Food Security in Australia - Challenges and Prospects for the Future

This book considers the ability and capacity of the food supply system in Australia to provide food security for the ever-increasing domestic and international population in the face of growing challenges in production, resource supply and failures within the food system itself. Although Australia is a net food exporting country, domestic food insecurity exists and will increase as food prices rise in the coming decades. An overview of the food supply system highlights the main challenges that are determining the future. Many of these challenges can be resolved by the Australian government, but others are in the hands of global governance to which Australia can only adapt. This book sheds light on the challenges and discusses the prospects for developing more sustainable and resilient future food systems in Australia. In addition, it covers food security and sovereignty issues under the heading of "food equity and access," "food production, policy and trade," and "impacts of land use planning on agriculture."
The unique features of the book include the following:
- Most literature on food security pertains to developing countries. By way of contrast, this book explores food security in a developed nation (Australia) that seemingly should not have food security issues. The topics covered in the book are relevant to other developed nations with growing populations and resource management challenges.
- The book chapters are written by specialists to paint a comprehensive picture of the political, social, economic and environmental issues that give rise to food insecurity, and the challenges these issues present to the security of the food system in coming decades. The overall organization of the book uses a theoretically informed and multi-disciplinary approach. This enables a critical and in-depth analysis of food security by outlining the key challenges as well as prospects for the development of more sustainableand resilient agri-food systems.
- The three principal topics in the book are dealt with by a multi-disciplinary team of authors in a way that teases out diverse points of view illustrating the complexity of food security. Author disciplines include health and nutrition, agriculture, ethics, social science, law, and practitioners managing food aid programs.
- The book shows how food security relates to many technical, social and moral issues in society and how it is possible to develop successful programs to improve food security.

List of contents

1. Introduction: The Food Security Problem in Australia.- Part I. Food Equity and Access.- 2. Food Security in Australia - The Logistics of Vulnerability.- 3. Ethics of Food Security.- 4. Interdisciplinary Conversations on Complexities of Food/In Security.- 5. Institutional Capacity of Local Government to Embed Food Security into Policy.- 6. The Question of a Reasonable Price for Food: Policy Alternatives to Control Food Price Inflation in Developed Economies.- 7. Selecting Interventions for Food Security in Remote Indigenous Communities.- 8. Hungry for Change: The Sydney Food Fairness Alliance.- 9. Community Supported Agriculture and Agri-Food Networks: Growing Food, Community and Sustainability?.- 10. The Emergency Relief Sector in Victoria, Australia.- Chapter 11. Case Studies on Food Equity and Access.- Part II. Food Production, Policy and Trade.- 12. The Impacts of Climate Change on Australia's Food Production and Exports.- 13. Increasing Food Production Sustainably in a Changing Climate - Understanding the Pressures and Potential.- 14. Enhancing Food Security in Australia by Supporting Transformative Change.- 15. Framing the Research Needs for Food Security in Australia.- 16. Water Sovereignty and Food Security.- 17. Food Security and Soil Health.- 18. Australian Food Security Dilemmas - Comparing Nutritious Production Scenarios and their Environmental, Resource and Economic Tensions.- 19. 'Sustainable Standards?' How Organic Standards in the EU and Australia Affect Local and Global Agri-Food Production and Value Chains.- 20. How do you Eat the Elephant in the Room? Agri-Food Sustainability and King Island.- 21. A New Harvest of the Suburbs.- 22. Farming in Rural Amenity Landscapes - Maintaining Food Productivity in a Changing Environment.- 23. Food Security in a Two Speed Economy: Horticultural Production in Western Australia.- 24. Case Studies on Food Production, Policy, and Trade.- Part III. Land Use and Planning.- 25. Is Food aMissing Ingredient in Australia's Metropolitan Planning Strategies?.- 26. Help or Hindrance? The Relationship between Land Use Planning and Urban Agriculture on the Gold Coast.- 27. Farming the City Fringe: Dilemmas for Peri-Urban Planning.- 28. By Accident or Design? Peri-Urban Planning and the Protection of Productive Land on the Urban Fringe.- 29. Development, Dilution and Functional Change in the Peri-Urban Landscape: What does it Really Mean for Agriculture?.- 30. Final Word: Australia's Food Security Challenges.

About the author

Quentin Farmar-Bowers has worked in agriculture, public policy and natural resource management since 1971.  His previous book was Making Sustainable Development Ideas Operational: A General Technique for Policy Development.

 
Vaughan Higgins is Associate Professor of Sociology at Charles Sturt University, Australia. Recent books include Calculating the Social: Standards and the Reconfiguration of Governing (with Wendy Larner) and Rural Governance: International Perspectives (with Lynda Cheshire and Geoffrey Lawrence).
 
Joanne Millar is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Planning and Policy at Charles Sturt University, Australia.  Joanne has published in Demographic Change in Rural Australia: Implications for Society and Environment and the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

Summary

This book considers the ability and capacity of the food supply system in Australia to provide food security for the ever-increasing domestic and international population in the face of growing challenges in production, resource supply and failures within the food system itself. Although Australia is a net food exporting country, domestic food insecurity exists and will increase as food prices rise in the coming decades. An overview of the food supply system highlights the main challenges that are determining the future. Many of these challenges can be resolved by the Australian government, but others are in the hands of global governance to which Australia can only adapt. This book sheds light on the challenges and discusses the prospects for developing more sustainable and resilient future food systems in Australia. In addition, it covers food security and sovereignty issues under the heading of “food equity and access,” “food production, policy and trade,” and “impacts of land use planning on agriculture.” 
The unique features of the book include the following:
• Most literature on food security pertains to developing countries. By way of contrast, this book explores food security in a developed nation (Australia) that seemingly should not have food security issues. The topics covered in the book are relevant to other developed nations with growing populations and resource management challenges.
• The book chapters are written by specialists to paint a comprehensive picture of the political, social, economic and environmental issues that give rise to food insecurity, and the challenges these issues present to the security of the food system in coming decades. The overall organization of the book uses a theoretically informed and multi-disciplinary approach. This enables a critical and in-depth analysis of food security by outlining the key challenges as well as prospects for the development of more sustainableand resilient agri-food systems.
• The three principal topics in the book are dealt with by a multi-disciplinary team of authors in a way that teases out diverse points of view illustrating the complexity of food security. Author disciplines include health and nutrition, agriculture, ethics, social science, law, and practitioners managing food aid programs.
• The book shows how food security relates to many technical, social and moral issues in society and how it is possible to develop successful programs to improve food security.

Product details

• Assisted by: Quentin Farmar-Bowers (Editor), Vaugha Higgins (Editor), Vaughan Higgins (Editor), Joanne Millar (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2014
• EAN: 9781489998033
• ISBN: 978-1-4899-9803-3
• No. of pages: 476
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 27 mm x 235 mm
• Weight: 751 g
• Illustrations: XXIV, 476 p.
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology > Chemical engineering; Social sciences, law, business > Business; B, Geography, Urban Planning, Social Policy, Social & ethical issues, Agriculture, Political Economy, Chemistry and Materials Science, Regional & area planning, Food Science, Agricultural science, Food—Biotechnology, Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning, Regional planning, Food security;food security in Australia