How much will we pay?

The issue is always price.

Many coastal Australian cities have been allowed to spread their suburbs across some of the best arable land in Australia. Half of these areas are now covered with hard surfaces, roofs and streets, which cause urban flooding as the water drains towards the sea.

It would be labour intensive, but suburban back yards could be cleared of palm trees and other ornamental species to once more become productive vegetable garden and poultry runs. But this is unlikely to happen while shelves are filled with inexpensive food.

Food costs in Australia have risen in recent years, due to several different factors, but the decision whether food is inexpensive or expensive is a value judgment based on one’s earning ability.

Poverty is the main reason that increasing numbers of people throughout the world can’t access food.
Australian farmers could respond to their hunger with a massive expansion of food production, but unless these people have the money to purchase food there is no incentive for Australian food producers to double production.

There is a comparison between the fate of impoverished people in Ethiopia and other regions of famine, with the fate of livestock in Australia prior to the 1960s. In the first half of the past century cattle or sheep died in times of drought. Now, thanks to transport livestock seldom die in times of drought. Unless the world food bowls, like Australia and the USA, increase production and transport food to nations in famine, those people will either die of starvation or transport themselves as refugees to more prosperous regions.

Australia has the arable land and farmers with the expertise to respond to their hunger, but is Australia as a nation prepared to pay the price?