food security

Media Release: Less hooves = more food

Senate candidates from the Animal Justice Party (AJP) will take their ‘less hooves equals more food’ initiative to Canberra this week, to promote a sustainable approach to global food security issues.

The party wants Australia to realise its potential as a food bowl for the world in a sustainable, ethical manner by decreasing animal agriculture and increasing plant-based food production.

The AJP’s lead candidate for the senate in Victoria, Bruce Poon said with the world’s population currently about 7 billion and growing, and production being negatively impacted by climate change, a new approach was desperately needed to future proof the world’s food supply.

“Animal agriculture must be scaled back if we are to stabilise the climate and avoid run-away and catastrophic climate change,” said Mr Poon.

“One of the most pressing drivers of poverty and hunger is that the poor are being out-bid by the rich for grains that wind up feeding livestock instead of people.

“Globally, we feed enough grain to cattle to feed 8.7 billion people each day.

“Even in Australia, where cattle spend most of their time on pasture, they still consume more than twice the grain in any time period that all the people in Australia do.

“Factory-farmed animals such as pigs and chickens also consume large amounts of grain while such intensive farming practices produce other issues such as waste, disease and anti-biotic resistance.

“Put simply, ‘less hooves equals more food’ – for everyone.”

The AJP position is based on the science from several reputable reports authored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Environment Program (UNEP).

Published between 2006 and 2010 these reports identify animal agriculture as a major contributor to green house gas emissions and species extinction due to loss of biodiversity from clearing.

Mr Poon said animal agriculture was responsible for 92 per cent of all land degradation in Australia, and had caused loss of habitat, species extinction and contributed to climate change.

“Animal agriculture also uses the bulk of fresh water in Australia, for example the Victorian dairy industry uses over half of the state’s available fresh water.

“Australia must demonstrate leadership and commitment to address global food security in an environmentally sustainable way, and we need to do it now,” he said.

Queensland AJP candidate Chris O’Brien said Australian farmers were highly productive and well equipped to turn Australia into the food bowl of the world, but were held back by outdated ideas, practices and misdirected government incentives.

“As part of the global community – and as a wealthy food producing country – Australia has a ethical responsibility to increase sustainable production of plant based food and decrease reliance on animal agriculture,” said Mr O’Brien.

"Our government needs to get serious about reducing land use and environmental degradation caused by animal agriculture.

“Boosting the production of grains, fruits and vegetables for human consumption is a more sustainable way to feed the world that will benefit human health, the environment and reduce the immense animal suffering that is systemic in the production of animals for food.

“Additionally, we need to develop storage and processing industries to value-add to raw product to better meet the demands of the enormous markets on our doorstep.”

The AJP representatives will be meeting with Ambassadors from countries within our region this week to discuss food security issues and how Australia can transform its food production to sustainably meet the growing demand of a hungry world.
ENDS….

Background

Ruminants like sheep and cattle produce substantial methane through the digestion of food. Methane is recognized as one of the most harmful greenhouse emissions (much more so than carbon).

Land is cleared for grazing to grow crops for factory animal farms. Producing animals for food is far less efficient than plant based protein in terms of land, water and emissions.

Cleared land in many areas (like Australia's top end) is burned regularly to keep it from reverting to forest. Keeping land cleared for animals means it can't be reforested to draw down CO2.
Transporting feed to animals and animals to slaughter produces CO2. The necessary refrigeration required to prevent the otherwise speedy decomposition of meat between slaughter and cooking is also heavy CO2 producer (commercially and domestically).

Australia's livestock produce more than twice the CO2 contributions of our coal-fired power stations.

Contacts:

Bruce Poon: AJP lead candidate for the Victorian Senate – 0400 248 226
Chris O’Brien: AJP candidate for the Queensland Senate – 0426 396 715
Professor Steve Garlick: AJP National President – 0428 880 564

By Brian McGavin, UK-based writer and analyst. 2013

Burning the candle at both ends
Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a wilful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Our children our facing a hugely challenging future. We are already feeling the changes – declining real wages, soaring commodity and energy prices, growing infra-structure pressures and overcrowding, driven by unsustainable population growth. Add to this a now faltering global economy based on the impossibility of endless growth and debt, with politicians throwing billions in taxpayers' money around to feed ‘business as usual’. This will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumption of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to over 9.6 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in October 2011, that the world's population could more than double to over 15 billion in the lifetime of many people alive today.

In Africa, the UN admits that it won’t meet key Millennium Development Goals. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in less than 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan – all countries on food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources, who export surplus people to North America, Europe and Australia – yet population growth is barely mentioned!

In a few years, we face major oil energy decline as global demand outstrips supply.

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor net energy performers.

Professor John Beddington, former UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected.”

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system based on growth is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

Demographic impacts were discussed sensibly back in the 1970s but since then a combination of political blindness and political correctness, an alliance of ill-informed religious dogmatists and an economic doctrine of 'out with limits', has undermined common sense and political backbone.

Climate change is heard, but many people, not least politicians, are in profound ignorance of the huge challenges we now face, nearly all linked to the relentless rise in human numbers and diminishing resources. Aiding and abetting this is a celebrity and sport obsessed media that cheers endless growth to prosperity and drowns out wider coverage on key issues impacting on our future.

Why would we think it better to create energy shortages, resource shortages, lowered quality of life, a housing crisis, lowered standard of living, more air pollution, grid-locked traffic, bio-diversity loss, and many more calamities caused by ever increasing population pressures?

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more and aim for balanced migration.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of growing populations. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice and growth. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God" ; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" – an opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have higher intellect to understand the consequences of our actions. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Society has a right to expect its citizens to act in ways that do not endanger others. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion on population - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

Climate change appears to be promoting the spread of crop pests throughout the world as regions once too cold to sustain them begin to warm.

Some species are being driven to extinction, but currently 10-16% of global crop production is lost to pests, and the spread of beetles, moths, bacteria, worms, funghi etc in a warming world may increasing.

The Brown Marmorated stink bug can be an agricultural pest, threatening apples, pears, peaches, figs, mulberries, citrus, persimmon and soybeans.

"If crop pests continue to march polewards as the Earth warms the combined effects of a growing world population and the increased loss of crops to pests will pose a serious threat to global food security," co-author of an research article in journal Nature Climate Change, Dan Bebber of the University of Exeter, said in statement.

Co-author Sarah Gurr, also from the University of Exeter, international government officials must pay greater heed as to what crops they allow to cross their borders. It flies in the face of the concept of a global food trade.

The spread of pests is caused by both human activities and natural processes but is thought to be primarily the result of international freight transportation. Observations over 50 years revealed that the movement of pests north and south towards the poles, and into new previously un-colonised regions, corresponds to increased temperatures during that period.

The study included fungi, such as wheat rust,is devastating harvests in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The mountain pine beetle is destroying trees in the US, as well as bacteria, viruses and microscopic nematode worms. The organisms can only take hold in new areas if the conditions are suitable, and the researchers believe that warming temperatures have enabled the creature to survive at higher latitudes.

The paper also acknowledges, future global food security depends on a number of physical and socio-economic factors i.e. population growth.

Predications around food production indicate that food growth will need to increase by 70 to 100 percent over the next 30 years to meet demand.

Losses of major crops to fungi, and fungi-like microorganisms, amount to
enough to feed nearly nine percent of today's global population. The study suggests that these figures will increase further if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted.

Climate change may add a further 50% to maize prices and slightly less to wheat, rice and oil seeds.

Child malnutrition is predicted to increase by 20% by 2050. Climate change impacts will disproportionately fall on people living in tropical regions, and particularly on the most vulnerable and marginalised population groups.

Population growth

Dr Sharma, director of plant biosecurity at the Department of Agriculture and Food in western Australia, says that more than 30 per cent of the world's food - enough to feed more than 2 billion people - is currently lost in the food value chain. This problem is being compounded by the decreasing availability of arable land and water.

"The task of feeding the world's growing population will become harder with rising natural resource constraints, declining crop productivity, and more frequent extreme weather events. One in eight people go hungry in the world today, and even more in Africa".

In Australia, the CSIRO states that 25 per cent of the cost of food products come from invasive weeds, pests and diseases. “We live in an increasingly food-insecure world with challenges from population growth, urbanisation, and environmental degradation”.

Dr Bruce Lee (Director Food Futures Flagship, CSIRO) put it succinctly at a recent agricultural biotechnology conference “in 1960 1ha fed 2 people but by 2030 that 1ha will have to feed 5”.

GM Crops

GM crops are being made to be healthier for us and the environment by becoming more salt tolerant, harder to be eaten by pests (and consequently less pesticide is used) and having increased yields.

According to World Vision, allergic responses may occur due to inserting material from a food – such as peanuts, wheat or egg – that already causes allergic reactions in some people. Toxins are already present in many widely consumed foods, but GM plant breeding to develop a particular characteristic (such as pest resistance) could increase the toxicity of a plant or reduce its nutritional value.

A recent study conducted by Australian and US researchers found that pigs that were fed a diet of genetically modified grain showed significantly higher rates (20 percent) of stomach inflammation than pigs who were fed conventional feed. The study, which was published in the Journal of Organic Systems, was conducted over 22.7 weeks using 168 newly weaned pigs in a commercial piggery located in the US.

The CSIRO was trialling GM wheat in the ACT and received warnings from a number of scientists stating that the modified crops could pose a significant health risk to humans and other animals

Our own Australian government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says that:
"Continuing population growth and limited land and water resources, particularly in the Asia–Pacific region, have made food security a priority for many governments. As the economies in our region grow, and per capita incomes rise, consumers will increasingly demand safe, high-quality, high-protein food".

Considering our own population growth is politically engineered, why don't this type of information reach the politicians intent on growth at all costs?

Dwindling resources

Prof Paul Ehrlich warns us that “Global food and nutrition security is a major global concern as the world prepares to feed a growing population on a dwindling resource base.."

Prof David Attenborough says that "Since I first started making TV programs there are over three times as many human beings on earth as there were. And we all need food, we all need houses, and we all need schools... and we all therefore make huge demands on what was the natural world.
"So there's less and less space for wild animals," he says.

It would be a remarkable irony if some of the smallest creatures on the planet continued to be “successful” and spread, and thanks to anthropogenic climate change, were able to reproduce at a rate outpacing human population growth – eating crops before they were supposed to secure our food supplies!

The “challenges” of the future could come from some of the Earth's smallest inhabitants, and be a constraint to human overpopulation.

Our politicians assume that Australia is immune from global patterns and threats, and the major parties have no environmental policies that future-proof Australia's food bowls.

A study by researchers at Rockefeller University in New York that found we're using more agriculture now than we ever still claims there's going to be fewer of us at some point. It's just not a lack of available farmland or food that's going to kill us. Jesse Ausebel explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have. It's a denial of Malthus' warnings.

See also: USDA agricultural census program is a covert surveillance operation to compile government database of food and farm assets of 27 March 2013 - Ed

A study by researchers at Rockefeller University in New York that found we're using more agriculture now than we ever still claims there's going to be fewer of us at some point. It's just not a lack of available farmland or food that's going to kill us. Jesse Ausebel explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have. It's a denial of Malthus' warnings.

Earth has hit 'peak farmland,' new study says.

Researchers at Rockefeller University say crops will need less room to grow by 2060. But they leave out climate change and the debate over genetically modified food.

A study by researchers at Rockefeller University in New York that found we're using more agriculture now than we ever will still says there's going to be fewer of us at some point. It's just not a lack of available farmland or food that's going to kill us.

Jesse Ausubel, the director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, told Reuters that declining population growth and increased crop production will decrease the amount of necessary farmland by 10% and return an area of land 2 1/2 times the size of France to its natural state by 2060. On the contrary, a June 2012 report by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), says that an extra net 70 million hectares of land worldwide would have to be cultivated in 2050 compared to now: "Land and water resources are now much more stressed than in the past and are becoming scarcer," it says, referring to factors such as soil degradation and salinisation.

"We believe that humanity has reached peak farmland, and that a large net global restoration of land to nature is ready to begin," Ausubel wrote in the journal Population and Development Review. "Happily, the cause is not exhaustion of arable land, as many had feared, but rather moderation of population and tastes and ingenuity of farmers."

Ausubel and his co-authors optimistically see a reasonable prospect for conserving, and restoring, forests and other stressed terrestrial ecosystems even as humanity exerts an ever greater influence on the planet.

He explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have:

[T]he main actors are parents changing population, workers changing affluence, consumers changing the diet (more or less calories, more or less meat) and also the portion of crops entering the food supply (corn can fuel people or cars), and farmers changing the crop production per hectare of cropland (yield).

Scientists see promise for people and nature in peak farmland

It's said that changing diets is harder than changing religion! It assumes that more will be created from less. Nature has natural limits and can't be manipulated.

Slowing population growth?

A slowing down of population growth is being confused with declining human numbers. On the contrary, it has reached staggering levels in recent years—the number of people on the planet has doubled from 3.5 billion to seven billion in just a half century. global fertility rate still hovers around 2.5 children per woman. At that rate, population will grow to 11 billion by 2050 and nearly 27 billion by 2100. Human population numbers are predicted to trend downward around the world within a few generations as shown in developed countries. This is not the same as population decline! The United Nations Population Fund predicts that population “may” peak in the late 21st century and then begin to shrink.

Ausubel's study said the global arable land and permanent crop areas rose from 3.38 billion acres in 1961 to 3.78 billion acres in 2009. His belief is that it will fall to 3.41 billion acres in 2060. Meanwhile, it also projects that crop growth would outpace food supply by 0.4% a year until 2060, up from 0.24% a year from 1961-2010.

After decades of rapidly growing global agricultural output, #10;http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n12/full/ncomms2296.html">production of four of the world’s most important crops could be stagnating or even slowing in some regions, according to a new study published in Nature, a top scientific journal. there have been scattered reports of yield stagnation in the world’s major cereal crops, including maize, rice and wheat.

While the planet faces many "peaks" of natural resources, it's converging with increasing demands. While population growth may be “slowing down” , the number of people living on the planet has never been higher, and our levels of consumption are unprecedented. It's causing vast changes in the environment, and threats of scarcity of essential resources. Governments continue to ignore the problem in favour of economic growth.

The implications are heavy, not just for humans, but for wildlife. As David Attenborough says, human population growth is one of the greatest threats to our planet. Expanding human numbers will compromise natural habitats as more resources are needed to feed people.

Malthusian Catastrophe

A Malthusian catastrophe is a situation in which a society returns to a subsistence level of existence as a result of overtaxing its available agricultural resources. The idea of a Malthusian catastrophe was put forward by Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 . Malthus pointed out that human populations tend to grow exponentially, while the capabilities of agricultural resources tend to grow arithmetically.

What is the Malthusian Catastrophe

The solution is in our hands. Excessive human behaviors must end, not just to preserve polar bears, gorillas, lions and other fauna, but to avoid a Malthusian crisis of food production failing to meet the growing number mouths to feed. While it's evident that animals can overshoot their habitats, it's foolishly assumed that humans can multiply and enjoy a continuous abundance of Nature's goodness and provision, without limits.

World populations are still growing. So is the global middle class, members of which tend to consume more meat and dairy per person, which means more crops per person. Being on top of the food chain, and human dominance, exacerbates the crisis as livestock products mean the consumption of more crops, land and resources. More crops for use as biofuels and a shift towards more meat consumption in emerging economies such as China or India - demanding more cropland to feed livestock - would not offset a fall from the peak driven by improved yields, it calculated.

It also doesn't address the potential effects of climate change in the least, as a United Nations farming study did in June. That research found that the world will need an extra 173 million acres of farmland by 2050 to compensate for degraded and polluted soil and land inundated by rising ocean salt water.

Ausubel also makes the fairly broad assumption that the world is perfectly OK with just how crop production has increased and how it's affected the world's food supply. Already, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, India, Chile and countries within the European Union have laws requiring genetically modified foods to be labeled as such. A ballot measure that would have required similar labeling in California failed after food companies including Monsanto (MON -0.46%) and Hershey (HSY -0.59%) spent $44 million to oppose it.

Jesse Ausubel writes that “projections for the 21st century based on the historical patterns I find suggest that many of the usual specters of shortage and fallout are phantoms. Instead, I see a society learning to use resources efficiently and cleanly. Keys described along the way include market substitution, precision agriculture, dematerialization, decarbonization, and industrial ecology”. In other words, he adheres to the cornucopia ideal.

With all the technology, and “isms”, there 's no limits to the planet.

Not only this, but Ausubel claims that
world GDP itself would rise from about $25 to $200 trillion, giving 10 billion people $20,000 each in 2100. Population growth and more knowledge will continue to bring prosperity!

Also, “during the next 100 years the human economy will clear most of the carbon from its system and move, via natural gas, to a hydrogen metabolism, Hydrogen, fortunately, is the immaterial material. It can be manufactured from something abundant, namely water, it can substitute for most solid, liquid and gaseous fuels in use, and the product of its combustion, water vapor, does not pollute. The next decades will see a vigorous growth in the hydrogen industry...”

Ausubel assumes that “If dynamics continue as usual, farmers will grow 8 tons per hectare around 2060, at the end of the decade in which the United Nations projects population to reach 10 billion. From the Great Plains of America to the Great Plains of China, reversion of farms and ranches to woods and grasses will be a spreading, major environmental feature of the next decades, and beyond. And governments will avidly seek rationales to subsidize agriculture to keep it from contracting more rapidly than culture will allow.”

The past can't be a model for the future. Despite the decline of soils, phosphorus and climate change, Mother Nature will ensure that crops become more efficient, so much so, that land will be released back to woodlands and grasslands!

Thomas Malthus

“The power of population is so superior to the power of earth to produce subsistence (food) to humanity that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” Thomas Malthus 1798

Population expert David M. Delaney said that Malthus was an optimist because he didn’t understand “overshoot” or humans’ ability to grow at fantastic rates of speed to overwhelm food resources—so they crash suddenly. 

3rd Annual Malthus Lecture, May 2012 Washington DC, concluded that “Today, approximately 1 billion people are chronically malnourished, even as our agricultural systems are degrading land, water, biodiversity, and climate on a global scale...”

To meet the world’s future food security and sustainability needs, global food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture’s environmental footprint must shrink dramatically.

It seems that soils must become more efficient, Nature must be tweaked to produce more with less, and that technology must be further fine-tuned to be more effective, with less energy, but human reproduction rates are untouchable!

Video:
Third Annual Malthus Lecture" – How can we feed a growing world and still sustain the planet.

New Population theory Book! Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals." Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it.

An Australian Farm Institute study provides a comprehensive review of what is currently known about the amount and location of Australian agricultural land, the rate of land use change occurring, and how governments make decisions both in Australia and internationally. Whether or not there will be sufficient good quality land available for agriculture in the future has not been a high priority issue for most of the past two hundred years.

Does Australia need a national policy to preserve agricultural land?

Obviously we do! This is a question being asked by the Australian Farm Institute

The rate of land use is changing, and it's important how governments make decisions both in Australia and internationally. Australia has the sixth largest land area and the lowest population density of almost any nation on earth, so the question of whether or not there will be sufficient good quality land available for agriculture in the future has not been a high priority issue for most of the past two hundred years. It's assumed that land is an infinite resource.

Our large land mass gives false sense of security, but Australia has only a little more than 6% arable land, irregular water supplies, and Australia features 96 percent desert. It lacks regular water, fertile soils and resources to carry its current population load. Yet, politicians remain bent on adding millions more people to Australia.

Obviously property development is more lucrative than horticulture, and their lobbyists are far more cash-up and powerful. Food security is not high on politicians' priority list.

According to the research report, Australia is being too reckless with its best agricultural land, and future generations might regret decisions that are currently being made about the future use of that land. With urban sprawl, mining, CSG and environmental demands taking more and more land, and foreign investors also purchasing significant areas, it is legitimate to ask whether Australia can realistically plan to become the future "food bowl of Asia". It's also legitimate to ask if our government's drive for perpetual economic growth be justified if it means we pay higher prices for imported food, something that may diminish in future years with global population reaches 9 billion.

While Australia appears to have plenty of land, in reality only about 3% is actually suitable for cropping, and even less of this is considered to be prime agricultural land. Low or high Population density and population size can't be compared to the nations in Europe of Asia with fertile soils, high rainfall and high human "carrying capacity".

The report concludes that Australia currently lacks a consistent and comprehensive understanding of where this land is located, or how much of it is being diverted from agriculture each year.

Australia is now a net importer of horticultural products, whereas it was a net exporter only a few years ago. Wheat, dairy, fishing and sugar production are all down from their previous peaks.

Earlier detailed research by researcher Dr McGovern, lecturer in the Queensland University of Technology’s school of economics and finance, found that Australia exports only around 25 per cent of its agricultural product at second-stage production, not 80 per cent as has often been supposed.

There's a great international market opportunity for a four-fold increase in food production in Australia, but there's no explanation on just this magnificent feat is going to be achieved, especially if climate change scientists are correct. A free-market economy has no parameters for the limitations of Nature, and that the security of domestic food supplies must be a priority over exports.

Once high immigration - the driver of our population growth - created jobs and an economy of scale, now our population growth is threatening our local fresh food supplies, and it must be slashed. We can't rely on imported food as global overpopulation will mean countries will need the food for their own populations. Food is more important than a "healthy" GDP!

Property development and real estate is obviously more lucrative than growing vegetables. It's about short-term profits and cash flows than real planning. What's the use of economic growth - a pseudonym now for population growth - without food security?

We must stabilize our numbers or we will be no better off than bacteria in a petri dish, bemoaning the lack of room for growth, knowing our final demise but being trapped by a leadership vacuum on population and its implications for food security.

The remarks made by prominent Australian businessman and environmentalist, Dick Smith that in 100 years time people in Australia will be starving to death is not implausible.

Minister for Sustainable Population Tony Burke remains silent, while our growth-based economy continues unfettered. . It's a number-free ministerial policy.

See also: The Groundwater Footprint: The Privatisation of the World's Water Resources of 16 August 2012.

HUGE chunk of Victorian farmland - about 11 times the size of Melbourne's CBD - has also controversially fallen into foreign hands. Qatar-based Hassad Foods, which is the agricultural arm of the Qatar government, recently agreed to pay about $35 million for more than 8000 hectares of sheep-grazing and cropping land in Victoria's Western District.
Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and bread riots in other regions - caused by record high food prices - have reminded governments of the cost of failing to guarantee domestic food security.

Qatar-based Hassad Foods, which is the agricultural arm of the Qatar government, recently agreed to pay about $35 million for more than 8000 hectares of sheep-grazing and cropping land in Victoria's Western District. As well as prized Kaladbro Estate in western Victoria and Queensland’s Clover Downs, Hassad’s burgeoning portfolio also includes 6800 hectares of sheep grazing land in Canowindra in New South Wales.

Hassad Australia - a subsidiary of parent company Hassad Food Group - owns 250,000ha, stretching from Queensland to Western Australia, which has been bought in the past three years.
It's been confirmed that big parcels of Western Australian farming land have sold to Middle East interests.
An “Australian”company, Hassad Australia Pty Ltd., backed by the Qatari Government, has bought 27,000 hectares.

There are three major land aggregations , five at Jerramungup in the south-east, three at Bindi-Bindi, east of Moora, and one at Esperance.

An additional HUGE chunk of Victorian farmland - about 11 times the size of Melbourne's CBD - has also controversially fallen into foreign hands. Qatar-owned Hassad Australia finalised its recent purchase lof 10 properties at Telopea Downs , on the border of Victoria and South Australia.

Food security fears

Fears about the planet’s ability to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050 have driven much of the recent demand for land. Since 2007-2008 food price crisis triggered a flurry of export bans and restrictions by major food producers like Brazil, China, India and Argentina, Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and bread riots in other regions - caused by record high food prices - have reminded governments of the cost of failing to guarantee domestic food security.

Australia for sale

A report released by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences in January found 11 per cent of farmland, 9 per cent of water entitlements and 1 per cent of agricultural businesses were owned by foreign interests.

Australia is the driest continent with irregular weather and is subject to natural disasters such as droughts and fires. We also have little more than 6% arable land, threatened by urban sprawl. At same time, our mining wealth is largely be consumed by the "nation building" infrastructure for our swelling population instead of being invested into the future.

With shallow policies and grotesque short-termism from Canberra, the public should be very concerned about any more land being sold to foreign countries.

Qatar's unsustainable growth

Qatar, an arid country of some 1.8 million inhabitants jutting off Saudi Arabia into the Gulf, can only produce about 10% of its food needs and is desperately reliant on imports. Currently, only 1.6 % of Qatar is arable land and agriculture only contributes 0.1% to gross national product, according to the FAO.
The government expects Qatar’s population to rise by 2.1% a year over the next five years, reaching 1.9 million in 2016.

Qatar’s population has more than doubled from around 614,000 in 2000 to 1.699 million at the end of 2010. Qatar's oil and natural gas industries account for 50 percent of GDP, 85 percent of export earnings and 70 percent of the government's revenue.

As well as food security, air, water, and land pollution are also significant environmental issues in Qatar. In addition to smog and acid rain, the nation has been affected by the air pollution generated during the Persian Gulf War. Pollution from the oil industry poses a threat to the nation's water.

There's nothing sustainable about Qatar's environmental/population growth record, so why should they bother with any such issues in their Australian property buy-ups?

Water security

Qatar's water consumption has tripled in the last seven years, the energy and industry ministry and chairman of the Permanent Committee on Water Resources has said. Per capita consumption of water in Qatar is 460 liters per day, one of the highest in the world, and the production of desalinated water in Qatar doubled four times over the past two decades.

Most native species are small, but the larger, diurnal species, like the Arabian oryx, gazelle and ibex, have been hunted down to extinction. The Arabian oryx, al-maha in Arabic, is Qatar's national emblem. It was once believed to have been hunted down to extinction, but some herds have survived outside Qatar.

December 03, 2011 - At least 25 special permits have been issued to dignitaries belonging to the Arabian peninsula allowing them to hunt the internationally protected Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) during the hunting season 2011-2012. The permit holders include at least three rulers, many crown princes, and other members of royal families. The houbara bustard is a very shy bird species and inhabits arid areas away from human population, but at least one of the permit holders, belonging to Qatar, has been allocated the city of Dadu in Sindh for hunting. The Qatari Government is currently in the process of reintroducing the Arabian gazelle, which is near extinction, to its desert domain. Before 2001, when Qatar signed a key international treaty, known as Cites, restricting trade in endangered animals, it was not illegal to import rare animals.

Marine desert?

Experts have sounded the alarm over a massive decline in the number of sharks populating the waters around Bahrain - saying the Gulf was in danger of becoming a "marine desert". Many larger species of the sea's most famous predator were in danger of disappearing from the region altogether. Unchecked construction, sedimentation, a lack of fresh water, overfishing and pollution have been cited as the key threats to the Gulf's shark population.

Experts are now warning the Gulf could actually become a "dead" area of water unless urgent legislation is passed in all countries bordering it, with decades of rapid development taking a huge toll on the marine ecosystem.

Qatar Summit

Qatar, the first member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to host the discussions later this year aimed at limiting global warming, illustrates the scale of the challenge the world faces to cut greenhouse gases.

European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, a representative responsible for climate change action, feels that Qatar being the host of this year’s summit has the potential to play a positive role in shaping the international climate change debate. If Qatar will show that [although] the rest of the world has seen it as a sort of traditional oil economy, that there they [are starting] to diversify, there you find smarter solutions, there you start to apply solar or other kinds of renewable energies and it will not harm your economy - as a long-term strategy it will benefit your economy.

The irony is great: Climate Change negotiation in Qatar will take place atop vast natural gas deposits and in a country with the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, almost three times those of the United States.

Australia's food security first

With Australia's food security not as secure as supposed, then this sale is a betrayal by our government. Our sovereignty should be promoted, not sold off to the highest bidder. Australia is now a net importer of horticultural products, whereas it was a net exporter only a few years ago.  Wheat, dairy, fishing and sugar production are all down from their previous peaks. 

Earlier detailed research by researcher Dr McGovern, lecturer in the Queensland University of Technology’s school of economics and finance, found that Australia exports only around 25 per cent of its agricultural produce at second-stage production, not 80 per cent as has often been supposed.

There's a great international market opportunity for an increase in food production in Australia, but there's no explanation on just this feat going to be achieved, especially if climate change scientists are correct and our food chain is increasing out of our hands.

The Government claims it applied a rigorous national interest to all foreign investment applications.
The spokesman Assistant Treasurer, David Bradbury, said foreign investment could help Australian companies and farmers gain access to new export markets, grow their businesses and create jobs. The exports will be to the Middle East and jobs will be lost as Australian farmers will struggle to compete with big monolithic agricultural foreign government-endorsed businesses. The food will not be for Australians but for their own people.

Population growth has exploded in the Middle East and there are cultural limits to facing the problem, so they are seeking out resources in countries like Australia with poor leadership and permeable borders.

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said "under the current tutelage of Wayne Swan we can totally rely on the fact that this purchase, (purchase of 10 properties at Telopea Downs) like every other purchase that has ever been made, will never be stopped".

Increasing private-public partnerships, contracting out, privatisation, creation of authorities 'outside government' etc over the past 20 years in Victoria "has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office." (Auditor General, Victoria) The forward plan also notes concerns about population growth and food security.

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 Victoria's Auditor-General, Des Pearson, tabled his Annual Plan for 2011-12 today in the Victorian Parliament.

The Annual Plan contains details of areas of audit interest for 2011-12, and a forward program of proposed audits for 2012-13 to 2014-15. Among these, are plans for ammendments to the Audit Act 1994[1]. Below we cite from that document, although some of the headings are from the editors of candobetter.net.

Amendments to the Audit Act 1994 are needed

Over the past 20 years, Victoria has seen an increase in the ‘arms-length’ delivery of public services through the private and community sectors. There has been increased private sector involvement in the delivery of public services through arrangements such as outsourcing and public private partnerships. There has also been a trend to create new legal entities ‘outside government’, such as companies, associations and statutory bodies, allowing these entities to access broader revenue sources and more flexible governance regimes.

Steady erosion of accountability

"This has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office.

Responding to these changes in the way government delivers services, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) held an inquiry last year into the Act.[2]

VAGO made several representations to the inquiry, including a formal submission.

The all-party report of this Parliamentary Inquiry made wide-ranging recommendations, seeking to prevent the erosion of public sector accountability, strengthen the independence of VAGO and update the Act to reflect contemporary trends.

PAEC unanimously recommended measures to:

• ‘close the gap’ on entities currently outside Parliament’s audit mandate
• allow access to public sector information held by private sector contractors
• introduce annual audits of performance statements and management controls
• enable joint audits with other Australian auditors-general
• improve the effectiveness of external performance audits of VAGO
• ensure agency comment included in our reports to Parliament is accurate, balanced and substantiated.

Urgent Need to repair the Audit Mandate

As indicated in our Annual Plan 2010–11, the Act is in urgent need of reform.

Auditor General needs access to public information held by private sector contractors

In April 2011, the government tabled its response to PAEC’s recommendations. The government response included support in principle for some of the key recommendations; in particular access to public sector information held by private sector contractors and ‘closing the gap’. A number of other recommendations were also supported.

Given the importance of the need to repair the audit mandate, a number of technical and legal issues will need to be discussed further with government as it considers how any amendments should proceed. VAGO looks forward to a strong role in the further development of amendments to the Act.

Population growth and diminishing oil supplies

Our scanning during development of the 2011–12 Annual Plan reconfirmed climate change and the environment; the ageing of our population; risks to sustainable development from diminishing oil supplies; population growth; and the continuing need
for transparency and accountability, as major challenges for government in coming years. In addition, the Council of Australian Governments Reform Agenda continues to affect the scheduling and focus of our program of performance audits, particularly in the health sector. [3]

[Candobetter.net Editor:] From reading this report, notably the attachments from page 58, it seems that in 2009 the Auditor-General looked into Victoria's food security and concluded that there were no significant risks. Since then, however, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) has suggested that the matter be revisited, i.e. that food security may now be an issue.

"The Committee supports the Auditor-General's commitment to environmental scanning of issues and understands this underpins the Office's multi-year audit program. The Committee considers therefore, it would be beneficial if the Auditor-General's Office updated its research with relevant information on food security from 2010 and 2011 prior to scopint this audit to consider more recent research on issues surrounding food security." (PAEC)

The Victorian Auditor General responds on page 60 by noting the PAEC's comments and undertakes to consider food security in the audit research and scoping. Here the Auditor General also agrees, "As advised in the conduct of its annual planning function, VAGO will continue to, consider issues such as population growth and its impact on current and future service delivery and public sector activity."

NOTES

Source of material in this article: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx

[1] "1.3 Amendments to the Audit Act 1994,"http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.3.

[2] "The former government sought to consolidate accountability arrangements for public bodies under one Act. The Public Finance and Accountability Bill 2009 was introduced into Parliament in December 2009, however, the Bill lapsed without being passed through the Upper House when Parliament was prorogued in October 2010. Any further progress on these reforms will be dependent upon the new government’s priorities." http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx ,p1.

[3] http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.4.

Here is some documentation for the 18 May 2011 PAEC discussion on Energy and Resources by the way: Hansard proof report - not for quoting - http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/paec/2011-12_Budget_Estimates/Presentations/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf

Is there really any social justice or ethics that we continue to grow our own population and consumption levels if it means we parasitically must acquire valuable arable land from a country already being preyed upon by developed nations?

Prof Robin Batterham was the Chief Scientist of Australia from 1999 to 2005 and is President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).  

Scanlon Foundation

Behind ATSE is the property developer Peter Scanlon of the Scanlon Foundation.  At his address to the ATSE in 2007, he is quoted as saying -  The Scanlon Foundation is committed to the belief that Australia needs to continue to grow and that this growth will require a substantial and increasing role for migration...

Mr Scanlon, whose family wealth is estimated to be more than $600 million, set up a foundation in 2009 with the aim to create a larger and socially cohesive Australia. Mr Scanlon has extensive property development interests, which clearly benefit from immigration-fuelled high population growth.

Mr Scanlon's Brencorp Properties is a partner in the $1 billion Somerfield housing estate at Keysborough, said Australia's greatest asset was its “diversity”- a euphemism for high immigration.

Large investments in Africa

A new and surprising investment vehicle has Africa as one of the main destinations for inflows of capital, for one of the most prized and sensitive assets, the acquisition of arable land. The land grab has only just begun.

There has been large investments in Africa by firms linked to governments such as Saudi Arabia that has US$800m of agricultural investments in Ethiopia for the growing of major crops such as rice and wheat. China has 1.3 billion mouths to feed due to 7% of the arable land is being lost in China to desertification and pollution as a by-product of rampant economic and population growth, and has invested US$800m into Mozambique agriculture. The price of land in Africa is the cheapest in the world.

Mozambique hunger

September last year, thirteen people died and hundreds were wounded in Mozambique when police cracked down on a three-day protest over a 30 percent hike in the price of bread.

Mozambique bread riots could be a warning sign for African nations who have leased fertile agricultural land to foreign countries. Nearly 250,000 acres has been secured by the Swedish firm Skebab to produce biofuels.

Many African small-holder farmers know they can be moved off their land at any time, and the growing number of farming deals confirms their worst fears. As a result, many African farmers are reluctant to invest in their land or to improve their techniques, knowing the benefit may be taken away in the future.

Food security threats to the world

According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “By 2050, the risk of hunger is projected to increase by 10 – 20 %, and child malnutrition is anticipated to be 20 % higher compared to a no-climate change scenario.” It’s easy to blame climate change, a convenient scapegoat, rather than overpopulation and foreign investors as the biggest driver of growing food scarcity.

Although the estimated 700-900 million of the world's poor suffer in silence, food shortages have recently caused riots in Bolivia, Peru, Mozambique, Haiti, Indonesia and India. Within 40 years, global food production will have to increase by at least 40 percent to feed the additional 2.5 billion people who will then inhabit a planet endowed with just 11 percent arable land. Haiti, Indonesia, Cameroon and Mozambique have all been racked by violent food riots.

CSIRO efforts to lift food production

The CSIRO is predicting global crop yields need to double within 50 years to meet food demand. The benefits of Norman Borlaug’s “green revolution” are finite and his 40 year reprieve of food shortages has ended.

Dr Jeremy Burdon is the head of CSIRO's plant industry division. His researchers are collaborating with the Chinese Academy of Science to lift food production. They're trying to fast track plant breeding of improved wheat, rice and corn varieties. It’s an attempt at another “green revolution”.

I believe that we can generate another green revolution as a consequence of the application of modern biological techniques – using GM technologies.

Sharp rises in food prices in 2008 and 2010 had demonstrated that supply was no longer meeting demand, said Professor Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine.

Professor Robin Batterham

One of the prime minister's advisers on science and innovation, Professor Robin Batterham says purchasing farms in Mozambique, a former African food bowl, should be investigated to shore up Australia's food supply. 

Looming food crisis showing on our shelves - The Age 3 April

Professor Robin Batterham, wants Australian companies to consider buying land in Mozambique to counterbalance foreign purchases of farming land in Australia and shore up Australia's food supply. Why are we losing control of our own land, and failing to enforce our sovereignty?

Instead of heading towards a “big Australia”, and adding to the number of parasite nations grabbing land in developing countries where they need it, we should protect our nation, our people, and our food production against global greed. We hear a lot about “sustainability” but government policies simply rough-shod over any sustainable and ethical principles.

The suggestion by Prof Robin Batterham that we buy up farms in Mozambique to ensure OUR food security is reprehensible.
Globalization and a “free market” economy means that nations with power can legally grab territories from indigenous people, living on subsistence levels, and corruptly threaten their well-being, human rights, and survival.

Is there really any social justice or ethics that we continue to grow our own population and consumption levels if it means we parasitically must aquire valuable arable land from a country already being preyed upon by developed nations?

Broadcaster and Naturalist David Attenborough said in a speech to the Royal Society of Arts in London on 10 March, hosted by its president, the Duke of Edinburgh….....”...we can all see that every extra person is – or will be – an extra victim of climate change – though the poor will undoubtedly suffer more than the rich. Yet not a word of it appeared in the voluminous documents emerging from the Copenhagen and Cancun Climate Summits”.

Why this strange silence? I meet no one who privately disagrees that population growth is a problem. No one – except flat-earthers – can deny that the planet is finite.

'Climate change is undoubtedly going to get worse; the only question is how much and how fast, he said. I believe that we somehow have got to prevent the human population from increasing as fast as it is doing.

Big population preferred over tackling climate change

John Howard and Kevin Rudd were both advocates for large populations. Because a growing population equates to a growing economy, until you reach the tipping point of no return on environmental/climate change. No politician has the foresight to see this.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave priority for a "big Australia" over tackling climate change, the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’.

Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia’s population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, increasing the rate of global warming.

High density developments create hot cities

While Victorians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.

High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Altas calculation of per capita greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas are greater than for those living in low-density areas. Our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.

High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.

A combination of climate change and urban growth will push temperatures higher in cities worldwide, say researchers. Dr Richard Betts, a climate scientist in the UK, and colleagues found not only do cities retain more heat than rural areas do but hot cities will grow even hotter as the climate warms and cities grow.
By mid-century, night-time temperatures in cities could rise by more than 5.6°C, they say.

As cities grow warmer, it will become even more important to invest in urban cooling strategies, the study suggests, such as white roofs, green spaces, calculated window placement and other architectural decisions that allow buildings to spit out fewer greenhouse gases and less heat. This means more investments and infrastructure needed for high density buildings to replace what Nature provides naturally – and free!.

Food security taken for granted

Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.

The Third Intergeneration Report’s “projection” (or social-engineering) is that Australia’s population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.

The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected, not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and the academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth when the priority should be the people of Australia. Population growth can’t be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.

Australians greenhouse gas commitment

The Rudd Labor Government pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 5 per cent relative to year 2000 levels but this cannot be achieved if Australia’s population grows as projected. Treasury modelling indicates that, with business-as-usual, emissions will reach 774 million tonnes by 2020, 40 per cent above the 2000 level. However, it is set against government encouraged population growth of 20% by then.

Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009. It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. "Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries," it says.

Australia's hypocrisy

Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such hypocritical attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and “save” the planet.

Sir David Attenborough said, there is no major problem facing our planet that would not be easier to solve if there were fewer people and no problem that does not become harder (with more people).

A population growth of 20% by 2020, and at the same time a symbolic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, is inherently contradictory and people will be forced to pay an ineffective carbon tax.

While human populations expand, renewable energy sources must continue to outstrip increasing outputs of carbon emissions to achieve this target. The carbon tax will simply burden the people of Australia, and net greenhouse emissions reduction will be outside their control.

According to a global financial services study, a carbon tax will have to be set at $60 a tonne -- three times the expected $20 tax to be set next year -- to force electricity generators to switch from dirty brown coal in southeastern Australia to cleaner gas to reduce greenhouse emissions.

The Australian "Carbon price 'would need to be tripled' to force change from coal-fired electricity"

With privatisation of the power suppliers, the market forces needed for them to switch to renewable energy, rather than passing on the costs to consumers, would be considerable.

The carbon tax will be a financial burden on families, and businesses, and do little to actually address climate change while at the same time our population continues to boom!