Greens leader Bob Brown’s concern over acquisitions by China’s Shenhua Watermark Coal of farms on NSW’s Liverpool Plains is but the latest flurry in a gathering storm of controversy over mining developments on farmland.
Whether it’s coal seam gas or coal, the question is whether the loss of some of our most productive farmland to mining threatens national food security.
World Vision’s Tim Costello takes a broader view and asserts that there is a global “ethical interest” involved.
Should we be worried?
Food security? It’s in the (free market) bag
According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), we shouldn’t be concerned. It recently concluded that “Australia is able to produce sufficient food to meet its needs and has the income to achieve national food security. Australia’s prosperity, coupled with its participation in the global economy, will ensure this food security for the foreseeable future.”
This neatly summarises two important aspects of the official view in relation to Australia’s food security.
First, we currently export 60% of the food we produce, with total production providing enough food for about 60 million people. Even taking into account projected population growth to 2050 our food supply is safe.
Second, there is no need to link food security to domestic production. As long as we are cashed up, our participation in a global food market will allow us to buy whatever we need.
And the global interest? According to ABARES: “Australia has a role in global food security but this is not principally in producing food for the world’s food deficit countries. Australia will feed far more of the world’s poor by providing technical assistance that helps them in feeding themselves, thereby enhancing their economic development and thus their ability to afford food.”
Certainly claims that Australia can be the “food bowl of Asia” are exaggerated. Our wheat exports account for a mere 2% of global consumption.
But more profoundly, and again quoting ABARES, “Australia’s food exports are not oriented towards countries with serious food security problems. […] The incentive is for farmers and exporters to supply the markets where they receive the highest returns for their products.”
Common to both these arguments is of course market logic, according to which food security is linked only indirectly to food production, with purchasing power in the mediating role.
It’s the famous invisible hand, balancing supply and demand, and in theory maximizing utility for everyone by directing productive resources to their most profitable use. Fossil fuel extraction easily out-competes food production in this calculus.
And when markets fail?
So what happens in 30 years' time when both domestic and international food demand have increased substantially, and perhaps the price signals have changed?
In the interim, chunks of our best agricultural land have been dug up, water supplies have been depleted or polluted, and we (and all other producers in the global market) are struggling to maintain food production under the challenges of changing climate, peak oil and peak phosphorus.
There’s an irreversibility here that does not feature in market calculus.
The Shenhua Watermark project is planned to provide coal for 30 years.
The agricultural land it will destroy – some of the finest in the world – could grow food for millennia. It is effectively irreplaceable.
A National Food Plan
It’s in conditions of market failure that astute regulation is essential. This sounds like just the kind of national interest question that the National Food Plan promised by the ALP in the lead up to the 2010 election should address. On current indications this appears unlikely.
In the _Issues paper to inform development of a national food plan _ released last month the federal government labels it a planning issue for others to manage.
“The Australian Government encourages state and local governments to pursue policies that provide a sensible basis for managing competing land uses.”
As part of developing the plan, the issues paper asks stakeholders for feedback on 48 specific questions. How land use conflict should be addressed is not one of them.
But the conflict is obvious. Local and state governments are constantly under budget pressure. The major investment that comes with mining projects will always be enticing.
Addressing the issue of national and global food security requires more than a faith in markets and current planning policies. It is a legitimate question of national interest and ethical responsibility.
The National Food Plan should do more than “encourage”. It should require state governments to preserve our best agricultural land as an investment in the future.
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Comments (10)
Ramapriya Ramanuja
Avian Consultant (logged in via email @yoganote.com.au)
This issue should be one of the top priorities of government policy. Instead . . . virtual silence.
Mark Duffett
(logged in via Facebook)
None of this recognises the fundamental fact that mineable deposits are considerably scarcer than agricultural land. Any restriction on land use should proceed from a sound geological assessment of just how much might be subject to mining, rather scary soundbites like 'chunks of our best agricultural land'. It should also be borne in mind that topsoil can be stockpiled for future replacement post-mining in many cases; it's not necessarily irreversibly lost.
Jessica Drake
(PhD Scholar, Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University)
Hi Mark,
You have some interesting points. I would like to see the data/papers you have on the issue that mineral deposits are more scarce than agricultural land, and what type of minerals and ag land that includes. I would also be interested to see successful research on the rehabilitation of farming lands post-mining within Australia.
This issue is a very complex one, but there are some main questions we need to consider. The first one is, where are the deposits and how do they coincide with…
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Mark Duffett
(logged in via Facebook)
G'day Jessica,
I'm not sure you need to resort to papers to demonstrate the scarcity of mineral deposits relative to agricultural land; five minutes on Google Earth should suffice. (http://www.australianminesatlas.gov.au/mapping/Operating_Mines.kmz may help, you might have trouble finding the mines otherwise). Even if the current mining footprint were to be doubled or tripled, it would still be dwarfed by the extent of agricultural land remaining at a regional to continental scale.
I presume your…
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Ramapriya Ramanuja
Avian Consultant (logged in via email @yoganote.com.au)
Mark, not all agricultural land is equal (i.e. some is good for wheat, some is good for stone fruit orchards, some is good for vegetables, some is good for pineapples) and a lot of what is considered "agricultural" is currently marginal and soon will be if prevailing trends continue.
Surely you're not advocating "fracking" for gas extraction near agricultural land? There have been way too many bad experiences for anybody to believe the pet geologists on this one anymore.
The world is going to have to recognise that we must move away from fossil fuels for our energy sources at the very least and if we are not prepared to address overpopulation in this country, or globally, then surely we are going to need to give greater consideration to our agricultural needs.
Mark Duffett
(logged in via Facebook)
I too advocate moving away from fossil fuels as fast as practicable. However, you can also be sure that I'll believe a geologist (i.e. expert in the field), pet or otherwise, over a filmmaker, every time.
Ramapriya Ramanuja
Avian Consultant (logged in via email @yoganote.com.au)
So where is the professional integrity in a "pet geologist"? Or in a person who would believe in one?
Ramapriya Ramanuja
Avian Consultant (logged in via email @yoganote.com.au)
"pet or otherwise" well that says it all.
Mark Duffett
(logged in via Facebook)
Don't know about your line of work, Ramapriya, but mine has a concept called 'professional integrity'.
Ken Fabian
Mr (logged in via email @westnet.com.au)
"There’s an irreversibility here that does not feature in market calculus." - Yes, and ABARE doesn't appear to be taking the expected impacts of climate change too seriously (except as it costs for action, not what it will cost for inaction), let alone give full consideration to the link between climate and that coal under that precious water table under our most productive farmland.
We've been losing our natural environmental capital for generations, willing to sacrifice it for the short term…
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