Category Archives: National Food Plan

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Local Food, Local Farms

Local food and the 2013 Federal Election

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 3rd August, 2013

As the 2013 Federal election draws closer, policy announcements are starting to come thick and fast.

The Government has already set out its stall on food and agriculture, in the shape of the National Food Plan. The ‘big idea’ is that Australia will become the ‘food bowl’ of Asia, with a 45% increase in exports and a 30% in agricultural productivity by 2025.

The Coalition likewise wants a big increase in exports and foresees a ‘dining boom’ to replace the ‘mining boom’. The distinguishing feature from the Government’s plan is the emphasis on Northern Australia, with the damming of rivers and the clearing of land seen as the key to opening up the untapped resources of the northern frontier.

Meanwhile Bob Katter’s Australia Party has taken an entirely different tack, focusing on what he sees as the largely negative role played by Australia’s supermarket duopoly in terms of the viability of our farmers. He has accordingly introduced a Bill to Reduce Supermarket Dominance, which among other things makes it an offence, punishable by a $50 million fine, for any supermarket operator to retain a market share greater than 20% withinsix years after the passage of the legislation.

That $50 million fine contrasts with the $61,200 fine imposed on Coles after it was found to have engaged in misleading conduct, by selling as ‘baked today, sold today’ bread that had actually been made weeks ago in Ireland.

Katter’s initiative, which was supported by Nick Xenophon, has been branded by the industry as ‘radical’ and ‘extreme’. Forcibly breaking up companies is indeed radical, although there are plenty of historical precedents for such actions. I can’t speak for Bob Katter, but I imagine he might say that a situation in which two companies control in excess of 70% of the grocery market is itself ‘radical and extreme’.

On this issue, the Government and the Coalition effectively adopt a ‘do nothing’ approach. The Greens, on the other hand, propose that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission be given divestiture powers, although they propose nothing as directly forthright as Katter.

Local Food Local Farms
Local Food Local Farms

What the Greens have announced in the past week is the establishment of an $85 million grants program to support various forms of direct marketing of produce by farmers and growers, including farmers’ markets, regional food hubs, and community-supported agriculture vegie-box schemes.

This proposal draws directly on the experience of the ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ program operated for some years by the US Department of Agriculture. Partly as a result of such initiatives, the numbers of farmers’ markets in the US have more than doubled in the past decade, from 2900 in 2001 to 7000 in 2010. And the numbers of farms selling some or all of their produce through local markets rose to 136,000 in 2012, a 24% increase from 2012.

The $85 million in grants for direct marketing compares favourably with the $1.5 million grudgingly offered by the Government in the National Food Plan to support community food initiatives such as farmers’ markets and community gardens. That $1.5 million came with many strings attached, including a dollar-for-dollar matched funding requirement. I know of many groups that would have liked to apply but were put off by such conditions.

Many people in rural and regional Australia will be sceptical that the Greens are or ever could be the friends of farmers. That said, direct marketing and local food is growing at 5% -10% per annum in North America, with solid and bi-partisan political support at both state and federal levels, and with clear benefits to farmers. Indeed, net farmer numbers in the US recently increased for the first time in decades, with many new entrants being considerably younger than the average age of 58. Clearly something is going on here.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Corporate control of food, Food policy, National Food Plan

A vacuum of political leadership on food policy in Australia

Questions for the Federal Government – and the Opposition

A version of this article was first published in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 8th June, 2013

Two weeks ago the Federal Government launched the National Food Plan White Paper, after nearly three years of preparatory work.

With colleagues at the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Food Alliance (Deakin University) Gene Ethics and the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance, I have been going through the White Paper closely, in preparation for a briefing from the office of Minister for Agriculture Joe Ludwig.

So far we’ve come up with 10 pages of observations and over 50 specific questions. We’re not expecting the Minister’s office to address all of these in a 90 minute briefing, of course, but it should give you an idea of the extent of misgiving and disquiet about this Plan felt by the representatives of Australia’s Fair Food movement.

There are two headline targets of this Plan: an increase in Australia’s commodity exports to Asia of 45% by 2025; and an increase in agricultural productivity of 30% by the same date. Just in case the reader doesn’t get the message that this Plan is all about exports and productivity, it is rammed home through relentless repetition. The word ‘export’ and its derivations are mentioned 118 times in the 104 page document. ‘Productivity’ receives no fewer than 80 separate mentions.

The word ‘health’ and its derivations appear even more frequently – 140 times – but don’t be deceived: this plan is not mainly about health, or for that matter environmental sustainability. If we follow the money, nearly $40 million of the $42.8 million in new funding that this Plan represents is focused on growing exports and boosting productivity, with the largest chunk – $28.5 million – to be spent on researching Asian markets.

With the exception of the Community Food Initiatives and Food Literacy programmes ($1.5 million each) – which are welcome and somewhat unexpected inclusions, if symbolic rather than substantive – the whole question of health has been deferred to a National Nutrition Policy, work on which is slated to begin in 2014. Given that the Food Plan was intended to be an integrated, whole-of-government food policy, this is a major disappointment. Quite frankly, it’s a cave-in to big food lobbyists who always pushed for this outcome.

As well as side-stepping our health crisis, the Plan makes very light of climate change as a risk factor, and includes no targets or action plan for reducing the fossil fuel intensity of our food system. This is quite extraordinary, given that the latest data suggest that the Arctic may be ice-free in the summer within one or two years, contrary to the ‘worst-case’ projections of the International Panel on Climate Change that such an occurrence, with all its implications in terms of cascading non-linear feedback loops, would not happen before 2075.

Free trade is held up as the best and only route to happiness and prosperity. Meanwhile this week brought news that Simplot is threatening to close down its Devonport frozen food factory in the face of waves of cheap imports, with major consequences for Tasmanian growers. Ausveg rightly says that the loss of this capacity and with it many growers is a real threat to our food security.

Judging by the Food Plan, the Government is not concerned about such developments; and the Opposition’s only answer is that scrapping the carbon tax will solve all our problems. Such is the dearth of leadership on basic questions of our national security and our children’s future.

Veggie swaps - a growing phenomenon
Veggie swaps – a growing phenomenon

Meanwhile, some positive news on the local front. The first harvest swap in the Coffs Harbour region will take place at Sawtell Primary School on Sunday 23rd June, from 11.00 a.m. – 2. 00 p.m. If you have armfuls of surplus cabbage or kale, this is your chance to spread the love! (but keep the caterpillars at home!) If you want to attend, please contact Juliet Thomas, jtinthegarden@gmail.com

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, 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, 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, Food policy, National Food Plan

More export markets – but who benefits?

Export! Export!

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 18th August, 2012.

A fortnight ago the Australian Grains Industry Conference – ‘the premier industry-hosted conference for grain industry market participants and service providers’ – was held in Melbourne.

Described as a ‘high-level market event that brings together the Australian and global grain industry in a premium networking event’, this Conference was truly a gathering of the great and the good in the world of grains.

Which is why, when I heard that my colleague Fran Murrell, co-ordinator of MADGE (Mothers are Demystifying Genetic Engineering), had scored a ticket, I was fascinated to see what her impressions would be.

Grain Industry Report

She wrote to tell me that she had found the event ‘extremely worrying’. It’s not that anything particularly out of the ordinary happened. What’s shocking is simply the very ‘normality’ of how the large corporate players view the food and agricultural system as an arena purely for speculation and profit, regardless of the destructive social and environmental consequences of their actions.

This was made crystal clear when one speaker said that a significant reduction in the outrageously high levels of food waste – 50% or more of all food produced in developed countries is wasted, by some estimates – would represent a ‘threat’ to the burgeoning ‘investment opportunity’ that large-scale land acquisitions and clearances of rural and indigenous people in Africa and South America represents.

Let me illustrate the sheer, chilling insanity of this perspective by reference to a few facts about food waste, via Stuart Tristram’s excellent Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal:

  • ‘the irrigation water used globally to grow food that is wasted would be enough for the domestic needs (at 200 litres per person per day) of 9 billion people’
  • ‘if we planted trees on land currently used to grow unnecesssary surplus and wasted food, this would offset 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion’
  • ‘all the world’s one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe’

Just let those facts – and there are many, many more – sink in for a minute. And then reflect on the claim, endlessly repeated by the government and most media, that the world ‘must double food production’ by 2050 to meet ‘growing global demand’. There’s a very good case to be made, in my view, that the real challenge we face is how to curb wasteful overproduction.

Yet our federal government, in its wisdom, has placed increased production of commodities for export as the centrepiece of its ‘National Food Plan’, out for public consultation until 30 September. The grains industry, naturally, takes its cue from the urging of the Prime Minister, that Australia, in addition to being Asia’s quarry, also become its ‘food bowl’. It’s focused on supplying meat, wheat and dairy commodities to the Asian middle class, also exporting in the process all the diseases associated with diets based largely on these products.

The financial industry was also well-represented at the grains industry conference. Its spokespeople regard agriculture as the ‘shining sector of the economy for the next five years’. In their worldview, it’s assumed that the sale of Australian land and agricultural assets to sovereign wealth funds, global corporations and foreign investors will benefit Australian farmers and consumers.

Meanwhile US multinational Cargill is positioning itself as the farmers’ friend, as it increases its control of the Australian Wheat Board; as well as domestic grain storage, handling and marketing infrastructure. As Fran pointed out to me, while we’re being asked to trust that this type of foreign investment is in all our interests, we shouldn’t forget that Cargill is currently being prosecuted by the Argentinian government for large-scale tax evasion.

The corporatisation of our food system means that there will be a relentless and constant drive for efficiencies, all in the name of ‘global competitiveness’ and ‘productivity’. Amongst other things, that means far fewer farmers. The numbers of Australian grain farmers have fallen from 40,000 to 22,000 over the past thirty years. We can expect that trend to continue, even accelerate.

But don’t worry – it’s all going to be fine, because we’ll have new export markets!

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advocate, Corporate control of food, Cost-price squeeze, Food policy, Global hunger, National Food Plan, Supermarket Duopoly

A food plan for corporate agribusiness

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A National Food Plan, but not for us

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 20th July, 2012

On 17th July, the Federal Government released its green paper for a National Food Plan. This is the next step in the development of Australia’s first-ever national food policy. The first was the release, in June 2011, of an Issues Paper, followed by a two-month period of consultation and invite-only roundtable discussions. The green paper will also be followed by a two-month period of public consultation, and I’ll provide the relevant link at the end of the article.

During the first phase of public consultation, 279 written submissions were received from Australians, many of them from ordinary members of the public, and from community groups and small farmers. One of them was Graham Brookman, CEO of a permaculture farm (foodforest.com.au) in Hillier, SA, which produces 160 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables.

DAFF

The Food Forest is a family farm, run by Graham, his wife Annemarie, and their two children. The family’s aim is to ‘ demonstrate how an ordinary family, with a typical Australian income, can grow its own food and create a productive and diverse landscape’.

Graham took the trouble to write 13 pages in his submission to the National Food Plan consultation. He pointed out that ‘the dogma that internatioanl free trade will solve food insecurity has been proven to be faulty over centuries, billions continue to starve while others die of obesity in a world with relatively free movement of food’.

This would seem to be a simple statement of facts. Close to half the world’s population is malnourished in one form or another, either because they have inadequate intake of key micronutrients, or excessive intake of the wrong types of (highly processed) foods. Free trade, vigorously pursued by Australia and many other countries for the past few decades, has not resolved these issues; indeed there is a good argument that it has made them worse.

But in the green paper, the Federal Government has shown, to quote a(n) (in)famous lady, that ‘it’s not for turning’ when it comes to free trade. On the contrary, it’s full steam ahead on the trade liberalisation agenda, and we can expect increasing amounts of food imports. The Government wants your opinion on free trade – but only for suggestions on how Australia can export more, not whether the free trade agenda itself might require further thought.

Then Graham pointed out that the impacts of climate change, peak oil and geopolitical instability mean that ‘the whole food system needs rethinking and massive effort needs to go into rebuilding the skills of our agricultural producers such that the nation can remain domestically food-secure’.  To the free trade dogma, Graham adds the ‘free market dogma [which] has given Australia the duopoly of Woolworths and Coles who have driven farmers from the land by reducing profit margins for producers to miniscule levels and requiring them to use every technical device available to maximise yields.’ Broccoli crops in the Adelaide Hills, he points out, are ‘sprayed with biocides approximately 30 times to meet the cosmetic standards of the supermarkets.’

But Graham and the Government are inhabiting parallel universes, it seems. According to the green paper, Australia ‘has a strong, safe and stable food system’ and ‘Australians enjoy high levels of food security’; our food industry is ‘resilient and flexible’ and we ‘have one of the best food systems in the world’. A key plank of our national food strategy should be about us becoming ‘the food bowl of Asia’, in the Prime Minister’s words. This is a frankly preposterous example of wishful thinking, given that even on the most optimistic scenarios, Australia would supply food for no more than 1% of Asia’s 3.5 billion people.

So it’s no surprise that Graham, on reading the green paper, wrote to tell me that, ‘in terms of a sustainable food future for Australia there is virtually nothing in the ‘national food plan’ or its structure that is acceptable’.

There’s a simple reason for this: the ‘National Food Plan’ is actually a Plan for corporate agri-business and retailers, not ordinary people. If we want a food plan that meets our needs, we’ll have to work on it ourselves.

occupy_our_food_supply_new

If you want to read the green paper and tell the Government what you think about it, follow this link: http://www.daff.gov.au/nationalfoodplan/process-to-develop/green-paper.

Update: 8th November 2013

Following the election of the conservative Liberal-National Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, there is considerable doubt about the future of the National Food Plan. Apparently the new administration is not that happy with it, and the proposed Australian Council on Food has already been abandoned. This is not to suggest that we are likely to see a change of tack on free trade or any other aspects of the big corporate agenda. On the contrary, we are likely to see an intensification of that agenda, via the so-called ‘Northern Foodbowl Plan’, of which more in a later post.

 

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Coffs Coast, Community gardening, Corporate control of food, Cost-price squeeze, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Global hunger, Growth paradigm, Local and regional food economies, National Food Plan, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming, Uncategorized

Interview: Nick Rose

Thanks to Juliette Anich for the opportunity to create this portrait. Being able to explain at length my motivations is a rare opportunity and much appreciated.

advocate, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, National Food Plan

Canadians endorse food sovereignty in public forums

A Food Plan for Industry, or a Plan for the People?

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 17.9.11

Canada’s political parties, and its food movement, have in recent years thoroughly discussed food policy formation. As Australia grapples for the first time with the idea of a National Food Plan, it’s instructive to look at the Canadian experience.

First, the political parties. In Canada’s most recent Federal election, held on 2nd May this year, all the major parties – the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrats (NDP), the Greens and Bloc Québécois – went to the electorate with a platform on food policy. The Conservatives, and to a lesser extent the Liberals, were clearly focused on export agriculture, and opening up new markets. Each of the other three parties, by contrast, spoke of the need to work towards food sovereignty, broadly conceived as the ‘right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies.’

What this translated to in practice in the Canadian context was a need to protect farm incomes, both by reviewing the impacts of trade agreements on Canadian farmers, and by building strong and diverse local food systems so that more value in the food dollar is returned directly to farmers. The NDP identified the need for specific measures to find pathways for new entrants into farming, while the Greens linked climate change and emissions reduction to agriculture.

Of all the parties, only the NDP had carried out an extensive public consultation process of 28 community forums over 18 months in all Canadian provinces. At every forum participants overwhelmingly expressed their agreement that food sovereignty, as summarised above, should form the basis on which the Canadian government approaches its international trade negotiations.

The NDP reported that Canadians wanted a ‘comprehensive food strategy’, with the core objectives of ensuring access to healthy food for all Canadians; helping Canadian farmers deliver such access; and building a sustainable agriculture for the future.

As a matter of interest, the NDP recorded a 13% swing in its favour, nearly trebled its number of seats in the Canadian parliament, and now sits as the official opposition to the Conservatives for the first time in its history.

Also in the lead up to the election, a grass-roots citizen initiative led by Food Secure Canada published its ‘Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada’ report. This was, as I mentioned last time, the outcome of very extensive public discussions over two years, including 350 kitchen-table talks in which 3,500 Canadians participated. The report was embraced by both the NDP and the Greens.

People's Food Policy Project: Resetting the Table
People’s Food Policy Project: Resetting the Table

The report pointed out its unique status as ‘the first-ever national food policy to be developed by the food movement itself – a diverse and dynamic network of organizations and individuals working to build a healthy, ecological and just food system for Canada.’ As the authors state, those involved in this movement ‘are taking actions daily that are transforming our food system from the ground up’, and the challenge is to ‘translate [these actions] into policy’.

The Policy itself draws on comprehensive recommendations and guidelines developed in ten detailed discussion papers generated by the engagement process with the public. The key recommendations are as follows:

  • ‘Ensure food is eaten as close as possible to where it is produced’ (e.g. mandatory local procurement policies for private and public organisations, and support for local food initiatives such as farmers markets)
  • Support producers in the transition to ecological production, including entry pathways for new farmers
  • ‘Enact a strong poverty elimination program with measurable targets and timelines’
  • ‘Create a nationally-funded Children and Food Strategy (e.g. school meals, school gardens, food literacy programs) to ensure that all children at all times have access to the food required for healthy lives’
  • ‘Ensure that the public, especially the most marginalised, are actively involved in decisions that affect the food system.’

You won’t find any of this in the Australian Government’s Issues Paper for a National Food Plan, which more closely resembles the food policy platform of the Canadian Conservative Party.

advocate, Food policy, Food sovereignty, National Food Plan

The National Food Plan – Take 1

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The National Food Plan – What prospects for change?

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 3.9.11

Yesterday (2nd September, 2011) the deadline passed for submissions to the Federal Government’s Issues Paper on its proposed National Food Plan. In recent days, the Government has also been holding a series of ‘invitation-only’ Roundtables during which stakeholders in our country’s food and farming systems can directly present their views on the purpose and content of the Plan.

Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Hon Senator Joe Ludwig
Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Hon Senator Joe Ludwig

Colleagues of mine, affiliated with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, have attended some of these Roundtables. What’s emerging so far is that the Government will have its hands full in meeting the expectations that the idea of a National Food Plan has generated.

The general consensus is that Australian farmers are not being paid enough for their produce. This means, going forward, that we as a country won’t have the necessary skills, nor the strategies in place for skills retention, in order to grow the food we need to feed Australia in an increasingly uncertain future.

Representatives of peak producer bodies are looking for substantive change in this Plan. They support boosting production for domestic consumption, as well as measures to address the inequities Australian producers face vis-à-vis cheaper and lower quality imports.

The Government’s answer, however, is in essence to insist that farmers must ‘increase their productivity’, be fully exposed to the rigours of ‘free trade’, and ‘become more competitive’. As if they haven’t been doing this for decades! Volumes and yields have risen four-fold since 1950, but ‘normal’ market operations means that most Australian farms are not financially viable in their own right, and are dependent on off-farm income.

 60% of all Australian farmers are expected to retire in the next decade. Who will replace them, and just as importantly, what will become of their farms? How many will be subdivided for development, or handed over for minerals extraction?

Health and nutrition analyses reveal that most Australians are not eating enough fruit and veg, and the country is facing a full-blown obesity epidemic that is collectively costing us $56 billion a year and leaving our children with a reduced quality of life and life expectancy. As many as 2 million Australians can’t regularly afford to eat healthily, and at the same time up to 40-50% of all our food ends up in landfill.

The current food system, in summary, is producing a multitude of perverse outcomes, and I haven’t yet mentioned soil degradation, groundwater depletion, fossil fuel dependency and climate change. Some would even say that It’s broken. The case for fairly profound change is overwhelming.

 Yet Minister Ludwig and his department insist that ‘our nation’s food supply is secure’. The Issues Paper is very much a product of ‘business as usual’ thinking. Which is why many of those attending the Roundtables are sceptical as to what, if anything, the National Food Plan will achieve.

There are of course different approaches. One example is the Canadian People’s Food Policy, which was produced after a two-year process with the participation of 3500 Canadians in 350 kitchen table talks, as well as ‘dozens of tele-conferences, ongoing online discussions, and three cross-Canada conferences’. The outcome was a series of ten policy discussion papers, covering topics such as Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Environment and Agriculture, Access to Food in Urban Communities, Healthy and Safe Food for All, and Food Democracy and Governance.

Contrast this with the Australian Government’s Issues Paper, the bulk of which was devoted to steps to ensure a ‘Competitive, productive and efficient food industry’. 23 of the Issue Paper’s 35 specific questions were directed to this theme, compared with just 4 diet and health, and not on environmental issues.

The Canadian document contains important lessons for Australia, and next time I will look at some of its key recommendations.