Category Archives: economics

 

Australia is a functioning representative political democracy, but with so many important decisions being made in the economic sphere of social life, most of us are effectively disenfranchised. Key decisions about the allocation of resources, job creation or job destruction, and what form of economic development we want for our country, are too often taken by a small number of wealthy individuals, behind closed doors.

I argue that a system based on the endless and limitless accumulation of private wealth is not only socially and environmentally destructive: it is ultimately self-destructive. We have seen this already in the past 100 years with two major world wars and a seemingly endless succession of minor wars. As inequality reaches stratospheric levels in the first decades of the 21st century, the globalizing capitalist system is once again at breaking strain, and the drums of war are beating loudly yet again.

Happily there are powerful alternatives emerging, in the form of the the peer-to-peer, commons-based economy, the co- operative movement and economic democracy. All of these have natural affinities with the global food sovereignty movement. All are expressions of the solidarity economy, which Brazilian author Euclides Mance describes as being practiced daily by millions of people,

[W]ho work and consume in order to produce for their own and other people’s welfare, rather than for profit. In a solidarity economy what matters is creating satisfactory economic conditions for all people. This means assuring individual and collective freedoms, generating work and income, abolishing all forms of exploitation, domination and exclusion, and protecting ecosystems as well as promoting sustainable development.

In the context of food sovereignty, this is captured by Via Campesina leader Nettie Wiebe, who describes how the experience of working together for a common vision and cause is unifying and powerful:

To stand…and to walk shoulder to shoulder with people who all recognise that what we’re struggling for here are sustainable, nutritious, locally-based, empowering systems of farming, and that that’s key to all of us, that’s a tremendous strength…The hardships that we suffer, and the joys we have, don’t look the same, but…they’re very real in our own context. That kind of solidarity, generated of course by the political necessity of standing in solidarity with each other, has been just a powerful, powerful dynamic internationally. And it has sometimes surprised us in La Via Campesina just how powerful that has been.

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Corporate control of food, Food policy, National Food Plan, Uncategorized

National Food Plan and March Against Monsanto

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25 May 2013 – a significant Saturday

Two important events are taking place this Saturday, both emblematic of different visions for food and agriculture for food and agriculture in this country and globally.

First, at 8.30 a.m., the Federal Government is launching the final version of the country’s first-ever National Food Plan. This Plan was first mooted in 2010, in the run-up to the previous federal election.

As I have written previously in this column, the Plan has been widely criticised, both for its content and for the process of its development. While a full analysis will have to wait until we’ve had a chance to read through some of the detail, early indications are that not much has changed from the Green paper, released in July 2012.

In other words, the overwhelming priority and focus of the Plan is on pumping the land and farmers of Australia harder so that we can reach the supposed nirvana of becoming ‘the food bowl of Asia’. Never mind that even if we double production and export every last calorie we will only ever feed at best 4% of Asia’s population. Never mind that the land clearing and additional irrigation required will place severe additional stress on our already fragile and depleted soils, water tables and ecosystems.

And never mind that we have a major health crisis in this country that needs strong and effective action, not wishy-washy calls for ‘industry self-regulation’. Let’s say it plainly: our children need to be protected from the sophisticated and multi-billion dollar advertising of the junk food industry which pushes its products on them at every opportunity. But our Federal government is well and truly asleep at the wheel on this issue. As is the Opposition, for that matter.

We have heard one positive announcement coming out of the National Food Plan: the establishment of a $1.5mn small grants program for Community Food Initiatives. Grants of up to $25,000 will be available for farmers’ markets and food rescue operations; and grants of up to $10,000 for community gardens and city farms. We welcome this, as a small step in the right direction.

But on the whole, the National Food Plan is really a Plan for big business. For supporting and expanding the corporate control of the food system.

This is evident through its warm endorsement of genetically modified crops. The prime beneficiary of the further commercialisation of GM in Australia will be the company that owns an estimated 90% of all GM seed globally: Monsanto.

So perhaps it’s no coincidence that at 9 a.m. on this Saturday, an estimated 250 people will congregate in Bellingen’s Maam Gaduying Park (outside Council chambers) to take their part in a global day of protest against Monsanto. The Bellingen event is one of 10 across Australia, and 470 worldwide in 38 countries.

Whatever view one takes about GM organisms – and there are many legitimate and documented concerns about the impacts on human and environmental health – for me the principal issue is one of the excessive concentration of power and control. It is dangerous to allow one company to have large and growing control over the basis of our very existence.

Image

Power corrupts, so it is said. Monsanto wields its power with arrogance, pursuing 80-year old farmers to the point of bankruptcy through the US courts in order to enforce its patent rights, and prevent them saving seeds. WA canola farmer Steve Marsh lost his organic certification in 2010 when his neighbour’s GM canola contaminated two-thirds of his 478 ha farm, yet his claim to compensation for his losses through the WA courts is being vigorously contested. While supporting the GM grower, Monsanto has washed its hands of any legal responsibility via a ‘no liability’ clause attached to the sale of the seed.

And earlier this year, Monsanto made the most of its considerable political connections in the US, to secure the passage of what has become known as the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’, a provision anonymously inserted into an appropriations bill which grants biotech firms immunity from successful legal challenges to the safety of their seeds. In other words, it places them above the courts: a dangerous precedent indeed.

Anyone wanting to know more should make their way to Bellingen on Saturday morning.

advocate, Local and regional food economies, New market mechanisms, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming

Vic Health’s Seed Challenge 2013

 

 

Sowing the Seed

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 4th May, 2013.

On Wednesday this week I was in Melbourne attending VicHealth’s ‘Sowing the Seed’ information day at the Melbourne Convention Centre.

VicHealth – the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation – is a semi-autonomous state government agency, funded through alcohol and tobacco taxes, that was established in 1987 with a mandate to promote good health for all Victorians. Over a number of years, VicHealth has funded significant research and food security projects that, cumulatively, have contributed to substantial increases in levels of awareness about these issues in Melbourne and regional Victoria.

In particular, VicHealth made a major strategic intervention with the launch in 2005 of a five-year, multi-million dollar project entitled Food for All. A primary objective of this project was to bring about policy change with regard to raising the prominence and priority of food security in council policy processes and documents. As I discovered last year while investigating urban and peri-urban agriculture in Melbourne, and its role in meeting climate change and food security challenges, the lasting impacts of the Food for All project can be seen in several Melbourne councils.

SEED & VH Logo_CMYK (2)

Sowing the Seed is a competitive grants program that VicHealth launched a few weeks ago.  Up to $100,000 is available for the two best projects that address the ‘challenge question’:

“How do we improve fruit and vegetable supply and access, as well as develop and promote a culture of healthy eating in Victoria?”

Unlike Food For All, Sowing the Seed is aimed mainly at non-profit and community groups, as well as small businesses. Attendees heard from some leading Melbourne-based innovators already working in this field, such as Chris Ennis from CERES Environmental Park and Organic Farm in Brunswick, Andrew Twaits of the veggieswap.com.au website, Cassie Duncan of Sustainable Table, and Bruce Neal, co-developer of the FoodSwitch app at Sydney University’s George Institute.

Criteria for successful projects are centred around innovation, collaboration and utilisation of digital technologies. Andrew Twaits’ Veggie Swap is a good example of how all three can be combined. The concept is simple: to encourage backyard gardeners to share and swap their surplus. Andrew, a new backyard gardener, had attended a couple of the neighbourhood veggie swaps that have begun to emerge in different parts of Melbourne in recent years, and was inspired by the range of produce that was available, as well as the social possibilities of these sorts of gatherings.

But he also saw there were limitations: the relative infrequency of the swaps which meant that some produce might not last that long; the common experience of an over-abundance of a few items which meant that often you walked away with many bunches of, say, kale that you didn’t necessarily want; and the lack of any commercial element which meant that non-growers couldn’t buy produce.

Fruit and Veg Vic

So Veggie Swap was created as an online harvest swap to overcome these sorts of issues. Members can see who is growing what in their neighbourhood, and organise their own swaps when and where they want. Non-growers can connect with growers to purchase some of their surplus. And physical swaps can be supported by greater coordination amongst participants, so avoiding the glut of a few items.

Innovative, collaborative and making great use of new technology. Veggie Swap has members Australia-wide, and is even spreading overseas.

With over 100 creative and passionate people wanting to submit applications, there’s every chance the Sowing the Seed challenge will generate the next Veggie Swap, or Sustainable Table. As the song says, “From little things, big things grow…”

Update – March 2014

The two winners of the Seed Challenge were 3000 acres and the Open Food Network.

About 3000 acres:

“We’re trying bridge the gap between traditional grassroot methods of growing food and city planning policies.

Sometimes, when people want to start a community garden, it can be hard to find a site or know who to talk to for access or planning approval. We’re helping to connect gardeners with empty land, and also with the right people in local government, to make sure everyone can work together.

Our website provides a map of actual and potential community garden sites around the city of Melbourne, Australia. A team including representatives from local government review potential sites and help make suitable land easier to find.

We provide ways for people to get in touch and organise around their community garden, as well as resources to help get started and make connections with land owners, local councils, and a whole range of resources.”

 

About the OFN:

“The Open Food Network is a community of people working together to build a free and open source platform that provides an open marketplace and supply network for local food, so that:

  • Eaters can “know their farmers” (where they are, how they farm, exactly what price they get) while still having wide choice and the ease and convenience of local pick-up and access.
  • Farmers can set their own prices, tell their own stories and choose who they trade with.
  • Ethical and diverse food enterprises rebuild local economies by supporting these farmers and eaters to distribute food”.

 

advocate, Corporate control of food, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Global hunger, National Food Plan, Small-scale farming

Globalise the struggle, globalise hope! Viva La Via Campesina!

While peasants maintain their struggle, corporations’ mouths water over the ‘dining boom’

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 20th April 2013

Nick Rose

Two events this week mark sharply diverging paths for national and global food systems.

Wednesday (17 April) marked the 17th anniversary of the murder of 19 peasant family farmers in the Brazilian town of Dorado dos Carajas. Members of the million-strong Landless Workers Movement (MST), they were targeted as part of a campaign of intimidation and harassment by big landowners and agribusiness interests, for whom the MST’s demands for more equitable access to land and other resources could not be tolerated.

The global small farmers movement La Via Campesina now commemorates 17 April as the ‘International Day of Peasants’ Struggle’. Each year hundreds of peasant farmers in many different countries lose their lives attempting to resist what appears to be a relentless push for greater corporate ownership and control over land, seeds, water and markets. Thousands more lose their livelihoods and their land as they are forced off their own ancestral lands, often violently, to make way for biofuel plantations and the GM soy mega monocultures that provide feed for the factory farming of pigs and chickens.

All of this is supposedly done in the name of ‘development’, ‘progress’ and ‘efficiency’.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne on Thursday (18 April), the Australian and the Wall Street Journal launched the inaugural Global Food Forum. As reported in the Australian, ‘billionaire packaging and recycling magnate Anthony Pratt’ called for a ‘coalition of the willing’ so that Australia can ‘quadruple our exports to feed 200 million people’.

 

The ‘dining boom’ will replace the mining boom as the next driver of our economy, apparently. Eyes lit up with estimates of an ‘additional $1.7 trillion in agriculture revenues between now and 2050 if [Australia] seized the opportunity of the Asia food boom.’

 

Amongst other measures, this ‘dining boom’ is said to depend on the so-called Northern food bowl: clearing large swathes of Northern Australia and irrigating it with dozens of new dams.

 

But, as Professor Andrew Campbell of Charles Darwin University has pointed out, water is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for successful food production. Good soils are essential, and in our north the ‘soils are low in nutrients and organic matter, they can’t hold much water, they erode easily and they have low infiltration rates’. Other obstacles to the rosy future of being ‘Asia’s food bowl’ include extreme monsoonal weather events, high input costs and higher labour costs due to remote locations.

In short, the so-called Northern food bowl is likely to prove a mirage. And when you add to the picture the parlous state of many wheat farmers in south-west WA, not to mention the Murray-Darling itself, the idea that massively expanding food exports to Asia is going to be this country’s economic saviour looks decidedly like wishful thinking.

And even if it were true, who would be the main beneficiaries? A handful of very large exporting farms, and the grain traders and agri-business that dominate the global food system.

Which brings us back to Via Campesina. They’re campaigning for a food system that’s fair and sustainable, one that works for people and the land, not simply for shareholders and CEOs.

Sam Palmer, from Symara Organic Farms (near Stanthorpe, Qld), who attended the 6th Global Via Campesina conference in Jakarta, June 2013
Sam Palmer, from Symara Organic Farms (near Stanthorpe, Qld), who attended the 6th Global Via Campesina conference in Jakarta, June 2013

In June this year, Via Campesina will be holding its sixth international conference, in Jakarta. For the first time, a delegation of four Australian farmers are hoping to join the other delegates from dozens of countries around the world, to discuss the future of family farming and food systems worldwide. They’re asking for support from the Australian public to get there, to make sure the vo

ices of Australian family farmers are heard in these important discussions.

You can find out who they are, and help them get to Jakarta, by going to http://www.pozible.com/project/20941.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Farmers Markets, Food sovereignty, Local and regional food economies, New market mechanisms, Resilience, Small-scale farming

Local food production means resilience

Expanding trust horizons in Karangi

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 6th April, 2013

In February last year , Canada-based blogger Nicole Foss (www.automaticearth.com) spoke at the Cavanbagh Centre in Coffs Harbour, as part of her speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand. Nicole is now back in Australia for another speaking tour, though she won’t be visiting Coffs on this occasion.

In Coffs as elsewhere, Nicole offered her perspective on what she terms the unfolding ‘deflationary depression’, caused by the build-up of unsustainable debt levels throughout the global economy, combined with the anticipated impacts of dwindling supplies of cheap energy. Events in many countries in southern Europe would seem to offer early confirmation of her analysis.

Nicole Foss, aka Stoneleigh
Nicole Foss, aka Stoneleigh

Nicole also talked about the shrinking  ‘trust horizon’ that she believes will accompany a prolonged economic contraction. She argues that ‘relationships of trust are the glue that holds societies together’; and while in good times trust expands and the sense of ‘us vs them’ recedes, the opposite is true when hard times fall.

Putting this in a wider historical context, Dr Ben Habib of La Trobe University notes how the Chinese people coped with around 140 years of upheaval, revolution and war from the 1830s to the 1970s by ‘drawing on a cultural practice called guanxi (pronounced “gwan-shee”) which is about maintaining networks of ongoing personal relationships based on mutual benefit through reciprocal ties and obligations.” It was guanxi, according to Dr Habib, that enabled ‘greater social stability at the local level in China than would otherwise have existed during this turbulent period.’

Enter Sam Mihelffy, who migrated to the Coffs Coast with her husband Aaron and young family from Noosa five years ago. They bought a 34-acre property in Karangi, with established stands of citrus, pecans, macadamia, avocado and custard apples. They added some blueberries, apple trees, a vegie garden and most recently dragon fruit; and for the first time in their lives became farmers.

At the start, they weren’t ready for taking on this sort of life project. “It was mind-blowing”, says Sam. “We definitely moved in there with our hearts and not our heads, we didn’t really take on the concept of growing on such a large scale. It’s been a massive learning curve, and we’ve only really scratched the surface. But it’s something you evolve with, it’s really exciting.”

They diversified the farm by fencing it into three paddocks and adding a flock of 30 sheep, three alpacas, six ducks, a shetland pony and a pet pig. So was born the concept of ‘Me-Healthy Farm’ (a play on their name, Mihelffy), a ‘whole farm’ experience. Sam and Aaron opened the farm on Sundays for friends and the public to visit, buy fresh local produce at the farm shop (both from their own farm and nearby properties), and relax with a cup of coffee and some homemade cake, while kids could run around and feed the animals.

Sam Mihelffy at her Coffs Coast Growers Market stall
Sam Mihelffy at her Coffs Coast Growers Market stall

Providing that direct connection with farm animals was a big part of Sam’s motivation. “A lot of kids, even in Coffs Harbour, don’t have that experience, not even with the sheep”, says Sam. “A baby lamb being fed, they have no concept of that, so it’s really that we could show kids, hey look, this is what it’s like to live on a farm, come and have that experience for the day.”

And the concept proved very popular. “The fact that the kids could roam free was a great pull for parents”, Sam says.  “They got excited about the fact that they could chill out, the kids could feed the animals – there were so many different aspects. And get some fresh produce. It was a real experience – and we don’t have that happening any more [in modern society].”

Sadly though Sam and Aaron have had to pause it for the time being, because the amount of work involved in having their farm open every Sunday with a farm shop, was proving to be too much with a young family. But it’s time could come again – and given the need to strengthen our trust horizons – it might be sooner than later.

In Sam’s words, “This is where we should all be going. It’s really what we want to do. It wasn’t just about us – it was about our local community, [about] all the local products of the area. This is what we need to do, get back into that trading idea, someone specialises in garlic, someone specialises in ginger, someone’s doing beef, someone’s doing honey. If anything ever happens, we need to create that community where we can support each other.”

advocate, Corporate control of food, Supermarket Duopoly

Two supermarkets, no farmers

A country with two supermarkets, but no farmers

A version of this article was first published in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 9th March 2013.

In my last column I quoted ‘Farmer Bluey’, who runs a mixed farm producing not insignificant quantities of wool, wheat, oats and lamb. He is joining ‘all his friends’ and abandonding farming this year.

This week I’m going to introduce you to Oxley Island dairy farmer Jane Burney (now Jane Polson), who has a herd of 300 Stud Holsteins. Last July Jane became so outraged at the consequences to her industry of the $1 a litre milk price war between the supermarkets, that she fired off an angry post to the Facebook page of Coles. Here’s part of what it says:

The consumer is paying $1 a litre and the only winner here is the supermarket…Obviously it is cheaper to buy [produce] from overseas than from our country, grown in God knows what…Your latest ad campaign sprouting that you support Aussie growers is insulting…Eventually all the growers you so-called support will be out of business…The consumer will be stuck buying expensive, overseas produce…I am ashamed to watch your ads and us farmers burn in resentment when we do.

Now if you’re not a farmer, you may think Jane is exaggerating. But a couple of months ago the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a Social Trends report on ‘Australian farming and farmers.’ Part of what it discusses are the changing demographics of farmers, as seen in this chart:

While the average age of the Australian farmer is now 53 (or 56, depending on which report you read), nearly a quarter of all farmers are over 65, compared to only 3% of the total workforce. We have thousands of farmers who are working past 75, and even past 85. Whatever happened to the principle of a dignified retirement and enjoyment of leisure at the end of a long working life?

The percentage of working farmers over 55 has risen from 26% of the total in 1981, to 47% in 2011. Just as worrying, the proportion of farmers under 35 has more than halved, from 28% of the total in 1981 to just 13% today.

My brother, a Federal public servant, retired  a couple of years ago at 55, and is now a man of nearly total leisure. I know he worked hard (though he wasn’t averse to the odd long Friday lunch!) – but was his work so much more valuable and important that he’s entitled to a relaxed and secure middle and old age, while such a prospect for many of our farmers, if it comes at all, will only be through a payout from a developer or mining company? Which of course raises a whole host of other questions about long term food security.

Farming generally has become so devalued that rates of suicide amongst farmers are nearly two and a half times the average for the workforce as a whole. Is it any wonder, then, that large numbers are joining Farmer Bluey and voting with their feet? In fact, according to a 2012 study carried out by accountants KPMG, no fewer than half of Australia’s farmers expect to leave farming in the next decade.

Meanwhile, delegates at this week’s ABARES ‘Future of Food and Farming’ conference were saying things like, ‘Australian agriculture has to become more globally competitive – we can’t afford a $7 minimum wage.’ So it’s not enough that we treat our farmers like dirt, we must create near slave-like conditions for agricultural workers in order to reach those holy grails of ‘increased productivity’ and ‘greater global competitiveness’.

Oxley Island Dairy Farmer Jane Burney (from the Australian)

It’s no coincidence that all this is happening as Coles’ and Woolworths’ share of the grocery market has doubled since the mid-1970s. I’ll leave the last words to Jane Burney, who ends with a brilliant piece of modern-day bone-pointing:

 

There is a growing backlash against your behaviour. Your suppliers and the community (your customers) are on to you. This dissatisfaction will grow to the point where the milk supply will be removed from you and placed back in the hands of cooperatives made up of dairy farmers, community reps and government. This is as is should be, as you have shown yourselves to be lacking in the vision, integrity and commercial strategic thinking required to be entrusted with such an important role re: key parts of our food supply and economy. History will look back on your behaviour over the last 10 years and say this was when the major supermarkets over-extended themselves, dodged their community obligations and ultimately destroyed their brands and shareholder value…Down, down? The only thing going down long term will be the Coles brand and its share price.

Jane’s post, by the way, has so far been ‘liked’ close to 77,000 times and generated nearly 5000 comments.

You can read the original post here: https://www.facebook.com/coles/posts/391593540904667

And here is the extended version: http://www.holsteinworld.com/story.php?id=6897

advocate, Corporate control of food, Food policy, Supermarket Duopoly

Cheap food = A country without farmers

Sugar, Rice and supermarket power

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 23rd February, 2013.

A big fortnight for food news.

We saw the release of new national dietary guidelines, which basically reaffirmed good, solid, grandma’s advice: eat a variety of healthy foods, above all your five veg and two fruits, go easy on sugary and fatty foods, and keep physically active.

The major change was the official recommendation, for the first time, that Australians ‘limit’ our intake of sugar, especially in soft drinks. Despite the Guidelines Working Committee basing their recommendations on no fewer than 55,000 pieces of peer-reviewed evidence, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), which represents the likes of Coca Cola Amatil, weren’t happy at all about the advice to limit sugar intake. ‘The jury is still out’ on whether added sugar is part of a healthy diet, according  to them.

This reminds me of how the tobacco companies used to say ‘the jury was still out’ on whether there was a link between smoking and lung cancer, in order to resist and delay health warnings on cigarette packages.

Meanwhile, the burden of obesity on our public health system is getting ever larger. In the UK, which faces exactly the same issue, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has put out a demand for a 20% tax on fizzy drinks, a strict limit on fast food outlets near schools and other places where children and youth gather, the removal of junk food vending machines from hospitals, and a prohibition on junk food ads before 9.00 p.m.

I can just see the AFGC spokesperons going purple in the face if anything similar was ever proposed in Australia. Which it will be, as we get sicker and sicker, and finally realise why.

Then there was exciting news from India’s poorest state, Bihar (pop 100 million, and 50% of families in poverty), where the application of what’s called the System of Rice / Root Intensification (SRI) has ‘dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops’, according to the Guardian newspaper. World-record rice yields of 22.4 tonnes per hectare have been achieved – with no GMOs, and no herbicides.

A fact sheet from Sunrice boasts that ‘Australian rice yields of 10 tonnes per hectare are the highest I the world’. Not any more they aren’t!

In the case of rice, SRI means planting out fewer, and younger, seedlings, in drier soil, and with regular weeding to aerate the roots. An advocate of SRI, professor Norman Uphoff of Cornell University, says that the agricultural shift of the 21st century has to involve moving away from the obsession with genetics and using chemical fertilisers, to better crop management practices: ‘We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots.”

Meanwhile, new reports in the United States showed that two million acres of native grasslands have been converted to corn and soy monocultures in the past five years alone, driven in part by government subsidies and targets for the ethanol industry.

Finally came the news that Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), will investigate Coles and Woolworths for alleged ‘unconscionable conduct’ in the form of bullying tactics against food and grocery suppliers over prices and supply contracts.

We’ve been here before, in 2008. Professor Christine Parker, an expert in competition law from Monash University, says that this current investigation ‘only treats the symptoms and diverts attention away from the real cause of the problem: supermarket power’; and that because of the way the legal provisions are worded, it will be very hard for the ACCC to win any case against the supermarkets.

Coles Farmer Pain

In her view, the ‘tragedy of the Coles-Woolworths duopoly is the narrow, greedy, profit-oriented way in which they control and manipulate the relationship between all of us who eat food and those who produce it…Squeezing producers on prices is supposedly part of [the equation of delivering cheap food to consumers.’

In a piece on the ABC Drum site (18 February), farmer Sophie Love urged consumers to send a signal to the supermarkets and push for fair milk prices. She was met with a torrent of anti-farmer sentiment. But then there was farmer ‘Bluey’, who had this to say:

“Let’s look at a mixed farm. Last year I produced 5000kg of fine wool, 600t of good protein wheat, 80t of quality oats and 8000kg of lamb. Income was $183,000. Costs (fuel, fertiliser, freight, rams, shearing, rates, parts, tax, electricity, labour, interest, etc) $175,000.

We’re already broke and it isn’t even the end of February. We’re getting out this year, all our friends have already left. We can’t compete with mining wages, we can’t (and wouldn’t) strike and nobody gives a stuff.”

At the end of the day the real cost of cheap food will be a country without farmers. Is that what we really want?

advocate, Collaborative cultures and networks, Corporate control of food, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Local and regional food economies, National Food Plan, Resilience, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming, Supermarket Duopoly, Urban agriculture

An Australia Day resolution

An Australia Day resolution

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 24th January, 2013

The traditional and conventional thing is to make resolutions on New Year’s Day, or shortly thereafter.

That makes perfect sense. Start the year off on a positive note, turn over a new leaf, and all that.

But resolutions can be made at any time. So why not make an Australia Day resolution? Something that each of us decides that we can do to help make this country a better place to live in, and leave it a better place for our kids.

My resolution is to keep working, in the ways that I can, for a fairer and more sustainable food and farming system for our region, and our country. So that our soils are regenerated, rather than degraded. So that our water tables are replenished, rather than depleted and polluted. So that our cities are full of food growing and producing areas, in schools, in childcare and aged care centres, in streets, parks, vacant lots and rooftops. In backyards, frontyards, and community gardens. So that everyone, no matter who they are or how much money they have in their pocket or bank account, can enjoy healthy, nourishing food, every day.

So that our farmers get a fairer deal, and are not up to their necks in debt. So that five Australian farmers don’t continue to leave the land every day. And so that our children will want to embrace farming and food production, and caring for the land, as a fufilling and dignified life choice.

Because what we have forgotten, in our modern, information age and consumer economy, is that any civilization, anywhere, is ultimately founded on agriculture. If we don’t get the food production right, if we don’t look after the land, the water and the men and women who do the work of producing the food, then we may as well forget about all the rest.

I think these resolutions chime with the sentiments of a great many Australians. In fact, I know they do, because last September, in my role as national co-ordinator of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, I was approached by the Australia Institute to include some questions in their regular national attitudes and behaviours survey.

These surveys go out to around 1,400 Australians, being a representative cross-section of men and women, city and country dwellers, different political affiliations, age groupings and so on.

We asked three questions in the October 2012 survey. The first was, ‘What top two measures should Australia adopt to ensure that sufficient quantitites of fresh, healthy and affordable foods are available to all?’, 86% nominated ‘Support local farmers to produce more’, and 63% nominated ‘Protect our best farmland from different uses, e.g. mining / housing’. 25% said ‘support people to grow more of their own food’, and a mere 5% nominated ‘import more of our basic food requirements’ as one of their top two choices.

The second question was, ‘How important is it to you that Australian family farmers and small-to-medium sized food businesses are economically viable?’. 62% said ‘very important’, and 30% said ‘quite important’. 2.3% said ‘not very important’ and a tiny 0.4% said ‘not important at all.’

Finally, when asked ‘What do you think should be the main two goals of Australia’s food system?’, a whopping 85% nominated ‘Promote and support regional / local food production and access to locally produced food’. 43.5% nominated ‘Achieve a globally competitive food industry and new export markets’, and 35.6% said ‘Ensure ecosystem integrity’.

Should any government or political party choose to take notice, these figures speak to a massive national consensus in favour of policies and public investment in regional and local food economies, and for support for our local farmers and food producers. Such policies enjoy twice the level of support of the goal of building ‘a globally competitive food industry and new export markets’.

Can you guess which is the primary objective of the Federal Government’s National Food Plan, due out shortly?

advocate, Corporate control of food, Local and regional food economies

Real Food for Real Kids

Real Food for Real Kids

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 12th January 2013

It’s no secret that this country is facing a public health crisis of truly large proportions, much of it linked to diets based on so-called ‘energy-dense, nutrient-poor’ foods – aka junk foods. Anyone who’s watched the cricket over the Xmas-New Year break – and your kids, if they were watching too – will have been subjected to an extraordinary barrage of ads promoting these foods.

And now one company, the biggest of them all, is courting controversy by shamelessly wrapping itself in the national flag, not to mention utes, ambos and kids soccer teams, in the lead-up to Australia Day.

But the biggest scandal of all is that Maccas and the rest have carte blanche to promote their products to our kids, including in the most insidious ways. Last year my 7-year old son played soccer in Sawtell, and because the team was sponsored by Maccas, all the goals carried the logos, as did the adult volunteers and umpires on their backs. Why do even such wholesome activities like junior sports on weekends have to be commercialised in this way? Simple answer: because it promotes brand recognition amongst the kids, and increases sales.

This is no laughing matter – it’s a national crisis. We have gone beyond the stage of an obesity epidemic, and moved into the sphere of a pandemic. Latest figures show that a quarter of all our children are overweight and obese, with the numbers of obese children more than tripling. If current trends are maintained, two-thirds of our children and youth will be overweight or obese by 2020.

The current generation of children already have a reduced life expectancy compared to the previous generation, and the way things are going, that gap can only widen, This is a shocking legacy to pass on to future generations.

Because the food system is globalised and these companies operate everywhere, the problem is similarly globalised. But so too is consciousness of the problems, and actions to address it.

Real Food for Real Kids
Real Food for Real Kids

Toronto parents Lulu and David Cohen-Farnell didn’t want their son Max eating processed and frozen foods at his day-care centre, so they began packing him healthy lunches. The daycare director asked Lulu if she might help with getting healthier food for the other kids, and so the company Real Food for Real Kids was born in 2004.

The Farnell’s were motivated by the health of their own child and his peers, but they also tapped into a major business opportunity. From humble beginnings in their own home, they now run a highly professional and efficiency catering company, that serves over 8,000 children in daycare centres, schools and YMCAs around Toronto. In 2012, their sales reached $C7.5 million.

Last year, grants made available through Coffs Council saw edible gardens established at several schools and daycare centres in Coffs Harbour, Sawtell and Toormina, most recently with the community and school citrus orchards in Sawtell. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an enterprising, woman, man, couple and / or team decided to take this process of connecting our kids with healthy living and eating one stage further, and followed in the footsteps of the Farnells in Toronto?

After all, there’s no shortage of wonderful fresh foods, produced right on our doorstep. All it will take are some visionary and committed individuals, and some organisations willing to take a risk and partner with them.

For more information about Real Food for Real Kids, visit www.rfrk.com

advocate, Alternatives, Co-operatives, Democratic food systems, Growth paradigm

Prospects for co-ops in Australia

The Co-operative Revolution – can it happen in Australia?

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 24th November, 2012

The National Co-operatives conference, held in Port Macquarie at the end of October, had two goals: to celebrate the successes of co-operatives in Australia, and internationally; and to identify opportunities for the sector to strengthen and expand.

A centrepiece of the conference was the release of new research mapping the extent of the co-operative sector in Australia by the Australia Institute. This research revealed that while most Australians (79%) are members of at least one co-operative or mutual financial institution – are you a member of the NRMA, for example? –  a small minority (16%) were aware of that fact. The report’s authors suggested that this low level of awareness of co-operatives – amongst both their own members, and the public generally – could be due to the fact that, unlike corporations, co-operatives spend relatively little on advertising and promoting themselves.

The take-out message was one of opportunity for the sector. Because co-operatives don’t have large advertising budgets, they deliver good value for money to their members; the report stated that an average mortgage with a building society or credit union, for example, costs around $75,000 less over the life of the loan than if it was taken out with a commercial bank. The challenge, it seems, lies mainly in better communicating the benefits of belonging to a co-operative.

From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference
From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference

Yet more is at stake than just brushing up marketing strategies. In my previous column I described the extraordinary revival of the co-operative movement in the UK, and how this had been built on a long process of internal reflection and a return to the basic core values of the movement.

This process of critical self-reflection is desperately needed in the co-operative movement in Australia. In his 2006 book, The Democracy Principle,  co-operative historian Gary Lewis (who was not present at Port Macquarie, unfortunately), delivered a scathing assessment of the many and continual failures of agricultural co-operatives to build a strong, cohesive, visionary and above all principled co-operative movement in this country.

While Lewis identified a strong confluence of external factors – geographical distance, parochialism and states rights, epochal shifts in global trade, ideological opponents, and a lack of supportive political leadership at the federal level, amongst others – it was the factors internal to individual co-operatives, and the movement as a whole, that have probably done most to stifle its potential. These internal factors include:

  • A marked preference for competition over co-operation – a failure of co-operatives to co-operate with each other
  • A first allegiance to commercial industries, and industry associations, rather than to the co-operative movement
  • A failure to invest in co-operative research and development, and co-operative extension services
  • A failure to invest in co-operative education, and thus a failure to capture the imagination of younger generations
  • A failure to invest in building umbrella institutions, and effective policy advocacy at the federal government level
  • The inability to establish a co-operative bank to finance co-operative ventures – a sine qua non of a vibrant ‘self-help’ movement

Cumulatively and collectively, these failures reflected ‘a triumph of the pragmatists over the idealists’, as well as the pursuit of ‘market share, competitiveness and growth for growth’s sake’, thus resulting in a ‘degrading of co-operative consciousness’ and ultimately a ‘short-sighted and stingy movement’.

In Port Macquarie, the process of critical reflection was beginning, albeit slowly. There was clear recognition of the need for a national council to advocate for the sector’s needs, and a commitment to bring this into existence was the conference’s most concrete outcome.

Achieving such an outcome will be testament to the extent to which the sector can truly ‘co-operate’. But the most exciting proposals came out of the the Youth Summit , where 30 delegates spent 2.5 hours engaged in asset mapping, brainstorming and dotmocracy to agree on a series of strategic initiatives to raise awareness of co-operatives amongst young people, and begin building a co-operative consciousness and sense of a movement. The brainstormed initiatives include a national road-trip, a youth festival, and getting co-operatives on the curricula of university business courses.

Co-operatives have a strong story to tell: Norco’s recent announcement of its $5.7 million profit for 2012, in difficult market conditions, is just one success among many. But the potential of the movement to be a powerful force for decent employment and strong economic development, in turbulent economic times, is yet to be realised in this country.

advocate, Co-operatives, Uncategorized

The ‘flight to trust’

Co-operatives on the march

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 27th October

2012 has been the International Year of Co-operatives, the first time that the United Nations has designated a year especially for this sector. According to Dame Pauline Green, President of the Internationa Co-operative Alliance, this decision was made in recognition of the ‘relevance of co-operatives as a sustainable and recession-resistant [business] model in times of continued international economic turbulence.’

So 2012 has been the year for ‘co-operatives to shine’, and that was the theme of the inaugural National Conference of Australian co-operatives, which took place this week in Port Macquarie’s Glasshouse centre. Over 300 delegates, representing co-operatives of all shapes and sizes from around Australia, some over 100 years old, some newly forming, participates in two days of talks and business clinics, celebrating the successes of co-operatives and the challenges ahead. I was lucky enough to be among them.

The co-operative story is indeed an impressive one. As it’s usually told, the story dates from 1844, when the famous ‘Rochdale pioneers’ agreed to work together, on a set of core principles and for their own mutual benefit, with the goal of providing unadulterated and fairly-priced food to their communities.

The co-operative revolution
The co-operative revolution

However, as Dr Chris Cooper, of the Co-operative College in the UK told us (quoting historian AM Carr-Saunders), ‘the co-operative ideal is as old as human society’. It is, rather, ‘the idea of conflict and competition as a principle of economic progress that is new’, with the foundational co-operative principles being ‘forgotten in the turmoil and disintegration of rapid economic change’.

Those words were written in 1938, but they are hardly less relevant today. In his closing address Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director of Tranby Aboriginal College, observed that ‘we live in a society where common good and decency has been replaced by common greed and indecency.’ Professor Morgan reminded us that many of the core co-operative principles and values – self-help, self responsibility, equity, respect, concern for community, education and training, autonomy and independence, solidarity (co-operation among co-operatives)  – had been practiced by Aboriginal nations for tens of thousands of years, prior to the European colonisation of Australia.

The last forty years have not been easy for the co-operative sector, but there was a palpable sense at the conference that we may be on the cusp of a revival and renewal of co-ops in Australia. If the experience in the UK over the last few years is anything to go by, we can expect dramatic results.

Dr Cooper documented what he termed a ‘flight to trust’ that had taken place in the wake of two key events: the GFC (which started in the UK in 2006-7), and a sophisticated re-branding and re-launching of the Co-operative group of affiliated businesses (banking, retail, housing, manufacturing, travel, legal services, agriculture, funerals, schools and child care centres) in 2005. This re-launch followed an extended period of reflection in which the movement achieved real internal clarity about its own identity and its core message.

The Co-operative group alone now has 6 million members and 6000 retail outlets across the UK. The sector as a whole has 10.5 million members, a phenomenal increase on the 3.5 million members it had in 2007 ; and has set itself the ambitious target of reaching 20 million members by 2020. Its turnover rose by 20% in 2011 alone. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, and of the pattern in Australia in recent decades, the movement is growing via the acquisition of non-co-operative, or de-mutualised, businesses.

For example, the Co-operative Bank, which had 109 branches in 2009, now has nearly 1100. Two-thirds of the new branches are formerly de-mutualised branches that belonged to Lloyd’s Bank. In the 10 months since January this year, the Co-op Bank has 61% more personal accounts, and 21% more business accounts.

In a very important lesson for Australian co-operatives, Dr Cooper said that what has driven this extraordinary business success is the return to core values and principles, and their effective communication amongst members and the wider public. The co-op movement in the UK is aiming at nothing less than ‘transforming the economic system’, because ‘it’s a very old idea whose time has come once more.’

Next time I’ll look at some new research mapping the sector in Australia, the challenges it faces, and the opportunities before it.