VFF head sees value in a national minister for food security

Emma Germano was presenting a submission to a House of Representatives Inquiry into Food Security.

She told the committee she was not confident Australia had security, until someone had demonstrated the risks facing agriculture and those in being able to purchase food from other countries.

"It (food security) is an abstract thing, off into the future and something that doesn't affect us now," Ms Germano said.

"We take it for granted, but two million Australians suffer food insecurity and 200,000 children go to bed hungry - that's a shocking reality."

She said Australian's saw how fragile the food system was, during the COVID pandemic.

"The first thing people went out and bought was toilet paper - that really highlights what people feel about the fact there is always food on the shelf," she said.

"The supermarkets shelves are always full, but all of a sudden we saw the supermarket shelves were not necessarily always full."

Ms Germano said the Agriculture Minister's role was to advocate for the sector "so I think there is a need for a minister for food security and supply chains," she said.

"At least it starts to highlight this is a priority for government and Australia."

The most frustrating thing, from an advocacy perspective, was going to one minister, who understood the issues, but who had to "have a fight" with a colleague who didn't.

"That then leads to all sorts of issues in regards to which faction the minister belongs to, what the relationship between the ministers is, what is the particular thing we are talking about at a particular point in time and whether or not it suits the political narrative?" she said.

"Yes, I would think it would be very valuable to have a minister dedicated to food security and supply chains from a holistic point of view, rather than just an agricultural perspective."

She said food security was also about the nutritional value of what was produced.

"We do not ever get acknowledged, and we never get paid for, how we take care of our soil, which is really the health of the food we have," she said.

Scientific evidence had shown the amount of nutrients in food was not the same as it was decades ago, she said.

"Often we get paid for things like how long does the food last on the shelf and, what does it look like", Ms Germano said.

"We don't get paid for what it tastes like but how long it's going to sit there in the supermarket or distribution centre

"If we don't put these things together what we are facing is the potential for food and nutritional insecurity."

It comes as Foodbank calls for tax deductions for farmers for donations of imperfect, or surplus, food.

Ms Germano said no calculations had been done on how much productive land there was in Australia.

"If we did a really basic calculation and we said how much land do we have in Australia, and how many potatoes can we grow, and would those potatoes meet the calorific needs of everybody in Australia, I guess we could say we have food security," she said.

"But even that a very basic level hasn't been mapped out."

Governments needed to look at all policies through the lens of food security. she said.

That was particularly true when it came to the Murray Darling Basin, where water buybacks might again be on the table.

"We're never calculating the impact that that might have on food prices, or the volume of food that's produced," she told a parliamentary committee inquiry in Canberra on Wednesday.

"We really need to assess the lands we have, what can be grown in what areas and what are the impacts of climate change, without every last thing we consider as being ideologically driven," she said.

"When it comes to food security it should always be bipartisan, it should not be driven by ideology."

It was a similar situation when it came to the rollout of electricity transmission lines, which governments seemed to be viewing through the only lens of energy security.

There was also no notion of how food security linked into defence, or national, security.

"The very first thing is to commit to the fact food security is part of our national security and there will be a consideration for food security in every single policy that's put forward."