Tag Archive for: agriculture

Australia’s food security needs national-security frameworks

Australia’s agriculture sector and food system have prospered under a global rules-based system influenced by Western liberal values. But the assumptions, policy approaches and economic frameworks that have traditionally supported Australia’s food security are no longer fit for purpose.

Australia and the Indo-Pacific now face chronic challenges: rising geopolitical tensions, geo-economic transitions, climate change, deteriorating water security and rapid technological advances. While the government is acting to improve the Australian Defence Force’s readiness for conflict in our region, we are not trying to replicate this preparedness elsewhere in a coordinated manner, including in our agriculture sector and food system.

The importance of food security to national security, as well as policy options to resolve our national vulnerabilities, are core issues within ASPI’s newly released National Food Security Preparedness Green Paper.

The green paper argues that food is a fundamental pillar of Australia’s national security and the stability and security of the Indo-Pacific. The role of food in maintaining national security, as well as Australian and regional prosperity, has been taken for granted by civil and defence circles for long enough. Australia’s deteriorating strategic environment and critical dependencies on vulnerable supply chains mean we must now reassess our food security and consider its effects on Australian security and regional stability.

Australia is a heavily trade-dependent nation that exports 70 percent of its food production while facing an insidious domestic food insecurity challenge. Access to export markets is vital for all agriculture and food system stakeholders to maintain profitability. But, for decades, Australia has offshored the manufacturing of critical industry inputs in the name of globalisation and on the assumption that the world will remain in the rules-based order. Australia depends on many imported critical inputs, including fuel, AdBlue (to reduce diesel emissions), fertiliser and, increasingly, labour.

Heightening regional trade and military tensions threaten Australia’s access to critical food system inputs and global markets. The Australian government is clear on the threats that we face. Australia can no longer rely on the traditional 10-year strategic warning time for conflict. Lifting Australia’s ability to feed itself and its neighbours is as important as strengthening defence and expanding national resilience.

For food security, our problem is two-fold: Australia relies on vulnerable agricultural and food system supply chains, and, compounding the issue, doesn’t understand this vulnerability. It therefore has no clear plans for mitigation.

As shown in the figure below, since the 2008 global financial crisis, at least 20 academic papers, reports and inquiries have highlighted the importance of Australia’s food system and its exposure to external shocks.

Timeline of Australian food system reports.

Despite these reports, food security has not been a national priority, resulting in limited policy responses.

The Covid-19 pandemic revealed the scale of Australia’s exposure to long and fragile supply chains and the extent to which shocks to the international system could disrupt them.

Many disruptions have happened since then, with varying domestic effect. At the time of writing, yet another flood disaster is unfolding in regional Queensland, killing 150,000 head of livestock and counting. This disaster will have immense long-term effects on rural and remote communities and the region’s food production capacity. This follows the emptying of supermarket shelves in areas affected by Cyclone Alfred a month ago. There are also recurring Avian Influenza outbreaks in southern Australia.

On 4 March, the government committed to developing a National Food Security Strategy if re-elected. This is a starting point that has at least flagged food security as a specific policy priority. It appears likely that the opposition will support this initiative in some form. Regardless of what the next government looks like after the 3 May election, it must back this National Food Security Strategy with immediate action.

Australia must think of its agriculture and food system as an interconnected food security ecosystem, as opposed to a fragmented supply chain. Similarly, the importance of food security at a departmental and ministerial level must be elevated as a national security priority. To achieve this, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry should be established as the lead agency responsible for the food system and food security preparedness, its minister should become a full permanent member of the National Security Committee, and its secretary should be included in the Secretaries Committee on National Security.

This green paper’s 14 policy recommendations are a call to action: Australia must implement a National Food Security Strategy with preparedness as its immediate starting point, and with the urgency that our deteriorating strategic circumstances demand.

Eggs in more baskets: protecting Australian agricultural exports from US tariffs

Australia’s export-oriented industries, particularly agriculture, need to diversify their markets, with a focus on Southeast Asia. This could strengthen economic security and resilience while deepening regional relationships.

The Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium has caused doubts about the strength of the relationship between Australia and the United States. While the US has not yet imposed tariffs on Australian beef and other agricultural products, the current unpredictability of US trade policies means these industries could soon be on the chopping block. This would harm Australian primary producers and have significant social effects on rural communities, including in the strategically important north.

The rumblings of a shifting world order are impossible to ignore. We cannot pretend that the post-Cold War order, in part defined by the US’s championing of trade liberalisation, is still healthy and intact. Middle powers, perhaps the chief beneficiaries of the rules-based order, bear a particular responsibility and capacity to preserving it. The shakeup of the global trade system may require us to re-evaluate our export posture; Australian governments and businesses must prepare for this.

Australia exports approximately 70 percent of the agricultural, fishery and forestry products it produces. The US is the second-largest market for Australian agricultural goods, taking $6.8 billion of them in 2023–24, with beef, lamb, dairy and wine among the most valuable. The loss of this market would deal a great blow to many agricultural businesses and communities across Australia.

These economic challenges are clear, but agricultural export tariffs would also have concerning social ramifications. Economic loss leads to disillusionment, unemployment and scapegoating, fuelling political and social discontent.

The development of northern Australia, vital for Australia’s strategic position and foreign policy, would be at particular risk if trade barriers curtailed agriculture—one of the region’s key economic engines and forces of community life.

Australia has recent experience in diversifying markets for our agricultural exports. In the face of trade barriers erected by the Chinese government beginning in 2020, Australian officials and agricultural industries did well to find other destinations for some affected products. Even when the Chinese market reopened, these other markets remained favourable.

Southeast Asian markets are particularly promising for a variety of reasons. One is that together they already buy more Australian agricultural products than the US does.

The region’s largely tropical climate makes it unsuitable for the kinds of products grown in Australia’s mediterranean, sub-tropical and semi-arid zones. Australian exports can play a more prominent role as Southeast Asia’s population rises and consumer preferences change, with both factors driving the demand for greater volume and diversity of food products, especially animal protein.

Furthermore, the US is also a significant agricultural exporter to the region. It shares six of its top 10 export markets with Australia, all in East and Southeast Asia. Should the Trump administration continue to impose tariffs, and should regional nations introduce reciprocal tariffs, Australia could fill some of the US-shaped holes.

South and Southeast Asia’s textile industries are also markets for Australian natural fibres such as cotton and wool. Currently, 60 percent of clothing is made with petrochemical fibres. But campaigns aimed at reducing this amount could drive global demand for natural fibres, benefitting Australian producers and the environment. Southeast Asia also presents a fantastic market for raw goods to be processed and exported, even back to Australia, due to moderate labour costs, lower utility costs and proximity to markets. This provides mutual economic and social benefits.

Other markets should also be considered. While Southeast Asia’s tropical produce is plentiful, New Zealand’s is not. Australia is the largest exporter of tropical fruits to New Zealand, but there is still room to grow this profile. This would particularly benefit northern Australia, where many tropical fruits are grown.

In East Asia, Australian high-quality agricultural products are particularly prized. Australia should boost agricultural-product promotion campaigns in the region, which are already quite creative.

Australia’s agricultural sector will continue to be important, yet vulnerable to trade insecurity. Through multilateral groups such as the Cairns Group and MIKTA—Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia—Australia should continue to reinforce the benefits of open trade, while also being alert to the challenges it can create for communities large and small.

As we see in the US, serious public grievances arise when negative domestic effects of international trade aren’t addressed. Governments and civil society must manage economic transitions effectively and develop adequate supports during the process. This must be supported by responsible corporate governance, alive to the ethical effects of economic change.

Like biosecurity, cybersecurity is essential for rural industries

When you enter Australia, you meet some of the strictest biosecurity screening in the world. Even domestically, if you travel to South Australia with any kind of fruit in your bag, you could be facing a $375 fine.

These protocols may seem frustrating. But they’re crucial in keeping our unique environment and rural industries—such as food and agriculture—safe from biosecurity threats.

But biosecurity is far from the only threat to rural industries. As these industries evolve and the adoption of new technologies and devices increases, we lack investment and understanding of less visible but equally damaging security threats such as cybercrime.

The agrifood tech industry is rapidly evolving in Australia, attracting $800 million in investment every year. Smart devices and machinery using artificial intelligence and internet of things (IoT) connections are becoming more integrated in supply chains.

They’re also crucial in helping the sector tackle an increasingly difficult production environment. High resolution weather monitors, powered by AI and satellite radar systems, are providing farmers with data to help deal with ever-changing and increasingly severe weather patterns.

Some devices are allowing businesses to be more data-driven, while others are offering previously unthinkable flexibility in distant control of essential devices. Refrigerator temperatures can be controlled from afar, irrigation networks can be managed from elsewhere on the farm, and self-driving tractors are set to hit the market in 2026.

Innovation and technology adoption will be necessary to meet the National Farmers’ Federation’s ambitious plan for the industry to exceed $100 billion farm-gate output by 2030. To achieve this, the industry needs to almost double its current annual growth rate, from 3 percent to 5.4 percent. But the plan fails to mention cybersecurity, a key factor considering these innovations can be susceptible to the deep dark corners of the web.

For food storage, the ability to control temperature storage units from afar increases flexibility and allows for optimised storage of goods. But what if the temperature control system is breached, contaminating all of the product? Worse, what if a breach goes undetected and contaminated food reaches supermarket shelves?

Sometimes these breaches may not even be malicious attacks. They may be unintentional outages. But without systems to find and report these outages efficiently, the effects are exacerbated.

Due to the vertical integration of the food and distribution supply chain, if any of these devices are threatened or outages occur, the breach can ripple throughout the industry, disrupting national and global food supply chains and putting people’s health at risk.

IT, IoT and operational technology (monitoring-and-control systems) have become so embedded in the processing of our food and grocery supply chains that their smooth running is now crucial for business and industry continuity.

In 2023, a cyberattack forced US food giant Dole to suspend production in North America and halt food shipments to grocery stores. Although resolved quickly, the outage caused days of delays.

The most notable and largest attack on the agriculture, food and distribution industry was the cyber attack on the world’s largest meat supplier, JBS in May 2021. For five days, the attack caused JBS to temporarily close factories in the US, Canada and Australia. To unlock its systems and continue production, JBS had to pay hackers around $16.5 million.

Not only are products and goods at risk from malicious cybercrime in the industry, but business critical data is stored throughout the extensive supply chain network. And in cybersecurity, data is the prize.

In 2020, there was a ransomware attack on Talman Software, the IT system underpinning auctions and exports used by 75 percent of Australia and New Zealand’s wool industry. Although this attack did not affect the distribution of perishable products, the system shutdown prevented wool sales that the week, withholding $70 million worth of product from the marketplace. Once up and running again, this caused an increased supply of wool in following weeks and drove prices down. The consequences of one business outage shook the entire industry.

We know how important agriculture, food and distribution companies are for Australia. That’s why we need to view cyber-physical system security in IT, operational technology and IoT as essential.

Protecting this critical infrastructure from cybercrime is critical, and there are important legislative requirements such as the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act to which these industries need to adhere.

The increased integration of technology is necessary for Australia to remain a leader in these industries and should be encouraged.

But with innovation there is often risk, and as we do at the border with biosecurity, we need to pay close attention to how we can proactively prevent threats from infiltrating our supply chains.

Australia needs its own BioMADE

Boston Consulting Group estimates that biomanufacturing will displace 40 percent of the global economy over the next 30 years. This is equivalent to $30 trillion in global economic potential. Currently, Australia is on the wrong side of this global economic reality.

Australia has not grasped the scope of the biomanufacturing revolution underway. Almost everything in our industrial system relies on the petrochemical value chain. Biomanufacturing is Australia’s opportunity to benefit from the coming supply chain revolution.

Biomanufacturing opens up sovereign options for growing any biologically derived material, chemical or compound using domestic agricultural and forestry feedstocks. It is one of the few emerging technologies that Australia has an intrinsic capacity in which to be the global leader. Yet, government support is severely lacking.

The US Department of Defense established BioMADE in October 2020, a billion-dollar public-private partnership to expand the American bioeconomy. The initiative is part of a larger project of ‘bold goals for US biotechnology and biomanufacturing’ that will direct tens of billions of dollars of US government funding to the sector. China also intends to spend billions of dollars on biomanufacturing through its five-year bioeconomy plan. India has its equivalent BioE3 program and Japan recently announced its biomanufacturing revolution fund. Britain also announced its engineering biology strategy late last year.

Australia simply has no equivalent.

Consider one example of the technology’s potential. Synthetic rubber cannot be used in aircraft tyres because the heat on landing leads to combustion. In 2023 BioMADE started a project with Goodyear and the US Air Force looking at transforming dandelions into a natural rubber through biomanufacturing. At present, though, the US Air Force’s rubber almost exclusively comes from plantations outside the US, in countries such as Brazil. This outsourcing presents a supply chain vulnerability begging for a biomanufacturing solution.

Australia has abundance of feedstock, and regional communities recognise the potential of biomanufacturing. The opportunity now exists for building advanced technology industries in the bush, providing jobs for farmers and advanced manufacturing work in the regions. It would see the development of a sovereign critical technology supply chain distributed across the continent and concentrated around sites of agricultural, forestry and aquacultural biomass. Imagination really is the limit.

Bioenergy Australia, the Jet Zero Council and Biofutures Queensland can all speak to the value of Australia having a sovereign sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel sector. Yet some of the key roadblocks are the lack of large offtake agreements that ensure new infrastructure builds have commercial feasibility. An Australian equivalent to BioMADE could negotiate national offtake agreements for the air force and the navy to place a strong market signal on the table. This would ensure that major energy companies invest in Australia and build the renewable fuel infrastructure the country needs.

Yet agriwaste-to-jetfuel is the least interesting possibility that biomanufacturing presents. Airbus is in partnership with AMSilk, a German company that makes spider silk composites stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar and more flexible and shock resistant than carbon fiber. Oh, and it’s also fully biodegradable; the planes of the future may be made of recyclable silk.

Australia has national expertise in the underpinning science and technologies, with more than 250 scientists concentrated in the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence in Synthetic Biology. We have abundant biomass and high-quality logistic networks for moving it across the continent. We have a large fermentation workforce and a driving need to revitalise regional areas through advanced technology industries that are enduringly sustainable.

Despite these strengths, Australia is missing several necessary features. We must develop de-risked investment pathways for first-of-a-kind manufacturing facilities and apprenticeship training pathways for the bioprocessing engineers of tomorrow. We are also yet to receive a clear indication from the Australian government that it understands real advanced manufacturing means being able to grow energetics, fuels, materials and chemicals at home.

An Australian BioMADE would bring the disparate strands of federal, state and local government together that are each so critical in developing and implementing an Australian biomanufacturing roadmap aligned with Defence needs and priorities.

These new technologies do not require sunlight to function, so they can be deployed nearly anywhere. Think of alternative protein on a submarine, sustainable aviation fuel fermentation deep beneath the Snowy Hydro or more simply, a way to domestically produce the nation’s most imported chemicals and energetics.

Creating an Australian BioMADE as a joint enterprise between the Department of Defence, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and the Department of Agriculture is needed now. Otherwise, Australia will be locked into exporting canola to Europe to be turned into fuel that should have been manufactured at home. It’s time we stop sending our scientists overseas to start companies that couldn’t find funding or a welcoming regulatory environment in Australia. We need to grow our advanced biomanufacturing capacity on this continent. An Australian BioMADE paired with an Australian biomanufacturing roadmap will make that happen.

Food is fundamental to Australia’s security

Resilience, the economy and national security are a live discussion across Australia. People can feel change in their bones, from the climate to mortgage repayments—even Australia’s place in the world. These discussions are happening on milk crates at smokos and at home around dinner tables, because big topics have a habit of raising themselves when people gather around a meal. Food brings us together, but it also goes far beyond the simple fellowship of breaking bread. Food is central to Australia’s stability and security, yet it’s too often neglected in favour of seemingly higher priorities.

The release of Australia’s defence strategic review in April was a defining moment. Rarely has a public document talked so openly about Australia’s challenging strategic environment. The review tells us that the threat of conflict in the Indo-Pacific is the highest level of strategic risk we have faced in 80 years, and that leaders need to return to fundamentals. It offers a new vision of defending Australia—one that goes beyond the military, and in which we all have a role to play. It also brings to the fore the fatigued concept of resilience, and calls our national preparedness into question.

But for a document that points squarely at the need for every part of Australia to pitch in, it was disappointing that the unclassified version didn’t mention food or agriculture. With work on a national defence strategy underway, now is the perfect time to reflect on why food should be more highly prioritised.

Agriculture and food production will play a central role in the defence strategic review’s ‘whole-of government’ and ‘whole-of-nation’ approach to security, and not just for enabling defence, but for whole-of-society resilience. Agriculture and food production are much more valuable than their 2% contribution to GDP or employment of 1.6 million people.

After all, what’s more fundamental than food? Our ability to produce it, process it and export it shouldn’t be taken for granted, nor should our ability to get what we want, when we want from a supermarket shelf. Without any one of these capabilities, Australia would find itself suddenly facing complex problems directly linked to our ability to defend ourselves and the region. Hungry populations are discontent, and discontent breeds instability. The basic capacity to feed and clothe the population, and to export that prosperity, is fundamental to the stability of our society.

Agriculture is a microcosm of Australia’s strategic vulnerabilities. It’s heavily trade exposed, vulnerable to supply chain shocks, and contends with the daily threat of devastating climate and biosecurity risks. It offers key lessons on preparedness and resilience for the rest of the nation.

Australia’s agricultural sector exports about 70% of what it produces every year. Just like the broader economy, it’s so trade exposed that if farmers can’t export their surplus produce, most will go broke. Two-way trade makes up more than 40% of Australia’s overall GDP. Stuff coming in and stuff going back out, profitably, is key to Australia’s solvency.

Profitable trade is becoming more challenging as the lines between trade and security increasingly blur and trade becomes weaponised. Our trading environment is rapidly changing as challenges to the rules-based world order grow stronger. If the commitment to economic liberalism continues to erode, the terms of trade may not be as favourable to us as they have been in the past. Australia has long enjoyed the luxury of focusing on securing favourable terms for decades, as the recent EU trade negotiations highlight, but the ability to get our products out to market at all is often overlooked. The state of Ukrainian wheat exports is an extreme example of what this could look like.

That raises the issue of supply chains—the indispensable veins and arteries that keep the sector, and the economy, alive. Elizabeth Jackson, an associate professor of supply-chain management and logistics at Curtin University, has highlighted that ‘Australia is one of the most logistically isolated major economies on earth’. We felt this reality in both world wars, when our access to world markets effectively vanished overnight and entire export industries were lost.

Soberingly, a 2003 navy report noted that Australia is still reliant on non-Australian ships for trade. The situation hasn’t improved and Australia’s merchant fleet has continued to shrink, sharpening the focus on the government’s plan to establish a maritime strategic fleet. For agriculture, the ability to import key inputs like labour, liquid fuels, animal medicine, chemicals, fertiliser and spare parts is just as important as being able to export the final product. In a potential future conflict, our solvency would depend on it.

Finally, Australian agriculture faces ever-present climate volatility and biosecurity risks. These range from mild inconveniences to crippling foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks and increasingly frequent extreme climate events that could decimate industries. Compared with some sectors, though, honest and open conversations about these risks have led to a relatively sophisticated understanding of the importance of preparedness.

Governments and industry have worked together to combat established pests and diseases and to prevent incursions of new ones. Together, they operate a biosecurity system that generates an estimated 30:1 return on every dollar invested into it. The federal government appears to have recognised this in its proposed sustainable funding model for biosecurity, which defrays funding increases across the economy. While it’s contested, it should be recognised as an example of taking a whole-of-nation approach to security.

Understanding these vulnerabilities and the role of food and agriculture in Australia’s stability and security is crucial if we are to return our focus to fundamentals. The lesson this offers for the authors of the 2024 national defence strategy is simple: investing in preparedness pays off. The sooner an honest and open conversation starts with the community about risks, the more prepared they can be.

Lifting northern Australia’s protein profile

Northern Australia has enormous potential to expand its role in providing for one of the Indo-Pacific’s most crucial needs—protein-rich foods.

Thanks to its high-quality protein industries such as beef cattle and its potential to expand into new sources of protein and develop a diverse range of goods, Australia’s north is well placed to meet the surging demand for protein in markets across Asia. Backed by strong environmental and animal-welfare regulations that underpin the quality of its products, northern Australia could become Asia’s protein powerhouse.

Protein is vital to physical health and development, yet beyond their nutritional role, protein-rich foods grow in popularity as economic growth drives changes in a population’s diet.

Protein-rich foods are typically derived from one of three main sources: seafood, livestock and plants. Across the world, a country’s primary source of protein depends on a combination of economic, production, geographical and cultural factors.

In South Asia, for instance, the chickpea, a protein-rich legume, is popular because of favourable growing conditions, affordability for low- and middle-income countries, and suitability to the local cuisine. It also reflects the region’s culture—vegetarianism is very common in South Asia.

That said, the economic determinants of dietary intake tend to shift more rapidly than other variables, such as culture, religion or climate change. As countries develop, the share of household expenditure on protein begins to grow and consumers seek higher quality sources of protein. This has been the case in many of Australia’s regional trading partners.

In Vietnam, for example, meat consumption rose nearly fourfold from 15.6 kilograms per year per capita in 1990, when the country’s GDP per capita was $1,673, to 57 kilograms per year per capita in 2019, when its GDP per capita had grown to $8,041.

But in that same period, global meat production roughly doubled from 177.74 million tonnes to 335.46 million tonnes, largely driven by production in Asia. While in some countries dietary demand is met by domestic production, when demand grows quickly, as in Vietnam’s case, imports are critical.

Australia has helped to fill that gap over the past few decades. It is the world’s largest exporter of sheep and goat meat and the fourth largest exporter of beef. Australian pork, poultry, eggs and milk have also found their way to global markets. Fisheries and plant proteins also contribute significantly to Australia’s protein export profile.

Recent efforts to bolster primary production in northern Australia have strengthened the region’s protein-production capacity. In Queensland, the state government recently announced a $7.5 million aquaculture investment, much of which is set to benefit the state’s north at a time when aquaculture production there has achieved a record-high value of $225 million.

In Queensland and the Northern Territory, a project funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia has demonstrated that plant material from peanut production can provide high volumes of feed for cattle ‘without significantly compromising end-of-season nut yields’.

Other projects using innovative approaches to primary production have demonstrated the steps required to grow protein-rich food in northern Australia. These initiatives have found creative ways to circumvent the constraints that have long created the perception that agricultural diversification in the north is too hard or unattainable. When the challenges of climate, geography, human resources and infrastructure are met with ambitious policy, science and people, new opportunities emerge.

But there is even more room to grow. Despite these initiatives, northern Australia’s agricultural potential is largely underutilised.

There are clear strategic dividends to come from increased protein production in northern Australia. For instance, agriculture can play the role of an economic launchpad for other prosperity-supporting infrastructure, such as in energy and water, and can serve as a companion industry for education, research and innovation.

Agricultural trade and investment links can also foster people-to-people connections between Australia and its global partners. At a time when food security, global peace and domestic manufacturing are ascendant in Australia’s national discourse, stronger protein production in northern Australia can provide a useful platform for contributing to progress in these areas.

By generating the technical capacity of scientists and producers to develop high-quality goods in the challenging growing environments of the north, conditions shared with nations in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, Australia could export its expertise, too.

Sharing agricultural strategies with economies that have similar growing conditions to those in northern Australia would demonstrate Australia’s commitment to global food security and responsible production. It would also assist Australia’s partners in the region to achieve their food security goals.

As just one example, Singapore is aiming to produce 30% of its food domestically by 2030. This poses a significant challenge for the small, tropical nation. Versatile protein production in northern Australia potentially holds many lessons for Singapore, including in tropical animal health, circular economies and the use of agricultural technology in intensive production systems. Australia could invest further in sharing these innovations with Singapore.

Any breakthroughs could also be used in Australia of course, and this doesn’t mean that Australia would abandon its aspirations to be a leading protein exporter. A booming protein industry in northern Australia would contribute to food resilience across the region with expertise, as well as food. Expanding protein production would not just benefit Australian producers and their communities but also support the nation’s strategic, humanitarian and foreign policy interests.

For all of these benefits, northern Australia’s capacity to produce a diversity of protein products is still constrained by infrastructural, policy and scientific limitations. Water availability, research and development in production systems designed for northern Australian conditions, and efficient supply chains from farm to port are just some of the areas in which investment will be required if the region is to become a protein powerhouse.

There’s a reason protein-rich diets tend to emerge in high-income settings. This nutritional transition requires financial inputs greater than the traditional plant-based diets that tend to precede them because protein isn’t cheap to grow. Yet it is a price many more people in the Indo-Pacific and around the world are able and willing to pay.

If policymakers multiply the creative approaches that have already facilitated advances in northern Australia’s production systems, the region will continue to play a significant role in global protein markets, satisfying the nutritional and lifestyle demands of millions and helping to achieve Australia’s strategic priorities.

Resource rivalry and Australia’s opportunity: the influence of food

In January, the World Economic Forum released its Global Risks Report 2023. For almost two decades this report has been the pre-eminent source of global risk data—the insights it provides are only becoming more valuable as the lines between diplomacy, trade and national security increasingly blur. It’s a sobering reminder that the conditions under which Australia has prospered are rapidly and irrevocably changing.

The report identifies and analyses a ‘top 10’ risks facing humanity on a two- and 10-year time horizon. It also outlines four emerging future scenarios for 2030 that explore growing resource rivalry in the context of the ‘interrelated environmental, geopolitical, and socioeconomic risks relating to the supply and demand for natural resources’.

Global cooperation and the impacts of climate change are identified as two critical factors that will determine whether the world can meet demand for resources like food, water and critical minerals. The report rightly highlights these necessities as underpinning societal stability. Australia is uniquely positioned globally as we largely enjoy an excess of these resources—especially food.

Concern is growing about the cumulative impact of continuous, and increasingly concurrent, crises on Australia’s resilience. We can anticipate that challenge will only grow, but so too will the opportunities for Australia if it can effectively prepare for and mitigate these.

The report’s four scenarios to 2030 are ‘Resource Collaboration—the danger of natural scarcity’, ‘Resource Constraints—the danger of divergent distress’, ‘Resource Competition—the danger of resource autarkies’ and ‘Resource Control—the danger of resource wars’.

Consistent across each scenario is the assumption that supply of food will fail to meet demand for critical resources because of environmental, geopolitical and social risks. What differs is their assumed collaboration between countries in meeting those challenges and how that effects each risk and its impacts over time.

Australia’s challenge right now is understanding which of these scenarios is most likely, establishing whether it is prepared, and avoiding unwittingly contributing to a worst-case scenario.

In a perfect world, Australia would maximise collaboration with international trading partners, facilitate freer trade and work together to effectively tackle climate change impacts. This is consistent with the report’s ‘Resource Collaboration’ scenario. But as highlighted by the recent Defence Strategic Review, we do not live in a perfect world.

The reality is that despite Australia’s best efforts, great-power competition, coercive economic activity, divided loyalties and climate change impacts will still create serious risks that we all must live with, prepare for and respond to.

More likely than the best-case ‘Resource Collaboration’ scenario is the report’s ‘Resource Control’ scenario, and if things go their worst, Australia should also be prepared for the possibility of ‘resource wars’.

To do this, Australia should focus more than ever on its production of food and other critical resources. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global food consumption will grow by 1.4% per annum over the coming decade, with that growth concentrated in mainly low- and middle-income countries. In comparison, agricultural production is estimated to grow by just 1.1%.

It’s here that Australia has an opportunity to assert greater geopolitical influence, promote liberal values and deepen its strategic relationships. It may not be one of the world’s largest exporters of food and other critical resources, but it is highly efficient, safe and reliable and can play a large role in meeting growing demand—and in bringing the concept of bonding over food to the international stage.

Whether it can take that opportunity depends on its productive capacity. This means safeguarding the supply of key input requirements and maximising the agrifood industry’s ability to respond to climate events.

This presents Australia with the vexing challenge of finding a balance between protecting key strategic inputs and staying open enough to get those resources out onto the market easily.

Amid all the current discourse, leaders must also acknowledge that producing critical resources, particularly food, is a potent tool of influence and stability. Then, they can push for further strategic investment in critical infrastructure that protects Australia’s productive capacity and key input requirements and step up to the opportunity this resource squeeze is presenting them.

It’s not only government’s responsibility to prepare. All stakeholders in the agrifood sector—and in other critical production sectors—must realise that the conditions under which Australia has prospered in the past are rapidly changing. This reality has been brought into sharp focus by the Defence Strategic Review and is one that demands preparation and investment to adapt to a world of intensifying resource rivalry.

Balancing strategic protection with promoting openness will be key to navigating the resource rivalry scenario the report warns of. It will also be key to achieving the open, stable and predictable region spoken of by Australia’s foreign minister. If Australia achieves this balance, it can use its critical resources, particularly food, as a key element of its national power and to much greater geopolitical effect.

Is Australia’s biosecurity system ready for foot-and-mouth disease?

In 2017, an independent review of the capacity of Australia’s biosecurity system classified it as an essential national asset. The report stated that the system is built on shared responsibility—that is, the cooperation, investment and actions of all governments (state, territory and federal), industry bodies, exporters, importers, farmers, miners, tourists, researchers and the broader Australian community.

The review, along with at least 11 others since 2002, highlighted the inevitable and growing threats to Australia’s security and prosperity. Chief among these are the biosecurity risks that threaten one of Australia’s greatest strategic advantages: our ability to feed and clothe twice our own population, our food security and ultimately our national security.

Australia’s biosecurity system protects our economy, our environment and the way of life of all Australians. The consequences of realised biosecurity risks rate as high as those from climate change and geopolitical volatility and could be more disruptive than a global pandemic. Those closest to the biosecurity system believe that it should be classed as part of Australia’s critical infrastructure, a system of national significance.

One of the risks we face today is foot-and-mouth disease, or FMD. Its arrival here is not inevitable, but it is increasingly likely. Detected last week in the tourist hotspot of Bali, the disease is closer to mainland Australia now than it has been in the 150 years since it was last eradicated. Australia’s biosecurity system works across a continuum that comprises activities pre-border, at the border and post-border. Prevention always being better than a cure, activities pre-border and at the border have been ramped up since FMD was first reported in Indonesia earlier in 2022. But with its progression towards Australia, the probability of an outbreak within the next five years has now risen to nearly 12%.

This necessitates a laser focus on how the biosecurity system reacts post-border should the unthinkable occur. An FMD outbreak in Australia is estimated to have an $80–100 billion direct impact to Australia’s economy. That cost factors in the immediate loss of market access for Australia’s red meat, livestock, wool and dairy products following a reported incursion. That would be an immediate and heavy blow to a nation that exports an average of 70% of what it produces.

Concurrently, a national livestock standstill—a pause on the movement of all FMD-susceptible livestock species across the entire country—will be ordered by authorities while they investigate the location, extent and spread of the disease. A short- to medium-term food protein shortage is likely to follow.

These measures and others are laid out in the Australian veterinary emergency plan, which contains the nationally agreed approach for responding to emergency animal diseases. These arrangements form a critical part of the post-border biosecurity system, and their success will determine the ultimate extent and impact of an outbreak.

Underpinning these arrangements is Australia’s livestock traceability system, the National Livestock Identification System. It’s the contact-tracing system for FMD-susceptible livestock species and it will be relied upon to track and trace animals in the early stages of an outbreak. It will be used to isolate animals and then as a monitoring and surveillance tool following the destruction of infected animals.

The more effective these systems are, the sooner an outbreak can be contained and eliminated. But the residual impact is ongoing. To regain access to export markets, Australia will have to prove freedom from FMD to the rest of the world. That requires an application to the World Organization for Animal Health, which can be made no sooner than three months after the destruction of the last infected animal where a vaccine program is not used, and six months where a vaccine has been used. If and when a declaration of freedom has been granted, only then will key export markets begin the process of considering whether to allow Australian trade again. That process could take years.

FMD is unique among the long list of Australia’s biosecurity risks because its impact is so widespread. Beyond the direct economic effects, the social fabric of rural and regional Australia would be fundamentally torn. The effects on mental health would strain already stretched services and the lives of individuals and families would be uprooted as businesses and livelihoods collapsed. From tourism to mining, few would be free of its impact. The recovery could take a generation.

This matters to suburban and metropolitan Australia, too. Much of our nation’s wealth comes from regional Australia—70% of the value of Australia’s exports is created there. The revenue generated by this economic activity helps to pay for services in the city such as infrastructure, education and health. Without this revenue the nation’s prosperity would be in jeopardy.

If anything is to cause a critical failure of our biosecurity system, FMD is the disease that will do it. Such is the enormity of the challenge it presents. It will test the relationships between jurisdictions, the Commonwealth, state and national industry bodies and the broader community. Preparedness is critical. A clear-eyed understanding of the impact is required, followed by a calculated and methodical approach to ensuring the biosecurity system is up to the task.

Partisan backbiting in the face of this disease is as equally useless as industry accusing governments of a lack of preparedness after years of blocking reform. Genuine cooperation in the shared responsibility of maintaining the biosecurity system is the only way Australia will prepare for and recover from the total disruption of an FMD outbreak. Collective national leadership is required, with little time to spare.

In the face of the threat, how all Australians value our biosecurity and the systems that protect our ability to produce and export food and fibre needs to radically shift. Governments must work together to ensure the resilience of the system and invest in it accordingly. The community must acknowledge and support that investment. Industry must support reforms that will strengthen livestock traceability systems because every day of inaction prolongs our re-entry into valuable export markets.

Finally, biosecurity and traceability systems must be classified as critical infrastructure and valued as systems of national significance.

Australia must take biosecurity more seriously

One of Australia’s greatest strategic advantages is our ability to produce and export more than $80 billion worth of food and fibre annually. Our agricultural industries feed three times our population. Exports represent 70% of the total value of Australia’s agricultural production, with the remaining 30% consumed domestically. The value of that strategic advantage is protected by Australia’s biosecurity system, yet its contribution to national security is poorly understood and totally undervalued.

Against a backdrop of significant geopolitical volatility with national security a top priority, the role of biosecurity in Australia’s national security is largely overlooked.

How we value our biosecurity and the systems that protect our ability to produce and export food and fibre needs a radical shift. Ensuring those systems are resilient and fit for purpose must be a top priority for all levels of government.

Post-Covid-19 optimism in agriculture is soaring and the sector is set to be worth a record $81 billion in 2021–22. Investment is strong and farmland values have increased for an eighth year in a row, with a reported average increase per hectare of 20% in 2021. Most commodity prices are surging. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to economically coerce Australia over the last two years, the value of the sector to the national economy is increasing.

Meanwhile, Covid-induced supply-chain breakdowns have provided a preview of what social instability and empty shelves look like. More than two years after the initial impacts of Covid, such breakdowns are compounded by the war in Ukraine. On top of that, the vulnerability of our systems to cyberattack was proven in 2021 when JBS Foods, one of the world’s largest livestock processors, was hacked, held to ransom and forced to shut global operations for a week.

In an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment exacerbated by major-power competition and climate change, food security is now intrinsically linked to national security. But without biosecurity, there simply is no food security.

Call them the three securities of prosperity—biosecurity equals food security, which in turn equals national security. Access to sufficient safe and nutritious food is a security necessity. We must dispense with the ‘she’ll be right’ approach that has plagued our broader attitude to biosecurity policy for too long in Australia.

Traceability systems have been a critical component of Australia’s biosecurity system for decades. While traceability might once have been considered helpful, now it is an absolute necessity. For example, the $18 billion per year red meat and livestock sector relies on the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) to demonstrate animal traceability to our trading partners, giving them confidence to allow our product into their markets. If that system does not work, our trading partners lose confidence in our product and stop imports. Suddenly, the NLIS, a system that most people don’t even know exists, becomes much more important than we could have ever realised.

Climate change consciousness and increasing domestic and international consumer demands on Australia’s agricultural production credentials are also putting further pressure on these systems. Sanitary and phytosanitary notifications to the World Trade Organization, justified or otherwise, have been growing at a rate of 6.3% per year. It is estimated that getting these systems right in the future will add up to $1 billion annually to the economy. The cost of getting it wrong will be far greater.

The value of what we produce is ultimately defined by Australia’s capacity to export. If we can no longer export 70% of our agricultural produce, we can assume the value of that 70% would be lost. In a worst-case scenario, our forecast $81 billion sector would be worth less than $30 billion.

Agriculture accounts for 55% of Australia’s land use. What are those assets now worth if we can no longer capture 70% of their productive capacity, and how would our commercial lenders react to that?

The Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis has calculated the benefits from assets vulnerable to biosecurity hazards at $251.52 billion a year.

If biosecurity systems fail, productive capacity—market access and the ability to export—is lost, eliminating value and creating insecurity.

Biosecurity is as relevant to the farmer with land worth $1 million as it is to the offshore pension fund holding hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Australian agricultural land and water assets. It’s equally relevant to a broader economy reliant on the sector to do the heavy lifting in Australia’s post-Covid recovery.

If losing market access sounds unlikely, then consider the impacts of a lumpy skin disease or foot and mouth disease outbreak, both of which have been detected as close as Sumatra and Java in recent weeks. Both diseases have significant market-access implications for Australia’s red meat and livestock sectors, including wool and dairy exports. A now-dated analysis suggests foot and mouth could cost Australia $50 billion over 10 years. That cost is now likely to be twice as much. A recent probability exercise said there was a 9% likelihood of foot and mouth occurring in Australia within five years.

The true importance of biosecurity and the traceability systems we rely on should reside with each of us. Its impact spans family farmers, the boards and audit and risk committees of every agribusiness and agrifood company, and every farm lobby group and state government. It runs all the way up to the central agencies of the Commonwealth and those on the National Security Committee of cabinet. It should be our top priority to ensure our biosecurity and traceability systems are fit for purpose.

While a promised federal budget boost for biosecurity and traceability is welcome, federal funding alone can’t replace leadership and meaningful input from the rest of us. The policies and structures that are the foundations of our system are governed and influenced by a very few. Funding decisions are made by even fewer. They are subject to the whims of government and the influence of only those in industry who speak up.

Of all the factors that contribute to Australia’s future prosperity, stability and national security, maintaining biosecurity and the traceability systems it relies on are critical and within our control. We must radically shift our understanding of its true value and invest and act accordingly.

Agriculture can drive infrastructure development in northern Australia

In the ASPI report ‘Thinking big!’: Resetting northern Australia’s national security posture, John Coyne outlines opportunities and challenges in realising northern Australia’s strategic potential for governments, institutions, and communities. One significant challenge articulated in that report is the absence of adequate infrastructure across the north that is both capable of supporting defence-related supply routes while being economically significant enough to justify non-defence investment and use by other stakeholders.

As Coyne noted, Defence ‘relies heavily on national infrastructure and the wider logistic support system, which is outside its control or management’. Below 26° south, where 95% of Australia’s population lives, a user-pays model provides Defence with that support. In the sparsely populated north, such models stymie infrastructure development, limiting defence logistics.

Developing adequate infrastructure across the north requires an alternative approach that brings multiple stakeholders together to create an economic rationale for such development. Mining, agriculture, tourism, energy and other industries that operate extensively throughout northern Australia, together with governments at all levels, must enhance collaboration to implement infrastructure projects that serve the region. No single stakeholder can deliver the infrastructure that northern Australia requires if it’s to play the strategic and economic role that’s been flagged for it.

While a multistakeholder approach will deliver effective infrastructure, each industry can contribute to the whole by developing the relevant economic opportunities presented by northern Australia. In agriculture, an industry with room to grow in the north, some opportunities are being realised while others remain untapped. The production of high-value agricultural commodities holds particular potential for attracting infrastructure investment across the north. Through research and development, the establishment or expansion of such activities will lead to infrastructure outcomes for northern Australia. Here, the old adage ‘build it and they will come’ is replaced by ‘grow it, and they will build’.

Government investment in transport infrastructure supporting mining industries across northern Australia demonstrates how high-value commodities attract public investment. Coal mining in Queensland has attracted private and public infrastructure development for nearly 150 years. The mining of gold, iron ore, copper and other materials has bolstered infrastructure investment in northern Australia since the mid-1800s. Mining of other minerals like lithium, crucial for electric vehicle manufacturing, presents newer opportunities for attracting public investment. Lithium mining near Port Hedland in northwest Western Australia is being supported by the Australian government through road widening at a cost of $44 million.

While agriculture and mining are different beasts, infrastructure that supports primary production can also serve strategic goals. Infrastructure development can be driven a number of ways. First, there are new opportunities in the form of expanded agricultural areas that would increase northern Australia’s economic performance.

In WA’s Ord River Irrigation Area, recent success with cotton production has attracted significant investment in transport infrastructure. For many years the Ord River region had not lived up to its potential because of a lack of scale to make investments worthwhile and many of the challenges that beset tropical agriculture and hamper production. But thanks to technological and agronomic advances, the region, characterised by favourable soil and abundant rain, produced impressive cotton yields in 2019 and 2020. As the region’s crop production increases, so does the impetus for infrastructure development.

While the abundant rain makes the Ord attractive from an agricultural viewpoint, it also makes the region prone to flooding, with subsequent supply interruptions. Agriculture-driven improvements to transport infrastructure in the Ord and throughout northern Australia could help avoid those interruptions through bridge construction, improving run-off and other measures—making it more suitable for Defence as well.

Nascent agricultural industries also provide incentives for infrastructure development throughout the north. For example, while major tropical fruits like mangoes are grown extensively in northern Australia, the cultivation of minor tropical fruits like durian and mangosteen has scope to increase. Many of those products are consumed in Australia, but they are also desirable to our neighbours. China imported $1.62 billion of durian in the first half of 2020 alone. The fruit, which has seen an explosive growth in value, can be grown around Darwin and in coastal areas of Cape York, but the industry is smaller than it could be. As demand for those commodities increases, infrastructure development to support the industry becomes more attractive.

Consumer demand for ethically produced goods also creates infrastructure opportunities, particularly for the livestock sector. The Northern Australia Beef Roads Program includes measures to improve animal welfare during transport, particularly by reducing ‘road roughness and dust generation’. The $100 million program seeks to make a range of improvements in road infrastructure critical to the beef industry across northern Australia and there are opportunities to augment it. The vast distances between farms or to processing facilities raise animal welfare concerns, providing a rationale for improved transport infrastructure and additional abattoirs across the north, which could shorten travel times for livestock and reduce animal stress. New processing facilities would also attract additional ancillary projects like residential infrastructure.

Many other agricultural schemes have the potential to attract infrastructure investment in northern Australia. They include innovative value-adding initiatives to existing agricultural commodities, the adoption of high-value products, increased water storage, Indigenous-led agricultural production and the construction or upgrade of airports and seaports.

Together with other stakeholders, agriculture can contribute to the infrastructure that northern Australia requires. The CQ Inland Port, near the central Queensland town of Emerald, is a great example of a major multistakeholder infrastructure development in the north. The development, which is primarily intended for use by agriculture and mining industries, includes a bulk grain handling facility as well as an intermodal and container terminal. The facility is located near the intersection of two major highways and the railways that complement them, adding to the strategic transport ecosystem in northern Australia.

A word of caution is in order: while increased agricultural activity could attract the infrastructure investment northern Australia needs, governments and industries must proceed in a sustainable way. Hurried development risks poor long-term infrastructure outcomes and may strain social cohesion across the diverse north. Similarly, casting aside environmental considerations for the sake of expedience exposes the community and environment to threats such as zoonotic diseases, water pollution and biodiversity loss.

While the challenges of northern Australia can seem prohibitive for many endeavours, including agriculture, those constraints can also act as incubators for the innovative and collaborative approaches required to achieve the sort of nation-building that the region requires.