Abstract
The reality of climate change, and the expectation that agricultural production systems will need to adapt in response to it are now largely accepted by the Australian agricultural policy community. However, the effect of Australia’s market-oriented agricultural policy is to delink the matter of adaptation from questions of Australian food security: national food security is considered assured by national income and global trade and food security is framed as the contribution that Australian farmers and agricultural technologists can make to the food security of others elsewhere in the world. Adaptation in this view is the process of farming system innovation, undertaken at individual enterprise scale, that allows Australian farm enterprises to remain profitable and globally competitive, even as environmental conditions change and on-farm vulnerabilities increase.
In this chapter, we argue that Australia’s export-focused agricultural policy and more general assumptions of domestic food security result in the framing of adaptation as a technical process located at the scale of the farming enterprise and that this framing ignores important threats to Australian food security, in particular at the household scale. In fact, food producers and the rural communities where they live are themselves amongst the most vulnerable. In our reading, climate change is just one of the conditions creating this vulnerability for Australian rural communities, and adaptation must be understood in the context of multiple pressures that threaten the ability of farmers to carry on farming. This includes the volatility and competitiveness of both domestic and export markets and the concentration of market power at key stages of agricultural value chains.
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- 1.
A Shire is a local government area in rural Australia.
- 2.
Australia has had several incarnations of its drought policy since 1992. At the time of this case study, Exceptional Circumstances were in place where assistance was based on drought severity in a particular area. Farmers in these areas with low net cash income, off-farm income and high debt were eligible to receive income assistance (Productivity Commission 2009). In 2014 this was replaced by the Farm Household Allowance Scheme which is an income safety net for farmers in times of financial hardship, regardless of the source of the hardship (Department of Agriculture and Water Resources 2017).
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Appendix: State and Federal Government Water Policy
Appendix: State and Federal Government Water Policy
State | Federal |
|---|---|
Water Act 1989 (Vic.)—governs the amount of water irrigators can access each year (dependent on water levels in storage). | |
1991—under the Water Act 1989 (Vic.) water trading allowed where water can be exchanged and redistributed. | |
2004—water cap of 4% introduced where no more than 4% of water can be traded out of the area. | |
2007—water bundling introduced where water is no longer attached to land title. | Water Act 2007 (Cth)—established the need for a Basin Plan for the management of the Basin water resources |
Water Amendment Act 2008 (Cth)—establishment of Murray Darling Basin Authority. Has the power to override state water allocations. | |
Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project (2008)—to upgrade existing infrastructure and to eliminate some of the smaller channels—modifications made to the 4% cap. | |
Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Act 2012—sets out the maximum amount of water that can be taken for consumptive use—transition from cap to SDL which will commence in 2019. | |
2011 Victorian Food Bowl Modernisation Project—agreement between Commonwealth and Victorian Governments. Established stage 2 of NVIRP. 50% share of water savings previously intended to be shared amongst irrigators in the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District (the “second 50% share”) will be retained by the Victorian Government and sold | |
Water Amendment Act 2015—increased flexibility in the recovery of 450 Gl of water through efficiency measures where a statutory limit of 1500 Gl was set on Commonwealth purchases of surface water. | |
Water for Victoria 2016 (discussion paper) | Water Amendment (Review Implementation and Other Measures) Act 2016 |
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Beilin, R., Santhanam-Martin, M., Sysak, T. (2019). Vulnerability Amidst Plenty? Food Security and Climate Change in Australia. In: Sarkar, A., Sensarma, S., vanLoon, G. (eds) Sustainable Solutions for Food Security . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77878-5_21
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