Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about one of the most important challenges facing not only Australia but the rest of the world. Global food security is now coming onto our radars as a really serious problem, given the booming world population and the increase in long-term demand for produce. It has been on the radar for some time but recent events, particularly the global financial crisis, has caused people to think of other matters. The effect of this shortage through rising food prices and the rise in global poverty, particularly extreme poverty, are serious issues and ones that ought to be given carriage in this place.

The following statistics from the World Bank and from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation will give a little bit of a perspective for those in the chamber today. From March 2007 to March 2008 wheat prices rose 130 per cent; soya beans rose 87 per cent; rice, 74 per cent; and corn, 31 per cent. They are massive increases in the prices of these products. Poor families spend up to 80 per cent of their budgets on food. It is estimated that a further 100 million people have fallen into poverty in just the last two years. Twenty-one of the 36 countries in food security crisis are in sub-Saharan Africa. The region imports 45 per cent of its wheat and 84 per cent of its rice. We can all understand with these figures that it is simply not sustainable.

In Indonesia a 10 per cent rise in rice prices means that two million more people will be living in poverty. Over the last year food security concerns have shifted from very high food prices to the global economic downturn. Although food prices remain high in many poor countries, this is compounded by the effects of the global recession. I want to make sure that our problems in the global financial crisis do not overshadow the vastly more serious problem of people dying from hunger. I want to congratulate the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for his good work in this area in raising these issues in the parliament and also for taking a proactive approach, following through on Labor’s commitment to agriculture, to farming and to the global food crisis. I will talk about those in a moment.

The food and economic crises have seen a substantial increase in global poverty, with the number of undernourished people having now reached one billion for the first time. Consequently, the achievement of poverty reduction targets now appear almost impossible. Longer term population and income projections indicate that global food production needs to increase by more than 40 per cent by 2030 and 70 per cent by 2050 to feed an extra 80 million people every single year. This is a massive challenge for all of us.

What can we do to start to address some of these problems? Certainly the biggest challenges we face are population growth, political instability, climate change, extreme weather events and the conversion of food crops to fuel crops. The OECD says that 38 per cent of the US maize crop and 50 per cent of Brazilian sugar production is diverted to ethanol production. That is not necessarily all bad but bad where countries that were producing crops particularly for food convert that to fuel. Almost all of Europe’s oilseed harvest will be needed to meet the community’s 2008 target for biodiesel. Climate change is causing agricultural lands to become unproductive. Extreme weather events are causing not only temporary hardships but permanent land use change, while geopolitical events continue to place more and more people into extreme poverty. But certainly one of the greatest challenges we face this year is population growth. While we continue to grow at unsustainable rates in countries such as China and India, which the face the greatest challenges of all—challenges they are trying to meet—certainly their food security becomes an issue of great concern. As we generally become wealthier in places right around the world, particularly as people come out of poverty in India and China, the demand for protein-rich foods and protein-rich diets places even more pressure on their own food sources and on global food stocks.

What is this government doing? We have some good news. Firstly, we are meeting all of the commitments that we made prior to the election. We have also seen the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry announce $6.4 million to help 15 regional businesses boost innovation in Australia’s food security for domestic and export markets. We have also taken the challenge up on the global front. We have established a team of dedicated people to work on food security issues, and we have provided $100 million to improve global food security and a further $50 million to contribute to a World Bank trust for food security for some of the world’s poorest people, including emergency food relief for places like Indonesia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and North Korea. This is a global problem and we need a global effort. The Rudd government is meeting that challenge.

Question agreed to.