Closing the gap between producers and consumers

The gap between consumption and production grows ever wider, as the surfeit of available fresh food encourages consumers to assume all is well on the land.

The ease with which it is assumed food is produced and the disconnect between consumption and production will be addressed by Dr Robyn Alders, Crookwell grazier and Honorary Professor, Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, Canberra during the forthcoming Fenner Conference on Environment, "Making Australian agriculture sustainable" in Canberra on 30 September and 1 October.

The big challenge obviously in this space is the lack of structures and tailored rewards that support farmers who achieve sustainable productivity with responsible marketing, while also raising consumer awareness about the quality of and way in which their food is raised.

It is vital that the connections between what consumers buy, and the associated social and environmental implications be better understood.

Importantly, overcoming the price point barrier to purchasing good quality food must be encouraged by improved consumer understanding of essential nutrients they are purchasing.

For example, Dr Alders noted, growing children can consume as much soft drink as they like, but it will not provide them with the essential nutrients, such as calcium, that they need for their growing bodies. And in many cases, soft drink is more expensive than milk.

"Crazy examples such as this, together with wider sustainability concerns, are driving growing discussions over 'circular bioeconomies' that challenge our commodity-based food production and trading systems which ignore the critical role of food in our health," Dr Alders said.

"The problem is current price signals given to farmers are not working well for either the farmer or the consumer because of pressure put on the production system means food is often not as nutritious as it could and should be.

"The cost to farming families and the cost to land is not taken into consideration when the food is ultimately priced before sale to the consumer."

Dr Alders says the existence of our human society rests on access to safe and nutritious food yet it is treated as a mere commodity for trading purposes.

"We need to move away from this food-as-commodity focus and develop a new system in which resources are recycled, natural systems are regenerated and wastes are minimised," Dr Alders said.

"This is known as a circular food system. It applies equally to aquatic farming and fishers as it does to terrestrial farming.

"We need new frameworks such that food producers and consumers know whether the landscapes that produce food are healthy and whether the food itself is becoming more, or less, nutritious.

"Ideally, these frameworks for determining whether the landscape and food are healthy should be collaboratively developed, internationally based and locally adapted," she says.

Dr Alders says food must be valued not only by its weight or volume, but also by its natural nutrient density, freedom from biological and chemical contamination, degree of environmental impact and fairness to all involved in its production and distribution.

"The current agricultural economic system is inequitable as well as environmentally damaging," she says.

"Farmers, especially family farmers, are inadequately rewarded and current price signals facilitate dogs and cats in high-income households to consume higher quality diets than vulnerable people, especially women of reproductive age and infants in low-income settings.

"New agricultural systems must ensure that farmers everywhere receive adequate remuneration for the food they produce so that they can care both for their households and their land.

"Such rewards give due recognition to the crucial roles played by farmers in keeping our landscape and our society healthy."

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