CSIRO takes stock of food system.

Australia Broadcast Center

02-06-2025

Samantha Donovan: Australia's National Science Agency, the CSIRO, has completed the first ever national stocktake of our $800 billion food system. The researchers say while our farming sector is among the best in the world, there are big gaps, like the fact not all Australians can actually afford fresh food. And that view is backed by academics and even farmers groups, who say that for far too long, so-called food policy has focused on farming rather than the bigger picture. Luke Radford prepared this report.
Luke Radford: Chances are, when you think about where your food comes from, this is what comes to mind. A farm, where hard-working farmers are toiling away so you can enjoy a parmigiana or a salad or a bit of toast in the morning. But Sustainability Research Director at the CSIRO, Larelle McMillan, says that's just scratching the surface.
Larelle McMillan: What we've kind of looked at in this report is everything from nutrition, retail environment, food safety, Indigenous food systems, policy coherence, sustainability aspects, circular economy, hidden costs, as you mentioned, manufacturing and economics.
Luke Radford: That report is an all-encompassing look by the CSIRO at the food industry, from the paddock to the plate. The researchers argue that food as an industry is split up into at least 11 different silos, which are essentially separate industries that don't really talk to each other. Larelle McMillan says because it's been that way for so long, we struggle to come up with long-term plans.
Larelle McMillan: The food system works for most Australians. We're a food-producing nation. Our farmers do an incredible job of producing food, not just for our national consumption, but for our export markets. But we balance this by noting that it doesn't work for all Australians.
Luke Radford: Australian farming is incredibly productive. Just 100,000 farmers feed nearly 100 million people, including 27 million Australians. But the researchers argue that those raw statistics are part of a stark contradiction, because up to 3.5 million Australian households ran out of food at some point last year. Associate Professor Liesel Spencer specialises in food security at the School of Law at the University of Western Sydney.
Liesel Spencer: What that really looks like is they run out of food. They go a day or more without eating. The food in the house runs out and there's no more money to buy anymore. So if we're thinking about regulating the whole food system holistically, we have to go beyond just we're doing an amazing job of producing enough food and think about how we're distributing that and how that's available for everybody so everybody gets a fair chance at a healthy diet.
Luke Radford: What Associate Professor Spencer and the CSIRO are arguing is that we need to change how we actually think about food. The CSIRO report also calls for a national food plan, something the National Farmers Federation has also campaigned for. Jolyon Burnett is the chair of the National Farmers Federation Horticulture Council.
Jolyon Burnett: The compliance burden that producers have to face can make up as much as a third of the cost of doing business for these people. And when margins are shown to absolutely razor thin levels, then you begin to see that price is just one part in a very complex jigsaw puzzle.
Luke Radford: Mr Burnett also says even things like nutritional value and how best to provide it need to be re-examined.
Jolyon Burnett: We already know that the consumption of fresh produce, fresh fruit and vegetables across Australia is declining. These things are all linked and until we begin to sit down and try and map this out, rather than just whacking band-aids on particular parts of it, we'll continue to see the number of farmers declining.
Luke Radford: The Albanese government has committed to a new national food security strategy that it calls Feeding Australia, with more details set to come later this year.
Samantha Donovan: Luke Radford reporting.