- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2109
Rethinking industrialised farming in Australia
Australia’s system of industrialised mass food production requires a total rethink. Patrice Newell, a farmer from NSW, argues that agriculture needs to align with the health sector, as well as land management. Our bodies need healthy food to remain healthy. This is at odds with corporations that see farms as a means of profit maximisation. Australian agriculture accounts for 55 per cent of Australian land use, 426 million hectares. The total primary production is worth $61 billion. It accounted for 13.6 per cent of goods and services exports in 2022/23, 72 per cent of our food is exported, and agriculture constitutes 2.7 per cent of our GDP.
In Queensland 20 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions are produced by land usage. Soil Science Australia in 2019 estimated that Australia’s soils are valued at $930 billion per year, making soils our most valuable natural asset. Yet soils and the agricultural landscape have been degraded since the introduction of industrialised agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and herbicides.
In 2017 the Australian federal government launched National Food Waste Strategy to halve food waste by 2030. It is estimated that $20 billion worth of food, one third of all food produced, is wasted every year. Food sent to tips as landfill emits greenhouses gases. One third of all food produce ends up dumped in rubbish tips. Fruit and vegetables are rejected by the chain stores, based solely on appearances, This means 30 per cent of fertilisers, water and energy used in food production are also wasted. Patrice Newell estimates that trillions of kilojoules of energy are wasted every year in the agricultural sector, by produced food that is thrown away. This is massive food wastage at a time when families are struggling to put enough food on the table.
Australia grows so much surplus food that grain is kept in silos and sprayed with fungicides to stop vermin spoiling it. Vegetables are frozen and canned and stored in warehouses. Meat is kept in cool rooms for years.
Agriculture makes up 74 per cent of Australia’s water consumption. We do not need more farming land, we only need to stop wastage, to stop consuming huge volumes of synthetic fertilisers and herbicides, and to improve our soils with biomass. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority still approves glyphosates (Roundup) despite it being banned in many countries.
In 2015 the UN formulated 17 sustainable Development Goals, but did not include soils. Australian agriculture is dominated by what Newell calls “drug-addicted industrial agriculture in this epoch of agricultural imperialism.” It is a monoculture system requiring synthetic chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers to produce large agricultural outputs with little regard to their environmental impact. Australia’s agricultural sector is the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after electricity and transportation. Changes are happening with 68 per cent of broadacre farms minimising tillage and 65 per cent having reduced reliance on pesticides and fertiliser.
Newell travelled across Australia and the world to see alternatives to industrial monoculture farming and how this is improving soils and ecology, producing better foods, and treating workers better. One way to provide stable carbon sequestration, building up soil structure and fertility, is through biochar being buried in the soil. Organic mass and waste plant material, such as crop residuals, are converted into biomass. For every tonne of biomass, slowly pyrolyzed using thermo-chemical technology, 350 kg of biochar and 400 litres of pyroligneous acid (acetum lignorum) is produced which has commercial usage. Biochar is pelletised and sold as fertiliser without the harmful impact of synthetic fertilisers.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated that for bioenergy to produce 20 per cent of global energy by 2050, the world needs to increase biomass production by 400 per cent. In contrast to industrialised farming, the International Federation of Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) produces healthy soils that improve ecosystems and the quality of food that people consume, by using natural products to produce organic food.
The Hidden in Plain Sight report (2017) showed that 4,300 people were brought into Australia to work on farms, many in despicable conditions. This forced governments into action. The federal and NSW governments passed the Modern Slavery Act 2018 to improve working conditions. Instead of farms employing low-paid low-skilled workers, the Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) helps workers find small organic farms to get useful experience and better treatment. In 2021 the agriculture sector employed 239,000 people.
Tim Flannery, noted scientist and conservationist, called Newell’s book, an “engaging account of sustainable farming down under.” So it is. Who’s Minding the Farm is highly entertaining, easy to read, and introduces new ideas that will help people understand our precious agricultural sector and what it takes to get healthy food onto our table.
