AFSA’s National Co-ordinator, Nick Rose, says:

“For too long we’ve depended on a food system that favours the profits of major corporations, degrades the environment, forces farmers off the land and has resulted in a diabetes, heart health and obesity crisis. This system is shockingly inefficient, with as much as 40% of all food wasted. It is also deeply unfair, with two million Australians relying on food relief, a number that is climbing rapidly.”

AFSA and its allies say the Government’s soon-to-be-released National Food Plan is an opportunity missed. Instead of offering innovative solutions to a growing food crisis, it presents a business as usual, ‘Corporate Food Plan’, driven by the interests of big business.

In this David and Goliath clash, the people have decided how to fix our broken food system. Building on the endorsements of AFSA’s positions from dozens of organisations representing hundreds of thousands of Australians, over 600 individuals had their say in 40 open forums held around the country from September to November 2012. The result is a People’s Food Plan Working Paper which prioritises decent livelihoods for farmers, and population health and environmental regeneration over chemically-grown, additive laden, ‘Frankenfoods’.

Read…  A People’s Food Plan for Australia  -  Overview (pdf)

Read…  A People’s Food Plan for Australia    (pdf)       A common-sense approach to a fair, sustainable and resilient food system.

Read.. . A People’s Food Plan for Australia    A summary of the working paper 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE:   Submission to the Inquiry into Australia’s domestic response to the WHO Commission on SDoH report “Closing the Gap”

This public meeting, part of the ‘public consultation’ process, was chaired by Mr Paul Morris, Executive Director of ABARES.  AS a ABARES employee, there is no doubt that Mr Morris would be very familiar with statistical data and current trends of our food economy.

Surprisingly, he opened the meeting with slides quoting totally incorrect data on very important aspects of the debate: for instance, the claim that food prices have gone down over the last 10 years whilst the food price inflation rate in Australia has been one of highest in the OECD countries.  The picture on food insecurity in Australia was also totally incorrect.  The welfare sector and in particular Food Bank tell us that up to 2 million Australian have had access to food relief last year alone.  Mr Morris told us that only 2% of the Australian population was food insecure.

Why would a very senior public servant be so inaccurate about such important aspects of our social life? Are they trying to shape our perception (us the public) that all is well in the world of agriculture, food supply and consumption?

Is it possible that our senior bureaucracy understanding of the food system be just limited to an economic exercise totally concentrating mainly on production and prospective exports and by the same tocken being disconnected from its social context? Most likely. Why was the CEO of ABARES chairing a meeting about policy anyway? Strange choice of MC!

The Department of Agriculture had a very contained set agenda for discussion at the meeting; only food security, competitive food industry, and health/nutrition were to be discussed.  Views on the sustainability of coal seam gas mining or biotechnology were not to be debated or even discussed. The position of DAFF on these matters has been clearly articulated in the green paper: mining can co-exist with agriculture; biotechnology (GM or any other experimental manipulation on living organisms has been implicitely accepted by our government) is the way of the future.

This is a very disappointing progress for the consumer, but the Australian government may be proud of themselves for being so skillful at avoiding the real issues and framing the national food plan as an economic exercise.

We are currently preparing our written submission to the green paper just in hope that perhaps, one day, the future of food will be considered as important as the fight against cigarette smoking.  Only time will tell.

Your chance to contribute to the National Food Plan.

Click on the link below to:

• Read the green paper,
• Register for  the public meetings
• Send your comments before 30 September

Clink on link…   National Food Plan green paper 

Important related articles:

“The draft National Food Plan: putting corporate hunger first” by Nicholas Rose and Michael Croft challenges the assumptions underlying the green paper.

The draft National Food Plan: putting corporate hunger first

Brief on the National Food Plan Green Paper  from Food Alliance. The aim of this paper is to assist you in responding to the green paper.

Brief on the National Food Plan Green Paper

DOWNLOAD… SFFA’s response to the issues paper  National Food Plan August 2011

DOWNLOAD… SFFA’s  response  on the Department of Agriculture’s website

Despite previously not committing to further public consultation, the Federal Government has since announced further rounds of stakeholder consultation in line with our recommendations.