Food is a fundamental requirement for survival. When it becomes scarce, people will fight for it; yet when it is abundant, we often waste it. The transition from abundance to scarcity can happen rapidly. A major drought, a natural disaster or war, can suddenly plunge a community into famine. While the transition to hunger can be rapid, escape from hunger can be slow, painful and difficult.

The world’s population is increasing rapidly – with forecasts predicting it will reach 9 million people by 2050. And all these people need to be fed.

This is why “food security” is on the tip of everyone’s tongues; and this is why there is so much international focus on the capacity to produce food to feed these people.

The trouble is that “food security” means different things to different people – and, as a result, more time seems to be spent arguing about what the term means than on actually addressing the issue.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, food security exists when “all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

The previous Tasmanian government has a slightly different view of this. In 2012, amidst some fanfare, it released the Tasmanian Food Security.

According to the then Premier’s press release, its key objective was “giving Tasmanian communities the skills and resources to produce healthy and nutritious food … The strategy focuses on local solutions to increase access to affordable and nutritious food for all Tasmanians, but in particular to those most at risk … Organisations such as FoodBank, Second Bite and Produce to the People also play a vital role in collecting food that would otherwise go to waste and distributing it to those most in need.”

I am a simple girl at heart, and this all a bit aspirational and academic for me. I would have thought that in order to have “food security”, you would first need to establish a secure supply of food – and, unless you are one of the people who think food comes from the supermarket, this by definition involves farmers.

Clearly, this is not a generally held view. A nationwide survey has shown that knowledge of food and fibre production amongst Australian students and teachers has declined to worrying levels. Seventy five percent of students thought cotton socks were an animal product; and forty five percent could not identify that everyday lunchbox items such as bananas, bread and cheese originated from farms.

The TFGA accepts that the state government recognises the pivotal role that agriculture is playing and will continue to play in terms of economic development in this state. However, it is time for policy makers to focus more clearly on ensuring there is a clear recognition of the inextricable link between agriculture (and farmers) and food.

Without this, not only will we not be able to capitalise on the many opportunities to grow our industry; but we’ll struggle to even maintain what we have.

The World Health Organisation has a “three pillars” approach to food security:
food availability (ensuring there is a reliable and adequate food supply);
food access (being able to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet);
food use (using it properly on terms of storage, preparation and optimum nutrition).

These are big questions that we must all address.

However, in thinking globally it is important that we also act locally. Australian farmers are efficient producers of food and fibre; and in many areas we export more than we use domestically. However, there’s no guarantee that will always be the case.

Australians have never been hungry – and we take our food for granted. We expect to have the world’s best quality food available 24/7 at prices often below the realistic cost of production. That’s not a given in today’s tough business climate, where our farmers are burdened with more and more costs and lower and lower returns.

The bottom line is that, if you don’t have food, it is not much good formulating policies centred on how people can afford it. If it’s not there, you can’t eat it. Who produces food? Farmers.

There’s an old saying that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher, but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer.

We need to be sure there are enough farmers around to feed all the world’s people, three times every day.
TFGA chief executive Jan Davis