Food security and the intersection with national security drives development of green paper

But this complacency is blinding us to critical vulnerabilities in our food system – particularly in essential imports like fertilisers, liquid fuels and crop protection products. Recent disruptions in global supply chains have highlighted just how fragile these dependencies are, threatening not only food accessibility but also national stability.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is taking action to address this growing concern. In partnership with key food system stakeholders, ASPI is developing a national food security preparedness green paper, aimed at securing Australia’s food system and building resilience against both long-term challenges – such as climate change – and short-term disruptions, like political instability.

The assumption that Australia will always be food-secure is a dangerous fantasy. Many think that a country that is a net food exporter cannot become short of food. But that mistake distracts us from addressing critical vulnerabilities, especially in inputs needed for production.

Our readiness to face future challenges depends on proactive, long-term planning that’s resilient against short-term events, such as elections, at home and abroad. Stability, security and social cohesion are built on strong fundamentals – and access to food is fundamental. Yet planned closure of more Australian production of the fertiliser super phosphate highlights our longer-term strategic vulnerabilities.

The National Defence Strategy says Australia faces its most challenging strategic environment since the World War II, and there is no longer a 10-year window of warning time for conflict. People outside of the defence organisation must also prepare accordingly.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation defines food security as when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food”. But food security conjures different meanings beyond this definition, depending on where people stand across the fabric of society: a wealthy family in Sydney’s inner east, for example, will experience minor inconvenience when egg supply is limited.

But a struggling family in Sydney’s outer west may experience greater stress and frustration at lack of access to one of the healthiest and most affordable sources of protein.

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Food insecurity sparks discontent, and discontent breeds instability, the severity depending on the length of insecurity. Restricted access to food is detrimental to social cohesion and security, creating dissatisfaction and further distrust of social institutions. Since 32 per cent of Australians already suffer moderate to severe food insecurity, even a few days of disruption to supply could have dire results.

In a business-as-usual operating environment, and even during the COVID-19 pandemic, government and markets demonstrated that they could pivot quickly to resolve potential supply disruptions. But much worse disruption can be imagined – for example, in a war. Then markets may be unable to respond effectively, and government may not have policy levers to help them. At the very least, that capacity remains untested.

This is why the agriculture sector and food system stakeholders, in partnership with ASPI, have initiated the development of a green paper focused on Australia’s food security preparedness.

This green paper will assess Australia’s food security vulnerabilities, focusing on the interconnected challenges outlined in the 2024 National Defence Strategy. It will also explore new opportunities for collaboration across government, industry, and civil society and will lay the foundation for national food security preparedness planning, underpinning a whole-of-nation approach to food policy.

The green paper will aim to establish a practical pathway to address the core strategic challenges set out clearly by the 2023 parliamentary report Australian Food Story: Feeding the Nation and Beyond. Among the report’s 35 recommendations is a call to develop a national food plan to serve as a food security strategy.

This approach has been widely supported by stakeholders, but making sure that such an initiative is appropriately connected to Australia’s broader preparedness activities remains a serious gap. Bringing these lines of thought together is necessary to identify and address the core challenges to maintaining Australian food security and to address the complex effects that disruptions can have on communities.

Preparing an industry-driven food security preparedness green paper is a novel approach. Yet some of the best public policy outcomes emerge at the intersection of industry and government – when a need is clear, but before it becomes a crisis. Debunking the myths around Australian food security is important and fostering collaboration to create solutions is a necessary conversation.

This industry-led approach lays the groundwork for the national food security preparedness planning that Australia desperately needs. Collaboration between industry and government is required to underpin a broader approach to food security preparedness and national food policy development. Australia must stop taking its food security for granted – proactive, long-term planning is essential to safeguard the future of our nation’s food supply.

Andrew Henderson is a Senior Fellow at ASPI, the principal of Agsecure, an independent chair and non-executive director and a former adviser to the federal government on biosecurity and the red meat and livestock sector.