WATER is critical to Australia’s food security strategy, according to irrigation industry leaders attending the recent National Farmers’ Federation Summit in Canberra.
National Irrigators’ Council, NSW Irrigators’ Council (NSWIC), Ricegrowers’ Association, Citrus Australia and Cotton Australia were united in their call that water policy belonged in Australia’s food security conversation.
Australia must stop treating healthy rivers and a productive agricultural sector as competing policy objects and start designing policy around both, NSWIC CEO, Dr Madeleine Hartley told delegates.
“If food security is a national priority, then protecting Australia’s capacity to produce food must be part of every major water policy decision,” she said.
“Water policy is food policy: Australia needs to start treating it that way.
“Canada gets something right that Australia is still missing: being a food exporter doesn’t mean you can take your domestic productive capacity for granted.”
Perin Davey, Executive Director of the Ricegrower’s Association, said food security was not just about access.
“Too often we just think about whether we can access fresh food, but we know that we must also think about whether we can produce our own fresh food,” Ms Davey said.
“When it comes to rice, in a good year we can produce enough domestically to feed 50 million people worldwide. But if we get the policy settings wrong, that Australian rice disappears from the supermarket shelves very quickly.
“You can’t ask Australian farmers to maintain high productivity while simultaneously making long-term decisions that reduce their access to the water they need to produce it.”
The federal government is currently consulting on Australia’s first National Food Security Strategy and Zara Lowien from the National Irrigators’ Council believes it should be asking a simple question: is our water policy leaving Australia capable of producing food in the future?
“With current global insecurity, the Australian Government can make the decision to reduce uncertainty for farmers and set stable water policy settings that do not reduce water for farming and optimise the use of environmental water governments now hold,” Ms Lowien said.
“Enough is enough. The evidence suggests we need to do more than just add water to achieve sustainability.”
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