Minister for food proposed as farmers seek accountability for ‘avalanche of bad ideas’

Appointing an Australian minister for food and establishing a food council are some of the ways the nation could improve food security, the Australian Parliament’s agriculture committee has found. 

A year-long inquiry released its findings this week, after examining ways to strengthen and safeguard Australia’s food security, focusing on production, supply chains, and key inputs as well as climate change, biosecurity, and food insecurity.

Committee chair, Meryl Swanson, said it was the most substantial inquiry into Australia’s food systems in a decade.

“We talked to farmers, food tech people who are involved in science and soil [and many more fields], and we’ve come up with 35 very solid recommendations to address food security in our country,” she said.

“We absolutely grow a lot of food; we export about 70 per cent of what we produce.

“However, there are also many in our country who can’t afford food or don’t have access to it.”

International inputs

The inquiry received 188 submissions from various interest groups and Ms Swanson said almost all recommended a food plan for Australia, a measure many comparable countries already had in place.

“We need a map to show us what’s grown where at what time, we need strategies around the best use of soil and water, and we really do need a minister for food,” she said.

“The most successful cases across the world, like Scotland, the United Kingdom, and Canada have all faced challenges and all have some similarities to us — they have a food council and the concept of a food minister.”

Ms Swanson said although an ABARES insights report released by the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment in 2020 found Australia was one of the most food-secure nations in the world, other global studies found Australia was the 22nd most food-secure.

“There are certainly improvements that we can make,” she said.

“One of the areas where we do need to become a little more self-sufficient is inputs, like fertiliser. We need to not be at the whim of some of those supply chains that can be easily interrupted. COVID and the war in Ukraine showed us that.” 

War on waste

Food waste in Australia is a $36 billion problem that Ms Swanson said desperately needed to be addressed.

“But it’s not only in terms of scrapings from the plate, but also in terms of what we grow,” she said.

“How do we conserve things like soil nutrients and water and minimise the use of inputs?”

Amid growing calls from farming bodies and politicians for an investigation into the cost of food and revenues of the major supermarkets, Ms Swanson said rising food prices was making healthy food inaccessible for some. 

“Why is it that at the farm gate the prices are much lower than they seem to be at the supermarket — who is making the money?” she said.

“That is definitely something that the food council would want to be working on, and we’ve made some really solid recommendations around that.

“And looking at the consumer code, grocery code, and working with the big two supermarket chains to see that Australians do receive good value for money when it comes, particularly, to fresh produce.”

National Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said a National Food Plan would keep decision-makers accountable for the impact their choices had on the farm sector and Australians’ cost of living.

“There’s a terrific opportunity here for the government to seize on this and properly prioritise the needs of the farm sector,” he said.

“A National Food Plan would hopefully provide a lens through which policies that harm the sector could be scrutinised, and supportive policies could be fast-tracked.

“Currently, we’re facing an avalanche of bad ideas that will see deep cuts to farm production — including taking water, land, and workers away from agriculture.”