Australia At Risk Losing It's Food Resources

[icyfroth]

In recent years, and especially since the global food shortage in 2008, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have all been engaged in massive agricultural purchases around the world and in Australia - as outlined in these maps of Australia and the globe.

New South Wales Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan says Australia risks losing control of its wealth-creating agricultural assets. He believes the Federal Government is not paying sufficient attention to the issue of global food security.

Senator Heffernan says the Foreign Investment Review Board does not monitor foreign acquisitions of Australian farming land and Australia is being complacent about the fact that a number of wealthy nations that face future food security concerns are now investing strategically in agricultural property overseas.

Anuhrada Mittal, the executive director of the Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank, estimates that as much as 50 million hectares worldwide has been purchased in this way. In some cases, she says, food land is being diverted to grow biofuels.

During Senate committee hearings into food security issues last month, the general manager of the FIRB’s trade policy division, Patrick Colmer, conceded that under existing investment regulations it would be possible for an overseas company to buy up an entire district, farm by farm, without ever coming to the attention of the FIRB.

Senator Heffernan says there is no monitoring of purchases by the sovereign wealth funds of other countries.

"At the present time there is no differentiation between private investment and sovereign investment," Senator Heffernan said. "We need to put all of this on a register, we need to lower the trigger point for reporting foreign asset sales, and we need as part of our sovereignty to consider [our own] strategic investment in Australia."

At the moment the Chinese state-owned company Bright Foods is in the market for Australian dairy, wine and sugar assets.

Earlier this month it was outbid for CSR’s sugar subsidiary Sucrogen by a Singaporean company, Wilmar International, but it has also expressed interest in purchasing a number of vineyards in south-eastern Australia owned by Foster’s. In the cattle industry, the giant Brazilian conglomerate JBS Swift is rapidly buying up abattoirs and feedlots in Australia’s south-east.

North-western Tasmania represents a microcosm of some the issues being played out globally.

Many dairy farmers are trying to bail out, after being comprehensively defeated in a long and bitter dispute over milk prices. Many say they would welcome overseas investors.

"It actually costs us to go to work," said dairy farmer Jim Hersey from Smithton. "We’re currently getting paid 31 cents a litre, and it costs us about 38 cents a litre to produce."

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Who can blame the farmers when they're being squeezed by the retailers on one side and undercut by cheap imports on the other?

[*mrgrizz*]

yes this has been worrying me for many years.

at the moment the companies are allowed to continue to operate as they are.

but what about 20 years time, when china has greater demand for food.

that abottoir suppling Australia will no longer sell within Australia with everything it produces sent over seas.

[freshwater-2]

This has been a great concern to me too.

Not only our food sources, but control of huge water resources.

[icyfroth]

It would be a worthwhile cause to March in March for.

[the_hawk*]

Gee finally someone else sees a problem with not supporting farmers and local manufacturing and letting it all go to foreign interests.

Why is the federal government not looking after and protecting our food source and jobs

[lind9650]

Many years ago, my previous husband and I talked to a Budhist Monk in NSW, who just opened a retreat in Qld. for people searching for the meaning of life.

Among other things the conversation came back to the last war and my OH asked why they did not invade Australia then, when most Australian men were deployed overseas.

The Monk just laughed and said; "We don't have to fight and kill, we just buy you out and in the end you'll all be working for us under our conditions."

Those words have never left my mind, and that is why I am worried about the future of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I will most propably be gone from this world by then, but if this adult generation and Governement  is not protecting the future of their offspring and just filling their own pockets for the short term of living in luxury, then God help Australia, because without tough leadership we are all doomed and the tables will be turned.

Erica

[cherry*135]

My FIL used to say ... 'what they (Japanese) didn't get with their guns they will comeback & get with their money'

Same sentiment as the Monk in your post, erica.

[not_an_eloi]

another one gone

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-04/udp-sale-overseas/5236968

[lloydslights]

Not only foreign agriultural companies,  the coal companies buy prime agricultural land.  A beef producer in the upper Hunter/ Gloucester area succumbed.  It may be hearsay, but it is said that he would never make the same money from beef in 50 years compared to what the coal industry paid for his property.

DEB

[monman12]

Xenophobia thy name can possibly be found  dwelling here!

I would suggst that  a study of the Foreign Investments Review Board   documentation and the  Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 and Australia's foreign investment policy, might (????) allay the unfounded fears being expressed herein.

The latest  version of Australia's Foreign Investment Policy was first released in June 2010

"Australia normally exports around two-thirds of total agricultural output each year. Even in a drought year we still export over half of what we produce. So Australia is in no danger of not being able to feed its people. Remember also that close to 90% of farmland remains Australian-owned, so there is no possibility of all food being sold overseas.

Of all the direct foreign investment in Australia, across all industries (direct investment is ownership of 10% or more in a business), around 24% is from the US, over 14% is from the UK and 11% is from Japan. China makes up 3%, Malaysia 1% and Indonesia less than 1%.

In 2010, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) carried out an audit of farmland ownership and farm business ownership. Solely Australian-owned agricultural land made up 86%, while 11.4% was either partly or in some cases, fully foreign owned.

The ABS estimates that 99% of farm businesses are entirely Australian owned, and much of the 1% that is not completely Australian owned is a mix of combined Australian and foreign interests."

Perhaps those concerned apropos foreign ownership, might take heart in Holden and Ford bowing out, and possibly also SPC?