fair food future
“The impact of COVID-19 has seen demand for food relief reach an alltime high, with so many new people turning to charities for support for the first time in their lives.”
The food we eat has the power to determine our health and wellbeing. It can nourish (or deplete) the environment. It can bring people together and bridge divides. But, between the climate crisis and the pandemic, it’s evident there are glitches in what we may have assumed was a well-oiled machine – Australia’s food system isn’t resilient to shocks (and shocks upon shocks) and it isn’t serving all people equally.
Where Australia is performing well is in production. In response to empty supermarket shelves from widespread panic buying, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences published a report stating: “Australia does not have a food security problem.” The April 2020 analysis outlined that the country exports 71% of its agriculture, meaning we produce enough food to feed 75 million people – three times our population.
This may have been a well-intentioned manoeuvre to calm and reassure those
