Sustainable Food for the Future

Notes from a talk given at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in February 2009 by Dr Rosemary Stanton.

Many environmental issues will affect our food choices over the next few years.These include greenhouse gases associated with production of various foods as well as the carbon costs associated with their processing, packaging, transport and storage. As most people are aware, scarce water resources will also dictate many aspects of food, and soil health will command much more attention.

Australia has a special problem in that our soils are low in phosphorus.World stocks of the phosphate fertilisers we have relied on in the past are running short and are expected to run out within the next 25 to 50 years. Research at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures warns that phosphorus use and recovery in different forms of agriculture may become our most urgent problem.We mined Nauru until their phosphate rock was gone and Australia now imports phosphate rock from Morocco, which mines it from Western Sahara against the wishes of the United Nations.The price has increased by 800% in the last year.

It's time to check soil health and stop relying on using imported fertilisers to grow foods. It's also time to recover phosphorus and change our diet to foods whose production requires less imported fertiliser.Organic agriculture is the way of the future.

Currently, agriculture produces 16% of Australia's greenhouse gases; 70% of it coming from livestock. Sheep and cattle burp methane - a most potent greenhouse gas.They also eat pasture grown using fertilisers and requiring use of water, and cattle in feedlots are especially problematic because they eat grain and legumes and produce massive quantities of gas-emitting waste.

Cutting back on animal foods and favouring kangaroo or smaller animals such as poultry that have lower carbon costs is essential. Areas of high natural rainfall and fertile soil allow sufficient natural grasses for beef and dairy cattle production,so it's probably a matter of cutting down,not out,and scrapping feedlots and other forms of factory farmed animals.

The more we examine sustainability and problems such as phosphorus,water use,production of greenhouse gases and disposal of waste, the more it becomes apparent that we need to move towards a diet that favours minimally processed, plant-based foods, locally grown using organic agriculture where possible.

At present,40% of the world's grain is fed to animals.This is an environmental travesty.So is the fact that we use energy resources and create a huge carbon footprint by using so many highly processed and packaged foods.Many additives,especially fake sugars and fats,create particularly high carbon costs.

Some of us regard it as an obscenity that we use of the world's energy resources to produce fake foods, often with little or no energy themselves, so that people who are already overfed can consume even more.The mantra of choice has gone mad,with literally thousands of useless foods lining supermarket shelves. How much better it would be to use finite resources to produce quality food for all,instead of thousands of junk foods for some while others starve.

Climate change offers us a chance to change many aspects of our food culture.We don't need so much meat, so many junk foods, out-of-season foods or foods produced with no consideration of their effect on soil fertility.

The value of organically grown foods is not that some may have marginally higher levels of nutrients, but the fact that local production with minimal artificial inputs is inherently more sustainable. If the bulk of our agricultural enterprises do not have higher regard for the health of our soils,the future is bleak for all of us.

There are inevitable links between protection and care of our land and water, our health, what we eat and drink and issues such as social equity.We have an opportunity to think more carefully about these issues - indeed a sustainable future depends on changing our outlook.

For more information and to view the slides Rosemary Stanton presented, CLICK HERE

Check out the presentation on phosphorus from Dana Cordell HERE