Australian Food Security Dilemmas: Comparing Nutritious Production Scenarios and Their Environmental, Resource and Economic Tensions

Being able to supply a nutritious diet to Australians over the coming decades is likely to prove considerably challenging according to a range of scenarios modelled in simulations of the Australian agricultural system, economy and environment. This is in stark contrast to surplus supply experienced in the past for virtually all food types. Instead of attempting to make ill-fated predictions of what the future will be like, this work determines the environmental, resource and economic implications of three substantially different scenarios using a ‘stocks and flows’ model of the Australian system. Each scenario was developed with stakeholders in a workshop process; and each attempts to deal with the effects of population growth, fuel security (peak oil), climate change impacts, greenhouse gas mitigation and fertilizer constraints in ways which are consistent within each scenario, but different between them. One scenario, labelled as Adjustment, assumes free markets and high levels of international trade; Control, as the second scenario, assumes strong policy and regulatory intervention in the market to ensure the domestic supply of core foods; the third, DIY, envisages a more decentralized future with mostly local government intervention. Comprehensive food security is not achieved in any scenario, particularly when the potential impacts of constraints in other critical resources are considered. Overall, Adjustment is skewed toward economic benefits, DIY towards environmental resilience and Control is more evenly balanced though by no means ideal.