Edge attended the 3rd Annual National Sustainable Food Summit in Melbourne on March 20th and 21st.
This event is a gathering of minds involved in the growth, processing, retailing, R&D and policy development of food in Australia. With a rapidly growing population globally, increased wealth, changing consumption preferences and demand for more food overall will put strain on the global food systems, and Australia is no exception.
This situation calls for three approaches: reduce consumption, reduce waste and increase productivity, with most of the presentations addressing one of these approaches in one way or another.
A strong focus was the Australian farming sector and its challenges, such as ageing workforce, low profitability, unsustainably high debt levels, competition for skilled labor with mining industry, pressure from CSG interests, consumers not valuing local farmers and high exchange rate.
Other interesting conversations and presentations touched on:
- linking sustainability and nutrition, as opposed to food production and decoupling the current water use to calorie production ratio
- manufacturers measuring, reporting and improving their resource use adhering to the AFGC Sustainability Commitment framework, and partnering with organisations along their supply chain to reduce waste, improve agricultural practices, sustainably caught or farmed fish supplies
- the alternative food planning approach by the Food Sovereignty Alliance
- the role of the finance sector in the development of sustainable food production, especially at a farm level
- the need for a redesigned approach to R&D that allows more cross-sectorial activity
- partnerships between NGO’s and food growers and processors to reduce impact on ecosystems and resources
The second day saw attendants participate in facilitated workshops to define priority areas to drive towards a more sustainable food industry. Some of the recurring themes were:
- the need to reduce waste in the food system
- increase consumer education on environmental and health impacts of their food choices
- more urban agriculture
- protect and raise Australian farmer’s profiles
- export of farming know how to less developed countries or farmers
A more complete overview of the workshop findings and priority areas will be published in the coming days.
