirts of towns that had house on top of house is truly a sight we just don’t see in Australia. (I’ll up load a photo of this to try to give you the perspective I’m referring to)
Yes I saw plenty to evidence that we are going to have to feed more people who can now afford food that they couldn’t before afford and there is not the room in other countries, like there is in Australia.
We hear South America has loads of potential. However my conclusion is they are not interested in adapting to the culture needed to ramp up efficiencies. They will produce lots but they will consume lots too. Africa too has great potential too. But it’s really evident that Australia is in a prime position to be part of the world food production challenge. Australia is reputed to be world leaders in agriculture. This was a common statement offered as I travelled. I was surprised to hear this from people in places like California, Scotland and in fact most countries I visited. Places that I thought would be far ahead of us. However our dynamic operating conditions, free trade environment and the investment we have made in research and education of our farmers, for many years has evidently paid dividends. This again supports the statement that we are well positioned to meet the food challenge head on.
I see this as another good reason for Australia to be an integral player in the challenge as we are further along the learning journey to be able to responsibly meet the environmental challenges ahead.
There are two things I found that will challenge this opportunity. The first is our significant disconnect with community that has widen to such a degree that it may threaten our ability to harness the opportunities. The second is farmer’s ability to get organised to capture the opportunity in the form of a return that justifies the costs of inputs and labour. (I will not discuss this second point here now)
The disconnect
All through the western world I heard of the challenge of a westernised society that doesn’t understand the relevance of modern day farming practices. The greater amounts of people that are being fed today through world agriculture have determined that the style of farming has had to adapt.
Unfortunately the “old McDonald “farm image that the community have, of farming, is no longer the reality. We have adapted practises and have specialised in different areas of agriculture. However we have not taken the community on this journey. So little is known about how we operate our farms today that the small amount that is known, has led to society jumping to the assumption that our new farming techniques are bad. Words like factory farming have evolved. Being specialised isn’t bad in fact there is sufficient evidence to determine the opposite. The skills to farm well, and have well cared for animals, in an environment that isn’t compromised and has the economics stacking up, takes a high levels of skill. This should be reassuring for those concerned. The problem is, we agriculturalist don’t pro actively tell the community around us, what we do or how we do it.
In Washington DC, a lawyer addressed us who has defended most of the cases against agriculture in the USA. He talked about a new culture in the community. He stated that 20 years ago he did not have the type of cases he has today. Having to defend agriculture is a new phenomenon. He talked about the social contract being broken between farmers and society and agriculture having a job to do, to work towards regaining trust. I also was fortunate enough to go to a conference in Canada where I heard similar things talked about, that I would hear in Australia. A guest speaker, a young woman from a farming background who was at university talked about the poor understanding her colleagues had of farming. She told stories of their twisted and negative understandings of agriculture.
I was excited though to hear that Canada who has been relatively free of attacks up til now from groups such as PETA (people against the ethical treatment of animals) are developing a proactive approach to the problem through a program that redevelops the trust of the community.
I also found another similarity on my travels between countries. Farmers are tired. Profitability is challenging, climatic challenges are demanding, policies that are idealistic and antagonise processes in farming are taking their toll. Farmers are not all feeling energetic enough to face these challenges. This is leaving some sectors of the farming community too tired to try. Consequently some of their practices are not good enough. These farmers are not in a frame of mind to be productive they are angry and do not believe they are valued enough by society to bother with the new standards that are expected today and these farmers can be a risk to the farming reputation.
The problem here is we have society and farmers feeling like they are at war and fighting a battle when the real looming issue is greater than this foolish behaviour of attacking each other and will not allow either side to see the real challenge that a hungry world will place us in.
I believe there is a solution. We need to develop a new culture in farming, at the same time as developing a new understanding in society. Farming will play a more important part in society than ever before, given the food challenge upon us.
The Australian government has invested in agriculture over the years. Research has been done to improve farming and the environment. Farmers have been educated. Support personnel have been funded to guide farmers through practice change. However no investment has been made to bring society on this journey. Community have been left behind and they feel farming is out dated and a threat to the flora and fauna of their landscape.
Today’s citizen is a concerned environmentalist. There would not be a person over 10 years of age that hasn’t engaged in a conversation around the environment. The environment includes the farmed animals as well as the natural environment.
Here in lies our solution. Our problems are neither new nor unique to us. We need to coordinate an across commodity program, co-funded by government and farmers; enlightening the community of the impending food challenge and of the role farmers, are quipped to play in Australia to address this.
This will have two affects; the first will assist the community to understand the importance of the challenge. They will learn to respect the skills farmers have to work in extreme conditions to produce food, and the importance of Australia, doing this. They will understand the importance of the need for further research to find solutions to the significant challenge of producing food in relative harmony to the environment.
The spin off to this program will be the raised profile that food producers will have. This will improve their impression of themselves. They will feel a sense of pride and this will improve their will to want to perform to the standard required. There will be less rouge behaviours doing damage to the image of farming. The social pressure, to be what is portrayed will assist in maintaining the necessary standard the natural environment needs to find the balance necessary to have human’s living in sync with nature and eating.
It will give farmers the opportunity to re-educate people of the new operating environment. The word factory farming for example, will disappear as society develops a new respect for the systems we have developed and the rationale for these. The red barn, with the odd chook and a few cows, that is the current romantic view community have of farming, will be replaced with the reality of a dairy herd that has many hundreds of cows. They will see the computer systems that capture the data of the individual cow’s health, and nutrition status to a level of sophistication of the specialists in charge for example.
T he community will again be able to differentiate between the humans and animals and the differences and purposes of each.
The trust that has been broken by poor practices that have occurred and no will longer be tolerated by the farming community nor society, but the reality of having to understand the sometimes confrontational elements of Mother Nature, will also need to be part of the journey of a newly educated society.
To achieve any of the above as a nation we need to develop a vision. This needs to encompass the importance of Agriculture to our nation, as part of this vision. Government on behalf of society, that they represent need to decide if they want agriculture. Despite some saying this is a given, the actions of many of the policies that are developed do not reflect this. Many of the new social morals result in policy that hinder and antagonise farming, thus further denigrating the will of farmers. We need to be clear that we want an agricultural industry. This will endorse the practice as a nation to have the freedom to eat meat, if we choose and to farm the landscape and proudly view farmers as the key to working through problems to find solutions to the food, farming and feeding of world challenge.
We are an island, but we are not as far away from the rest of the world as we once were. As countries get hungrier, despite the fact that we may have food now, not too long into the future there will come a time when we will see riots, uprising and shifting of populations, looking for more food. The time to plan for this is now and it’s urgent. It begins with the approach I have outlined above. Farmers are the solution not the problem
