Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Food & Farming

World Food Day 2008

By

Tomorrow is the United Nation’s “World Food Day” and the focus is on the pressing need for the world to adapt to climate change. But even before “climate change” became a political concern, the poor have been unable to deal effectively with drought, storms and flooding.

Now government programmes in the name of climate change have already had terrible results – more than US$ 11 billion worth of subsidies were used to turn food crops into biofuels last year. This contributed substantially to the rise in food prices that helped push 75 million more people below the hunger threshold.

There is a case for government to provide flood defences and other collective goods, but most adaptation will occur at a much more local scale and as such is best left to individuals.

In a new report, world-renowned agricultural economists Professors Douglas Southgate and Brent Songhen point out that farmers will likely adapt to global warming by switching crops, and adopting new technologies and farming methods – just as they have done for centuries. 

The launch of the report, Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry by Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen (November 2008, International Policy Network), coincides with World Food Day and can now be downloaded here.

*****************

A calf drinking from a nearly full farm dam: Photograph taken just south of Oberon, Central Tablelands, New South Wales (Australia) by Jennifer Marohasy, October 14, 2008. 

Sydney to Have Farmers on Rooftops

By

“Australian cities must join a global network in which urban farmers grow produce on rooftops, a leading science commentator says.   Professor Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine, said the global food crisis was a forewarning of what could be expected as civilisation ran low on water, arable land and nutrients, and experienced soaring energy costs.  Professor Cribb said the urban farmers of the future – who would primarily grow vegetables – would play a much larger role in the global diet.   Read more here (free sign-on at FarmOnline).

Farmers want Protection for Iconic Farmland

By

At a hastily convened Landcare meeting yesterday, around 100 landholders affected by the proposed Tarong Coal mine on the Haystack Plain called on the Queensland government to protect iconic farmlands from mining development.

 

Landcare Project Officer Nevin Olm said: “It is good enough for the government to protect the iconic Daintree and other natural areas, why is it not good enough for them to protect our world renowned fertile floodplains. On the Haystack Plain, we have been growing crops to feed the nation for over 100 years, and we can sustainably continue for 1000 years. Yet Tarong Coal wants to displace landholders off the best of the best land in our state, for a one off windfall gain that will see one of our iconic floodplains ruined forever.”

 

The meeting was attended by state MP’s, regional council representatives, Agforce representatives, representatives of federal members, and concerned community members.

 

Tarong representatives at the meeting apologized for the way in which landholders had been informed by a letter containing the decision last Monday with no prior advice or consultation, and the fact that the Haystack Road deposit had always, until Monday, been referred to as the Glen Wilga deposit which was misleading.

 

Jeff Bidstrup, group spokesperson said, “A recent UN report that states that farmers will need to grow as much food in the next 50 years as we have produced in the last 10, 000 years, yet we have a government corporation about to rip the heart out of our community and one of the nations most productive food bowls for short term gain.  All this to sell coal in an era when CO2 emissions are rising alarmingly.”

 

The meeting went on to pass a motion calling on the Liberal National Party, if elected, to rescind any Mining Development Leases and mining licences on iconic farmlands, and retrospectively rescind those licences on iconic farmlands where mining has not yet commenced.  It was agreed that society needs to urgently take responsibility for the decisions of such magnitude where food security is traded for a short term benefit of one off resource exploitation.

 

Geoff Hewitt, a local farmer not affected by this mining development said: “We need as a society to put a stop to the practice of destroying iconic farmlands forever in the mad rush for coal dollars. Trading off long term food security for short term government income, at the same time, accelerating global warming, is very bad policy. We are selling off our kids’ food security, this is generational selfishness taken to a whole new level.

 

There is an urgent need for a review of the policies that allow a state government to grant a corporation it owns the right to destroy a community and some of Australia’s most productive farmland.”

 

Brigalow-Jimbour Floodplains Group Inc

26th September 2008

How Much of Australian Agricultural Production is Exported?

By

Hi Jennifer,

 

This article disputing the percentage of Australian agricultural produce that is exported appeared on Agmates at the end of August. 

 

I feel it should have a wider airing, especially if we have all been misled about this subject. 

 

http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/08/29/myth-busted-australia-exports-just-22-of-ag-production-not-80/

 

The link to the original article is here

 

http://www.agmates.com/blog/2008/01/01/report-into-ag-production-export-discrepancies/

 

You may like to consider it as a blog topic. 

 

Cheers, Helen

 

PS And I grabbed this from one of the links:

 

At the end of the Customs House Meeting, the committee had established the facts, and the subsequent agreement of proceedings became known as the Customs House Agreement.

 

 

The Customs House Agreement

  • It is unequivocally agreed that for the year 93/94 that only 22% of farm gate value is directly exported from Australia.
  • It is agreed that direct exports, together with the first round total of indirect exports, roughly account for 25% or an additional three percentage points,
  • All agreed that those who propose the higher figures like 80% are simply wrong,
  • ABS agreed that 66% was questionable and problematic ,and
  • ABS would not arrive at 66% figures using accepted methods,
  • Only 7 of 53 sectors exported more than 50% of output,
  • All agreed the real proportion of exports as shown by Dr McGovern was well known for some time,
  • Figures such as 80% use FOB values to compare with farm gate values,
  • Some calculations have led to double counting or have included inappropriate components which have distorted outcomes,
  • Errors occur when comparing value added items like biscuits in a container on board ship with wheat at farm gate or perhaps a bottle of wine on board ship with the value of grapes at farm gate,
  • In some cases inappropriate basis are used eg. the value of spraying or shearing being added to exports of wool, grain or cotton,
  • Other examples of double counting occur when such things as sausages consumed by coal and steel miners in their respective industries are classified as exported agricultural production.

All these definitional and methodological anomalies distort real farm gate values. Some extreme methods of calculation have arrived at up to 200% of farm gate value exported.

Drop in Rainfall, But Not Wheat Harvest

By

Since the 1970s, there has been a drop in rainfall in the wheat growing region of Western Australia, but this has not translated into a decline in wheat production.    Indeed wheat production in Western Australia peaked in 2003 at 11 million tonnes.  

 

The 2003 season was a good one for winter crop production across Australia with record production of just over 43 million tonnes.  

 

 

Data on crop production from ABARE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new paper* in the journal Climate Change indicates that wheat production in Western Australia has not been greatly affected by the drop in rainfall because most of the reduction in rainfall has occurred in June and July, a period when rainfall often exceeds crop demand.    

 

Indeed farming systems, like natural systems, are complex.     

  

___________________________

 

*Impacts of recent climate change on wheat production systems in Western Australia, by Fulco Ludwig, Stephen Milroy and Senthold Asseng, Climate Change, 2008.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m10h53183l763734/fulltext.pdf

 

Hat tip to Paul Biggs for the reference.

Paul’s new blog is now up and running, have a look http://climateresearchnews.com/  

Climate Change Dogmatists Don’t Know When to Stop

By

The price of meat, milk and other British farm products will have to rise to reflect the environmental cost of producing them, a government study has concluded.

A Cabinet Office review of food policy suggests that farmers and consumers should pay extra for farm goods that generate large amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

The proposal, the latest in a string of “green” plans that threaten to increase the cost of living, drew accusations that ministers were imposing taxes and regulations in the name of environmental policy.

….The Department for Business and Enterprise’s new renewable energy strategy warned last month that household electricity bills could rise by 13 per cent and gas by 37 per cent to subsidise green energy sources, and
ministers remain under pressure to raise road taxes in an effort to cut emissions.

Telegraph.co.uk: ‘Meat and milk prices will rise to reflect environmental costs’