What will Australian farmers be growing in 5- 10 years time?
I watched Part 3 of Two Men in a Tinnie * on ABC TV last night. It’s about environmentalist Tim Flannery and TV personality John Doyle motoring down the Darling and Murray Rivers in a small aluminum boat.
They have met lots of people along the river but haven’t yet interviewed a rice or cotton farmer while often complaining about these crops. In Parts 1 and 2 they reminisced about the days when farmers grew sheep rather than cotton.
A couple of years ago I wrote that:
“It is [Peter] Cullen’s contention that we can save water in the Murray–Darling Basin by growing higher value crops, in particular wine grapes. And there are those who insist that rice growing should be banned altogether. While concerned greens may be keen to sip champagne for breakfast, rather than crunch rice bubbles—all in the name of doing the right thing by the environment— is this really a sustainable approach?”
I went on to explain in that article that…
“One of the most defining characteristics of water in the Australian landscape is flow variability. In the poem ‘My Country’, Dorothea McKellar appropriately describes Australia as a land ‘of drought and flooding rains’. Reflecting this variability, water allocation can be severely restricted in drought years like the present, even though water storage capacity in the Murray Darling Basin is approximately 25 per cent of annual average runoff.
Paradoxically, rice growers easily cope with this by simply not planting a crop. In contrast, South Australian wine grape growers bleat loudly because their perennial crop needs water every year.”
Just yesterday I read Rabobank bank boss, Bert Heemskerk, stating that northern hemisphere farm subsidies ‘have to go’ and that this would lead to lead to an inevitable shift in global agricultural production from the northern hemisphere to the south.
The Pharmland website also suggests that Europe, in particular that Denmark, should lessen its dependence on massive EU agricultural subsidies and fostered a freer global market, allowing Third World countries to enter the market and begin self-sustaining economies. The site goes on to suggest that Denmark farmers begin to cultivate high value GM crops including vaccine-laden tomatoes.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the potential increased production of low value GM crops for ethanol.
David Tribe wrote in the IPA Review last year that:
“Already, Brazilian fuel ethanol has become a substantial part of international trade, and currently competes commercially on US fuel markets, even with the penalty of a 51 per cent US excise tax. This dominant global trade position in ethanol liquid-fuel capitalises on 30 years of previous technological improvement, including earlier introduction of higher yielding cane varieties and numerous integrated changes to ethanol factories.
The recent wave of ethanol fuel ventures in Australia cannot afford to ignore the reality of markets dominated by very cheap Brazilian ethanol and the prospects of even lower priced Brazilian and US ethanol in the near future.
Cereal straw and sugar cane bagasse are not the only cellulosic starting materials which can be converted to sugar using enzyme catalysts: wood and many other non-food crops can also be used, and forest industries in Canada and Scandinavia have particular interests in this area.
…Ethanol biofuel doesn’t make economic or environmental sense without the tools and discoveries of modern biotechnology.
Without this, Australia would be better off importing its fuel ethanol from South America.
Setbacks to farm profitability and investment caused by GM crop bans show that technological leadership entails much more than just science and the costing of economic returns and agronomic benefits. They represent destruction of basic economic freedoms and threats to the medium term financial viability of several rural industries. Resolution of this damage might come from a frank assessment of the misjudgements of industry, farming groups, and politicians that caused them, as well as an action plan to change stakeholder strategies.
If it is indeed true that they were driven by political calculations about urban votes rather than government attention to the interests of the rural sector, stronger activism by farming organizations, such as the National Farmers Federation and other networks such as the recently established Producers Forum (which is a loose national network of concerned growers), are a very welcome sign.”
But not everyone is so optimistic. Last week I received an email from Aaron Edmonds with a link to a piece in The Daily Star that began:
“The Furnace Australia sailed into Chennai recently carrying a load of wheat and, some warned, ill tidings. India’s first wheat imports in six years marked a reversal in the march toward “food independence” that the country began in the 1970s.
In the piece Jason Overdorf goes on to suggest that Indian agriculture is in trouble, too reliant on technology and running out of water:
“Swaminathan urges leaders to focus on what he calls an ‘evergreen revolution’. The goal would be to correct the damage wrought by the first Green Revolution: adopting new methods like the use of natural predators instead of chemicals to eliminate pests, and switching to organic fertilizers and more efficient drip irrigation. He also says Singh should promote crops that require less water, including native Indian grains such as finger millet (ragi), pearl millet (bajra) and sorghum (jowar).
That’s a tough sell for two reasons: these coarse grains, once a staple of regional Indian cuisines, have fallen out of style since the first Green Revolution made wheat cheap and plentiful. So restoring their popularity will take a major marketing push, of the kind governments rarely do well. Second, Singh sees India very differently from the critics, as a nation fighting to attain middle-class comfort, not one at risk of sliding into mass hunger. Watch the future voyages of the Furnace Australia, and whether it is carrying grain to India, for one strong sign of which view is right.
But i’ts hard for me to reconcile the claim that Indian agriculture is in trouble with reports that cotton yields are up?
Indeed world cotton production is projected at 25 million tons in 2006/07 with China (Mainland), India and Pakistan combined expected to produce 13 million tons in 2006/07, or over half of world production for the first time in history.
Again, according to David Tribe in that piece from last year’s IPA Review:
“Modern plant breeding is playing decisive role in this economically disruptive but beneficial-to-the consumer transition. The continuing global progress with this revolution, which started in Australia and the US in 1996, is illustrated by recent comments made by Zhang Rui, a member of a research team in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. In September this year, he announced that China has approved commercialization of a new hybrid variety of insect-resistant Bt cotton—which contains a protein that kills bollworms—that should yield 26 per cent more cotton. The last two seasons have also witnessed truly dramatic improvements in the
Indian cotton industry productivity.Widespread use of genetically modified cotton seeds has helped assure India of a bumper 2005 cotton harvest, with national output estimated at 25 million bales, up seven per cent from 2004.”
Back to that original question: What will Australian farmers be growing in 5- 10 years time?
Will the demand for ethanol (in Australia and overseas), lifting of the bans on GM food crops, lifting of agricultural subsidies in Europe, relative competitiveness of Asian farmers, or the availablility and price of water, be the most significant drivers of change?
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* I’ve noted Luke’s request that I comment on this series. I’m working up to a long blog post pointing out the difference between the rhetoric and the imagery.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Cotton success in India continues:
India eyes bumper cotton harvest
– Financial Express, 9/29/2006
This report from from AHMEDABAD, Sept 28 (Reuters): says India’s cotton harvest is gaining pace and industry officials are optimistic of a bumper yield of 26 million bales (170 kg each) in the year ending September 2007, according to traders.
As for India’s water challenges, this is interesting
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/indias-successful-agricultural.html
“but haven’t yet interviewed a rice or cotton farmer “.. I thought they did interview a (cotton?) irrigator in earlier episode but was half-watching & I could be wrong
Jennifer, interesting question and a strategic one too. I wondered this a coupla threads ago where someone cricitised EU CAP subsidies. If EU (& US subsidies which are also huge) were removed what would be the likely impact on world agric supply, trade and prices? If EU & US output fell in response (uncompetitive) and they imported more agric produce instead (including increased imports in biofuels?) would people in poor countries with liberalised markets be priced out of consuming their own food? This is already a problem in some poor countries, and between poorest most vulnerable people in rural areas and urban slums, and those who in urban areas who are benefiting from industrialisation & economic growth. It’s widely recognised now that the cause of famines isn’t usually a shortage of food but a lack of entitlements (access, rights, purchasing power). On the other hand, less dumping might actually give poor countries a chance to reinvigorate their agric systems, but they would probably need structural assistance & aid to bounce back.
As to what australian farmers would be growing AND exporting, I reckon Blair’s recommendation to price water correctly according to expected future pricing (for ALL users) is a good one to encourage continual improvements in efficient use of that resource and hence good international competitiveness in water-constrained export markets.
My comments do not come from the top-down planner’s perspective, but from the grass roots, with regard to the types of farm enterprises I am familiar with.
Australian farmers will be growing whatever makes a profit, taking into account resources available, markets – and regulations. Otherwise they will not be there.
In order to compete with overses markets they will have to embrace GM technology. For example, drought resistant (salt tolerant wheats) are available. These could have made a huge difference to this year’s drought harvest, not by ensuring profit, but by minimising losses, which is what drought management is all about. After this year, I think there will be a strong move from farmers in the drier areas for GM wheats. As far as I can see the main producer opposition to GM wheats comes from the higher rainfall, more reliable areas. They are worried about keeping their GM free markets – great news for those with no wheat to market this year!
Australia will remain a major dryland grain producing nation, with improved drought tolerant varieties.
Livestock is interesting. Having been a wool grower, I have watched profit margins decline steadily over the decades. The move in drier areas is to multi-purpose sheep, for both meat and wool. This will continue.
Anything that can profitably be used to grow crops will be cropped, with meat production either becoming more intensive (eg feedlotting) or free ranging in country unsuitable for cropping, eg hilly, or semi-arid.
Markets are going to demand more protein. So I think that aquaculture will increase dramatically. In fact, if Australia wants to be self sufficient in fish, while continuing with the luxury of excluding huge areas from commercial wild fishing, there are no other options.
I have doubts about the ethanol industry. How much of this needs taxpayer subsidies? If it needs subsidies it is not sustainable. If it needs tarrif protection from cheaper sources, it is not sustainable.
Then there are labour problems. In case you have not noticed, rural populations are declining. This is creating larger holdings with fewer people to run them. Interesting times ahead, I think.
Pinxi
I’m having trouble with your suggestion that if the EU and the US reduced their subsidies, they would import more food and drive prices up. Not saying you aren’t right, so if you can flesh the argument out a bit that might help. Would this be short-term wobble?
The problem seems to be that EU and US subsidised exports of food are under-cutting the free market economies, so making it difficult for these open economies to gain income from food exports. So the farmers in those open economies are driven out of the market and they grow something else (such as opium poppies or cotton) or walk off the land. E.g. India is starting to import more wheat and grow more cotton. Having despatched their competitors by dumping subsidised food, the EU and US can then exert greater control over the global food market and if possible push prices up to their advantage. Not that they would ever do such a thing, of course. I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, what you have suggested is akin to a dominant multinational manufacturer of widgets crashing the price for widgets by trading at a loss for a period, so killing off their smaller competitors, and then lifting the price again.
As a bit of an aside, the EU is so busy sucking in canola for their Peugots, the price of canola is currently pretty high IF you produce non-GM canola. The GM argument has become so fundamentalist that even Peugots are apparently not allowed to burn GM canola oil. However this is expected to be corrected because Peugots can use GM oil without causing their owners to grow extra ears in the middle of their backs, which in turn will allow Canada back into the EU canola market.
And I have heard that the US corn to ethanol subsidy for farmers is about to see the faeces hit the fan. Ethanol demand is about to overwhelm the US farmers’ ability to supply corn – the subsidised ethanol industry has been a way for the US to create a local demand for their over-production of corn. This means US ethanol producers will have to start importing corn, which means having to pay world prices and this may see corn ethanol become a bit economically unstable.
Markets seem to make a lot more sense if you keep people out of the equation.
I don’t know Boxer. I’m assuming that EU & US agric is not currently internationally competitive. Perhaps subsidies would be gradually reduced and they managed to become competitive producers in that time – on some if not all items, or the structure of their agric output would change in the direction of items they can be competitive in.
We do need to consider the structure of international trade in agric production & processing to see what the likely effects would be, and if the reduction in subsidies was to benefit the poorer countries, then to try to arrange it in a way that gives them that opportunity. (ie try to avoid unintended negative effects)
The EU gets a lot of flack here but the US farm bill will get the nod (extension) or the slash very soon. If the US doesn’t cut its agric subsidies, will the EU? An imminent decision in the US could lock-in existing subsidies or create move for much needed change. Aust is likely to be affected by those decisions between bigger players.
On a global basis cotton farming in India maybe doing OK but there is a terrible human cost for individuals:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08042005.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath07212006.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/sainath08142006.html
What I think people are failing to do in agriculture is futurize. For in order to fully appreciate what the ‘future’ of agricultural production holds you need to accept two major macroeconomic/natural resource developments. The first is water rationalisation where its availability and hence ability to turn it into a food commodity is compromised (risks of demanding water are increased) by weather risk and competition. And the second is energy rationalisation where hyperinflation in input costs continues to squeeze producer margins.
If you fail to ackowledge that the lowest cost form of food production will ultimately involve a perennial plant with a legume base producing key staple food components, then you are missing the point of what will be the future. Because agriculture will struggle to compete for water from demand in cities, the future for Australian food production looks like a dryland one and so it comes down to this. What system most efficiently turns water where it falls (rain) into the most amount of food units. And energy based cost structure will continue to inflate as fossil fuel prices continue to trend higher. Agriculture in the future will be also be about energy invested to energy returned. Heaven help the cheetah who spends more energy chasing down his prey than the prey will return in its protein rich carcass.
I put it to you there is only one crop for Australia’s broadacre future and that is sandalwood nuts. I have a vested interest in terms of this crop becoming more widely accepted (the first to the future is always the most rewarded financially), seeing sustainability evolve itself as also profitable, and also in forging a broadacre food production system that serves to further the ‘national interest’, and that is being able to produce no matter how unpredictable weather systems become. Native food crops are the most efficiently adapted crops man could ever hope to emulate in any breeding program.
Food culture will increasingly be shaped by the ability of producers to supply food that is most logical to produce from the land resource, and the constraints of nature will dictate this not affluent consumers. The end of the 10,000 mile ceasar salad is in viewing distance.
Think outside the box people because we are asleep at the wheel on the food front. Time to identify the people that are right in future food policy not politically correct because at stake is the face of humanity as we know it.
To quote Tim Flannery ‘Democracy often comes up with some odd outcomes’. Sadly this is more often true than not.
Aaron Edmonds
2002 Nuffield Scholar
Simple Farmer
President of the Australian Sandalwood Network
http://www.australianuts.com
Aaron
There are some fundamanental issues that have to be considered with food production. I think Jared Diamond hit a few nails on the head with “Guns Germs and Steel”, where he argued that human civilsation is founded upon only 11 or so crop species. There are of course many other food crops, but 80% of world food production still comes from the same 11 crops domesticated thousands of years ago.
Why? Economics. E.g. wheat yields 1.5 tonnes per hectare average across Australia. Wattle (as an example of a suite of perrenial native plants) yields similarly. Wheat puts its seed up at the top of the plant and it all ripens simultaneously, so in the 21st century a harvester can take a strip of crop 10 metres wide and collect grain at the rate of many tonnes per hour. Wattles hold their seed throughout a bushy canopy and the pods shatter readily, so it is very difficult to see how a wattle crop could be harvested as efficiently as wheat by large-scale mechanical processes. I suspect the same would apply to many nut crops. So we have built Civilisation on the specific qualities of a very small number of crops because they make agriculture more efficient, so we can feed a large society without having to employ most of the population growing food simply to feed themselves. Similarly with animals: some can be domesticated and some can’t; some, like the horse, make good war machines and others, like the emu, don’t.
It’s very hard to circumvent such simple fundamental properties of crop plants. We tend to think that we have created our civilisation by hard work and superior intellectual capacity. I like Diamond’s more deterministic arguments that suggest Civilisation has arisen because a few environmental characteristics came together that allowed us to develop in this way. It may be hard to break out of established ways of doing things because we aren’t in control of our development as much as we might think. We are merely exploiting the coincidence of a small number of favourable circumstances like wild wheat and an unusual 13,000 year period of warm stable climatic conditions.
I’m a forester, and I am not opposed to tree crops. More strength to your sword arm with sandalwood. You are on a good thing with your chosen crop if sandalwood oil is your main purpose, but I don’t think you’ll feed the world with sandalwood nuts.
You could turn out lots of well annointed hippies though! 8)
Why does the US grow & export(?) more macadamias than Aust? That’s a crime.
Well, not sure if it’s a hanging offence, but it is fair to say that we don’t pay enough attention to the native plant and animal resources of our own country.
I think using the native flora for food is fine, but we are considering niche markets. High value per tonne low volume production and there’s nothing wrong with that. But global food is predominantly about energy and protein and these are bulk commodities for the main part. Nut crops are the garnishes which make the global diet more interesting and improve the quality.
Many of our native plants have valuable industrial product qualities too. Other countries e.g. Chile are showing some interest in developing some of our species for the production of pulp wood fibre. This is a strange area in Australia – I frequently meet criticism when I talk about domesticating native plants to make money from industrial products, but bush tucker is very much in vogue.
Back to original question, what will farmers be growing in the future? Maybe they will grow more industrial products like fibre (using native plants instead of cotton and sheep), and extractives such as tannins and oils. The native plants are better adapted to survive a prolonged period of low rainfall and also take advantage of periodic high rainfall events like summer cyclones.
While we are good at growing wheat, we may be pushed out of that market to some extent by countries like Ukraine and the Central Asian ‘stans because they are not producing at near their capacity yet for political reasons, whereas Australia grows only 1.5 tonnes per hectare with state of the art technology and agronomy. We will probably import wheat as we become less competitive. Our Governments deserve criticism for doing too little to prepare our agricultural industries for the future. I actually have much in common with Aaron; I only differ on some details.
Guys you’re all still missing the point. We are at the foot of a great global bull in staple food commodities. Why? Because we are drawing down stocks at phenomenal records and output is drastically being affected by weather events. Consumption has exceeded production in 6 of the last 7 years. Global grain stocks are now their lowest in 30 years. And let me say there wasn’t 6.3 billion people in the world and their cars reliant on this stockpile back in the early 1970s. Arable acres will need to remain in staple food production. The world can ill afford land to not produce staples. So forget niche markets for tannins, novel chemicals, and other biological items of ill consequence to the survivability of mankind.
Boxer you’ll be happy to know that sandalwood nuts are harvestable with exactly the same machinery utilized by the macadamia industry. I was in Bundaberg in March on a Young Rural People’s Development Award (one of DAFF’s programs) to assess the adaptability of this machinery for the sandalwood nut industry. No adaptations will be needed and we will use as is. I plan to buy the world’s first ‘sandalwood’ harvester for my orchard in 2007.
I have been planting on my broadacre farm since 2000 and now have 80 hectares of my total 1800 committed to the system. I will continue to plant out my 50 poorest hectares. Early yields coming off 4 year old trees have been suggesting we could aim for 250kg to 1000kg a hectare in nut in shell yield after year 5. This is not bad when you consider there are no water costs (dryland), growing on the cheapest agricultural soils in the world, no nitrogen fertilizer applied (number one cost in STAPLE food production) and machinery costs are a fraction of that of broadacre grain production.
The future is not about increasing output, I believe the future is in managing costs, because in Australia with the sandalwood nut we are fortunate enough to be able to do that. These systems generally yield less (bad for the world food situation) but you don’t need to yield as much when you don’t have many costs.
There is more information at my website:
http://www.australianuts.com
Another perennial based staple food industry is developing in the US as well:
http://www.badgersett.com/info/woodyag1.html
I have seen all the perennial grain breeding programs currently underway around the world at the moment too (wheat in Washington State, rye in Alberta, Microlaena in West. Aust.). Whilst exciting they crops are years off commercialisation.
If you take water shortages, increased weather risk and likely continueing input cost hyperinflation as serious threats to food security, you will appreciate the magnitude of the crisis unfolding in the world’s ability to feed itself.
Regards
Aaron Edmonds
President of the Australian Sandalwood Network
2002 Nuffield Scholar
My scholarly year in 2003 allowed me to research how broadacre agriculture was going to be able to cope with rising oil prices. Oil was $25 a barrel then. My report is available for free at:
http://www.nuffield.com.au/report_f/2002/edmonds.pdf
I got slagged off on this blog last time I dared mention that cereal stocks were declining!
Not only the possibility of a bull market Aaron, but highly skewed towards those who can afford it. Let’s not lose sight of the implications for those who can’t afford it, especially if other economic shocks affect vulnerable economies with high levels of poverty, malnutrition & inequality. To repeat point above, famines are caused by lack of access, rights, entitlements and political representation, not by a shortage of food.
As one implication: will ag industry have ethical decisions (& be confronted by GreenPeace etc actions) over future decisions to supply crops for biofuels v’s supplying crops for food? ie more than environment, weather/climate and demand/price factors in the decision but elements of social responsibility too!?
Or would we be content to produce and sell for best price regardless of end use or distributional equity, and leave it to the govts and individual donors to supply sufficient aid to deal with any famines/shortages that may be experienced by particular groups of vulnerable people?
Pinxi, I have seen stuff all evidence of the urban community showing any social conscience, let alone responsibility, to our rural population.
What suburbia wants, suburbia gets! Look at our water.
When rural labour is rewarded at the same rate as office labor,[public servant], you may have some credibility, not before.
I am tired of you bleeding over some third worlder, but not giving a stuff about the fact, that many of us have little better access to services.
When I hear you screaming about the fact that country women have to travel hundreds of kilometers to have a baby, or that a heart attack victim, may be over an hour away from any medical help, I just may bother with your opinions.
And you want to restrict any increase in income which could help improve facilities in the bush.
Pardon me, I’ll just go outside, & be sick.
Aaron
I’m am glad you have the harvesting sorted out for the sandalwood. The number that will matter is how much does it cost per tonne to get it from the tree to the truck in the corner of the paddock. If you look at sugar cane, the cost per tonne is very low because they use an extremely expensive harvester to process a large amount of material per hour (often more than 100 tonnes per hectare) for 5-6 months of the year. It’s mostly contract harvesting. A large proportion of the cost for cane is actually the haulage from the harvester to the trucks or trains; this can even be several times the harvesting cost. The comparison with grain harvesting is different in the detail, where the productivity of the harvester has been improved by widening the front and increasing the harvester’s ground speed. But with seed harvesting you may have a very short period of harvester utilisation and timing within the season may be critical, so every farmer may need their own machine. How you maximise the productivity of a nut harvester, and reduce haulage costs, will be an interesting piece of work for you. Good luck.
I assume that nuts have a high value per tonne. This may place them in a different market category to commodity grains like wheat and barley. If you are thinking, long term, of entering the energy and protein food commodity markets, you will come into direct competitition with wheat, barley and oats growers around the world who are producing starch, and soybean farmers producing protein. I am not sure whether you will want to do this, because it may be very difficult to beat them on price, and it may even be more profitable for you to maintain your crop as distinct from, and higher in quality and value, than established commodity crops.
I don’t see this as competition between you as a food producer and me as an aspiring producer of industrial raw materials. There are many creative ways to combine the production of a wide range of products from a paddock. We don’t have to argue in terms of either sandalwood or wheat or wood fibre, we can do them all simulataneously. It may even be more productive that way, because the wood that your sandalwood host produces may be a product in itself, and they might both benefit from the excess fertilisers that you have to apply to your wheat to make that crop profitable.
One of the other issues that you may need to consider is that if you are planting sandalwood on cleared paddocks, they may be producing in response to the high levels of nutrients and soil moisture that have resulted from the prior land use. If you plant fence-to-fence sandalwood, there may be a decline in performance over a period of decades as the paddock returns to a state similar to the very unproductive bush that was on the paddock before it was cleared.
I’ll follow up on your 2003 report.
Pinxi, the factor that has influenced my opinion is that there are very large areas of agricultural land around the world that could produce cereal grain more cheaply than we can because their soils and climate are more favourable than ours. We have our political system working pretty well and Aus agriculture is technically sophisticated, but in environmental terms we are at the limits of our water, soils and climate and our transport infrastucture is probably about as efficient as it will get. Therefore we may see a decline in competitive ability as countries such as the remnants of the USSR get their political and technical abilities up to speed and their infrastructure improves.
I agree that the global problems of food are the result of uneven distribution, not the quantity of food produced.
Ethics of food versus fuel? Tricky, and it’s one reason why I am attracted to using raw materials that we can’t eat for fuel for my car. If our nation’s ability to compete on global grain markets declines and global food supplies remain adequate (even if still unevenly distributed), Australian wheatbelt farmers may be better able to make a living growing a variety of industrial and food products like sandalwood nuts, wood fibre etc from woody perennial native plants, plus a reduced amount of cereal grain.
It seems to me that the problems of global food supplies and food prices will not be tackled by producing more food to flood the markets. Uneven distribution of food still leaves regions like sub-Saharan Africa in trouble. These are political problems and meddling in first world commodities markets with subsidies and selective taxation seems to be a very indirect way of tackling third world political issues.
The solution to the fuel vs food debate is simple. Ascribe more value to grain and it won’t get wasted in biofuel production.
Boxer one farmer in Bundaberg I visted had a nut harvester that he has been using for 10 years, cost him $10,000 and he has been harvesting 200 acres roughly five times a year. So in effect harvesting 1000 acres with one machine. Apart from his sprayer the only machinery cost was that harvester and its maintenance (a few bearings here and there and hydraulic seals). I have designed my orchard and host tree specie selection so I can spray over the top of my establishing sandalwood and hosts with my broadacre 100ft boomspray.
The farmers experiencing drought in the eastern wheatbelt here in WA would be lucky to harvest 2-5 bags of wheat this year. I visited an established sandalwood orchard in Beacon last week which was 6 years old. The farmer there was looking to harvest up to half a tonne of nuts. It was very impressive and on wodjil sandplain which is nutrient poor and acid. These trees have a perennial rootstock and hence have been able to better utilize ‘out of season’ rainfall to set up yields. There are many years where this area does not even get a crop. Nuts are currently worth $30,000 a tonne as compared to $300 for wheat. To put that into perspective with other nut commodities, almonds are fetching around $20,000 a tonne.
A valid point in sandalwood accessing the nutrient bank created under conventional farming, but the only nutrients they need are generally P and K which are appliable just as with other crops. Only, given native crops load their seeds with mostly biologically fixed nutrients (C and N) as opposed to nutrients like P and K, nutrient replacement is largely a natural one. Just add water (rain). Remember nature never applied P and K so it was never in any plants interest to naturally select itself to load its seeds up with these nutrients.
Only a matter of time before the corporates cotton on as it finally gives them the ability to produce staple food on a broadacre basis with acceptable risk levels. Wheat is just too risky for a shareholder. But there is a food boom coming! It’ll be bigger than oil.
Pinxi there are a great deal of people geared to the hilt in this country and struggling to meet debt commitments. Any significant rises in food prices will rule animal proteins as off limits as they wont be able to afford any other than vegetable protein dressed as familiar food items. As harsh as it sounds, the third world’s lack of willingness to cut population growth through responsible policy can no longer be ignored by first world grain donations if no stocks exist. If you can’t sustain children it is not wise to breed. This has been a harsh reality in many civilisations. Easter Island the starkest of examples. I am worried about my own country on the behalf of an ignorant majority. Hence the greatest flaw in any democracy when policy is garnered from the people – it assumes everyone is smart?
“Deforestation diesel”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5369284.stm
hasbeen:
That’s a common ignorant bush claim BUT the conditions, livelihood choices and options faced by outback australia is a LONG SHOT from those faced by poor people in the poorest countries. (How many people do you know who’ve died from easily treatable diahhreoa, or children who are blind from poor nutrition?)
I can say that without trivialising conditions in rural Aust. I do give a stuff! In fact Ive actually helped to improve communication, access to some public services, and emergency health services to rural Aust – some real improvements that did improve the health services and contact you do get, limited though they are (no, not in a public service capabity, but I won’t specify further = identity!).
Standards and support of people in the bush is important. So is dignified treatment of ageing workers and elderly people – something that’s lacking in cities as well. The fact: most people only care for themselves. But we still have it good in Aust compared to most people of the world. One of the most valuable things Australians have is the freedom of choice. But most people get hemmed in by their outlook and obligations.
Boxer, thanks for commenting. If biofuels take off I expect it would mostly be sourced by GM crops (prob grasses) bred especially for high fuel energy conversion and probably owned by existing fuel or auto companies.
Aaron, yes population is an issue but there are many contributing factors and you can’t decree that centralised control (mandatory sterilisations?!) is the answer! Even if it was do you think the poorest countries have the resources or the controls to enforce it? Rich countries are just as culpable as their liberalisation policies have deepened poverty and inequality in the poorest countries – eg loan and aid conditionality has forced cuts to education and health even though improvements in these are known to cause falls in birthrates; *some* 1st world donations have paid for right-to-life biased health & family planning services which have discouraged the spread of contraception and fostered ignorance; externally imposed policies have eroded poor country independence and budget size and control so diseases have spread and increased uncertainty and insecurity; and agricultural and trade policies have made poor countries more vulnerable and deepened inequality and this lack of security leads families to have more children as insurance.
You speak as though they have the awareness, the family planning options and the choice that we have but unfortunately they don’t.
Aaron: “I am worried about my own country on the behalf of an ignorant majority. .. democracy .. assumes everyone is smart?”
Hmmm. worryingly starting to sound like you subscribe to the American model of the leaders taking responsibility for the ignorant masses, which has religious roots (Jesus caring for his flock), so responsibiity trickles top down: God/Jesus to religious & political leaders to bosses and fathers of the family (‘heads’). People learn to take responsibility when they have cause to, but never when they’re mollycoddled.
If you’re worried that everyone has to be smart for a democracy to work, it may not be so. There was some comparative research about group decisions (can’t remember title, think it’s a book) that found that groups of people are remarkably good at reaching optimal decision outcomes!
You could also read of the work by Don Beck (spiral dynamics) about how societies move through stages of development just as individuals do, and that process needs to be encouraged not repressed to achieve peace & prosperity.
And while we get caught up on the finer details of social inequities around the world, the real important issues are global grain stocks continue to dry up, water competition increases as its availability decreases, and fossil fuel reserves are in doubt. And Australia’s economy will not be immune from the economic ramifications of these natural resource constraints. We have exceeded our carrying capacity and unfortunately the story will not end on a happy note.
And on my views on a democracy Pinxi. You have highlighted the weakness of this model yourself “You speak as though they have the awareness, the family planning options and the choice that we have but unfortunately they don’t.” Exactly my point so Governments must act on their behalf and they don’t.
I’ll give you a simple analogy. I am a sheep farmer (hypothetical). If I overgraze my paddocks, I have to provide supplementary feeding. What do I do if there is no supplementary feed available (affordable). I have to greatly reduce my stock numbers. The sheep have no say as they don’t know they are about to die if the farmer does not ‘intervene’.
I’ll finish with a quote from Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute:
“Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlog who received his award in 1970 estimates we could perhaps support 4 billion people on the planet with organic methods. There is 6.3 billion of us today, which 2.3 billion are you going to eliminate (if we try producing without fossil fuels, and one day we’ll have to)?” That assumes the rainfall doesn’t decrease and temperatures don’t rise.
Which path? (Note we are talking about PEOPLE, not culling sheep).
1. appoint yourself supreme dictator to decide on their behalf for them
or
2. give them the capabilities, rights and support to decide for themselves?
IMF and bilateral conditionalities and the impacts of trade liberalisation have eroded the capacity of the poorest nations to do the latter for themselves, neither do they have the resources to enforce the 1st option.
Considering current situation as a guide:
the world currently produces enough food to feed everyone, yet we don’t. So it’s not population that’s currently the problem, but distribution, access, means and political interests.
Are you unwilling to acknowledge the context of rights, education, health, choices and equality in developed nations that leads to fertility choices that are very low or negative population growth? Increased *security* (personal and food entitlements) reduces the need to have lots of children as insurance. Providing and supporting that personal *choice* allows the people themselves to decide that without a self-appointed dictator having to cull or permit unnatural attrition them like they would sheep in a drought!
What on earth or heaven, Aaron, would give any individual the kind of power to choose life or death for others as you promote?
A quick note for Boxer, whose comments about canola are pretty right: The slant I get from Bill Crabtree is that Canadian are still exporting GM biofuel to the EU but Via the United Arad Emirates where oilseed is crushed and tured into oil, then onsold to the EU. This is suppoted by trade stata showing exports to “other” countries rising.
For Pmxi Id repeat that rural poor benetfits from EU Japaners and US subsidies being removed and the biofuel boom because commondity prices rise. Urban poor however are hit by higher prices. A softener is that the Urbanites (eg in China) are there because of the betty properity).
My gut reaction and hope ( it needs careful study) is that for the near term, higher food prices and removal of EU subsidies help the third word, but Im keen to see the careful analysis of this by economists.
I do know Zulu small farmers will be better off with Aouth African maize going into biofuel.
Re Cockburn and Indian suicides
Yes sadly there are suicides in India ( despite general economic growth) but in what simple way is it connected to the surges over the last 4 years in commercial cotton seed sales, and a boost to cotton yields that has resulted in record output and more prosperity in that Industry, and indeed a shift of other farmers into cotton growing from oilseeds because of it economic attractiveness?
Aaron (and Boxer),
Thanks for your refreshing comments (and apologies for my previous bad spelling), and yes there are lots of good reasons to promotes perennial cropping.
It’s so heartening to hear of proposals for positive action rather than general moaning about what’s wrong in the world.
The sandalwood option sounds really interesting. One question though – how attractive is it as a food, are there attractive recipes, and is any potential for soy type products (eg soymilk).
To me its a question of which perenial crops are the best options, maybe a few different are needed?
Detribe our grower network, the Australian Sandalwood Network, is now focussing a great deal of effort in clarifying food market opportunities. The nuts are 60% oil (55% monounsaturated) and 18%. Any vege protein can potentially be used to manufactured similar animal based protein products (eg milk, meat subsititutes in processed meat products, really the world is your oyster). Interestingly the sandalwood industry is growing at roughly 3000 hectares a year and essentially free of any government funding as is the case with perennial crops like oil malles and brushwood, none of which will be of any value when the true extent of food security in ther future is appreciated.
You have to think like a food manufacturer (And we are talking about the real food, staple based products) to truely appreciate the future of food. They don’t think in terms of commodities like wheat, soy, rice, corn, potatoes, meat etc. They think in terms of three commodities – oil, protein and carbohydrates. What is most important and this will continue as a food trend, is which of each of these food components is cheapest and that is where the bulk of market attention will be focussed.
Pinxi I don’t mean to offend. I am not talking about culling people, I am talking about controlling population by reducing the birth rate, significantly. It matters not whether I am compassionate or heartless. The ultimate population regulator will be that which the earth can suffice. So to subsidize population with food (donations, imports etc) the system cannot produce, you are simply putting off the inevitable population crash that needs to happen. Much better to have this happen by reducing birth numbers than have living people die. Maybe I’m too logical in my thinking? Enough said on that anyway. It is Australian food security I am interested in. That is a big enough job if you remove the levels of water and oil we are acustomed to from the input equation.
No point comparing any crop to wheat if the future says you can’t grow it.
The irony our culture will have confront is that the traits that make plants ‘weedy’ by our definition, are the traits essential for energy efficiency and water efficiency in production. The prickly pear is a classic example. It survives without man, without his inputs, with marginal water and yields fruit and young pads, which are utilized as a vegetable in Mexico much the same as capsicum. One thing is for sure, nature will determine what we ultimately settle on, not our taste buds.
Aaron – what range of rainfall and soils can your Sandalwood handle?
And might you broker a peace with Pinx-machine to save the 3rd world with Sandalwood in your spare time funded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet?
And OK Tribesy what can genetically engineer into Sandalwood to even get more whatever ?
Endemic to rainfall range of 200 to 600mm. And is native from the Darling Scarp in WA to the Flinders Ranges in SA.
Wide range of pH from acid to alkaline.
Sandalwood basically gets its adaptation to grow in a particular site through the host trees adaptation. So it is more important to select the appropriate host tree for your respective site.
There is only one reason this tree will not work in third world countries. And that is the value of its timber (from US$2000-10000/tonne depending on age and size). Black market raids would inevitably occur to rip the trees out and sell the highly valued timber to the hungry sandalwood timber market. But in saying that there could be some oppportunity where the rule of law is relatively stable in some of the developing arid countries. Goats would be a major problem too.
You can genetically engineer anything in this world. Makes sense to at least begin with selection and as I have been the first to plant specifically for nut production, I was also the first to begin breeding solely based on selection. I now am in the position where I am making further selections from my initial plantings in 2000. Main trait I have selected for is large nuttedness. Nut size can vary from 10-30mm. Also focussing on nut yield.
Well it might also be a very bad marketing move to talk too early about GM sandalwood. Think its best to talk about what can overcome any hurdles there are to its use as a food, and as Boxer said, our common food staples are popular and useful for a host of solid reasons. Seems to me that work on marketing and value of the oil and meal is where a lot of attention is needed, plus a long buildup of hectares planted because you need the volume to develop the markets.
The best we can do here is further publicise it cos in this case hype and PR wont do any harm as the water saving and soil stewardship arguments are a real winners. Keep in up Aaron.
Detribe I checked out your blog and couldn’t find a way to contact you. Congratulations on a good blog by the way. If you could email me your email address I have some interesting information relating to the fatty acid profile of the kernel oil. I quickly read your background and so I am sure it would interest you. This group of plants has some novel fatty acid compsitions and I would be interested to hear input from you.
I agree with you on the GM sandalwood bit. Mostly the crop is pretty hardy and being a nut has a very good biological barrier to would be kernel eaters. Thanks for the wrap by the way.
What will Australian farmers be growing in 10 years time,answer nothing,already,in the year 2006,most fruit and vegetables,are being imported,with some luck,some dairy products,and beef and lamb,and pork,will still be Australian,but,that is only,as I SAID SOME LUCK
I forecast staple food shortages not less than 6 months ago and right here on this site:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001438.html#comments
It is a shame we have to arrive at the situation before we start to really think about the consequences of this. Wheat and corn prices are hyperinflating and it is likely to trigger hyperinflation throughout the whole agricultural complex. Both commodities closed limit up (6%) up last night in Chicago. This is a disasterous development for the global economy. A god send for struggling farmers.
Grain commodities now hyperinflating. Wheat alone is up 25% in just 3 weeks. In other words we have the prospect of shortages on our hands. Yes thats right – shortages of real food.