Australian Farm Fire Sales A Threat To National Security

A must watch clip below, we can clearly see why the Chinese wish to export so much of there toxic junk to other countries and secure foreign farms for themselves, to grow safe foods to send back home for their own consumption. No longer is food safety paramount, gone are the days of integrity, it's all about profit rather than any notion of quality and safety. It is a valuable insight regarding the attitude of the Chinese, they couldn't care less, they are ruthless, yet Australians remain silent on these issues and any group or individual that does speak out with genuine concern is shouted down and labelled 'racist' by the traitor class. The Australian globalist government ( both Labor & Liberal ) are two bob pimps who prostitute Australians future health and national security to the Chinese, as they line their pockets wheeling and dealing with the Chinese State.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-21/fish-farms-take-off-as-china-battles-pollution/4531304


A Decade of Dangerous Food Imports from China
8.6.11
China has become an agricultural powerhouse and leading food exporter. Though supermarket labels may not always indicate it, a growing portion of the American diet is now made in China. In 2009, 70 percent of the apple juice, 43 percent of the processed mushrooms, 22 percent of the frozen spinach and 78 percent of the tilapia Americans ate came from China.

The FDA inspects less than 2 percent of imported food and barely visits Chinese food manufacturers. The FDA conducted only 13 food inspections in China between June 2009 and June 2010.
Read the full report

Unfortunately, it’s not just China’s food that’s reaching American shores — it’s also China’s food safety problems. The shortcomings in China’s food safety system were highlighted when ingredients tainted with the chemical melamine entered the global food supply — including products from well-known brands like Mars, Heinz and Cadbury.
Melamine-tainted milk products sickened hundreds of thousands of infants in China, and melamine contamination is believed to be responsible for thousands of pet deaths in the United States. Melamine adulteration garnered the most headlines, but systemic food safety failures in China have allowed unsafe foods onto global grocery store shelves. The Wild West business environment in China encourages food manufacturers to cut costs and corners. Even Chinese officials have publicly acknowledged their inability to regulate the country’s sprawling food production sector.
U.S. food safety inspectors have been overwhelmed by the surging food imports from China since the country joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. These international business deals allow trade to trump food safety and encourage U.S. agribusinesses and food manufacturers to source food ingredients in China where environmental, food safety and labor laws are weaker and regulatory oversight is lax.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to address the growing tide of food imports from China, despite a well-documented pattern of chemical adulteration and unsafe drug residues. The FDA inspects less than 2 percent of imported food and barely visits Chinese food manufacturers. The FDA conducted only 13 food inspections in China between June 2009 and June 2010. There is no indication that China’s food safety situation is improving. Melamine continues to appear in food inside China despite a spate of new food safety legislation. Nonetheless, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering allowing U.S. food retailers to import chicken from China. It is time for a common-sense approach to inspecting imported food and preventing the globalization of the food supply from sickening our citizens.

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/a-decade-of-dangerous-food-imports-from-china/

Australia is in similar circumstance regarding food imports and not just from China. Do people consider these realities ? The way Australian farmland is being sold of to the Chinese and other foreigners for their food security, we should consider the consequences without delay.

Very soon Australians will be reliant on toxic imports and due to our own folly selling all of our agricultural land off we will be without options. We must stop the foreign sale of our food producing land before it's too late.

Chinese State To Re-Name Aquisitions

China's COFCO to buy Barossa winery and market wine under Great Wall label    

• by: Chief Business Reporter Cameron England
• From: The Advertiser
• February 27, 2013 12:30AM

   

COFCO, the maker of Great Wall wines, plans to purchase a vineyard in the Barossa Valley. Source: adelaidenow               

CHINA'S largest food company wants to buy a Barossa Valley winery and market the wine under its Great Wall label.

The bid is part of the global expansion plans of the Chinese government-owned conglomerate COFCO.
The  company's wines and spirits division has been buying wineries across the world in recent years, aiming to become a truly global wine producer.
After buying wineries in France and Chile, it is now targeting Australia.
Wine industry brokers Gaetjens Langley director Toby Langley said representatives from COFCO were in the Barossa looking at wineries about a month ago.
"Great Wall have been out in the Barossa, they've certainly been looking," Mr Langley said.
"I had meetings with them last year ... but they haven't done anything at this stage as far as I'm aware."
A report in Europe's pre-eminent alcohol industry publication The Drinks Business this week quotes COFCO senior manager Shu Yu as saying: "I think our next step will be Australia."
The report said he suggested the Barossa would be the preferred region.
The company is planning to release a range of wines branded by each wine-producing region.
"We will announce that Great Wall is not only China, and we will make a French Great Wall, a Chilean Great Wall and an Australian Great Wall," he said.
"You will probably find these wines in the market next year ... Great Wall will use global sourcing for the Chinese domestic market."
Australian winemakers have been aggressively increasing their exports to China, boosting them by 20 per cent last year to $165 million.
This makes China our third-largest export destination.
According to government body Wine Australia, China is also the biggest destination for bottled exports that are priced greater than $7.50 per litre.
While the market is growing very quickly, Great Wall's established distribution network gives it a huge advantage.
The company sells about 10 million cases of wine per year in China as well as other countries.
The Australian wine industry is still suffering because of a surplus of grapes, combined with the strong Australian dollar and increasing competition from other "New World" wine producers such as South Africa and Chile.
Premium producer Barossa Valley Estate was placed in receivership last month after running into financial difficulties. However, its receivers, McGrathNicol, intend to sell it as a going concern.
COFCO bought Queensland sugar company Tully Sugar for $136 million in 2011.
The Advertiser  tried to contact COFCO Australia's chairman, Keith De Lacy, but was unsuccessful.
Mr Langley said there was also interest in Australian wineries from some other Chinese investors.
Any purchase by COFCO would need to be approved by the Federal Government's Foreign Investment Review Board, because COFCO is a government-owned company.
On Saturday The Advertiser revealed Qatari company Hassad Australia was in the process of buying prime farmland in SA.
Former South Australian senator Nick Minchin says, in a letter to The Advertiser today, that investment in Australian agricultural and resource industries by state-owned enterprises "raises quite serious issues".
GREAT WALL WINE
COFCO Group is China's largest food processor, manufacturer and trader.
It was founded in 1952 and was the Chinese Government's sole agricultural products importer and exporter until 1987.
It owns Great Wall, which is China's biggest wine producer, reportedly selling 10 million cases of wine per year.
Great Wall was founded in 1983 and is based in Hebei province in Northern China.

Beware CSG Mining

Health agencies' CSG warning

 

26 Feb, 2013 04:00 AM

MATTHEW CAWOOD

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's decision to legislate a two-kilometre buffer zone between urban and peri-urban areas and mining operations in NSW is a start, public health officials say, but only a start. "(Mr O'Farrell) is obviously getting very nervous about CSG and that his own constituency is very concerned about it," said Michael Moore of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA). "The fact is, the urban constituency is not enough." The PHAA, and four other national health bodies, are collaborating to sound warnings on the "adverse health impacts and environmental damages associated with current minerals energy policy, particularly those relating to coal and coal seam gas". After a recent Health and Energy Roundtable in Canberra, the organisations and a broad group of other health bodies drafted a joint statement arguing that the risks to human health from fossil fuel extraction are not being well accounted for. Mining policy currently ignores the fact that the health of the environment and society contribute to the health of the population overall, the statement said. "The local health impacts from coal mining, transportation and combustion are also a significant concern, and communities living in proximity to these activities are experiencing adverse social impacts, such as loss of amenity, displacement, and loss of social capital as well as facing increased risks of respiratory disease, heart disease, and lung cancer." The rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industries in Australia demands these issues "be urgently addressed", the statement said. The document was drafted by the PHAA, Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA), Climate Change Health Research Network (NCCARF-ARN), Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA). Other groups, including Cancer Council Australia, Heart Foundation, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), National Toxics Network (NTN), Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA), and New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA), have agreed to work along the same lines.

FarmOnline

The Charlatan !

 

In the 1980's, Wagga Wagga was the centre of a considerable resistance movement to the foreclosure of farms by the banks. A mighty movement against the banks and their "creation of credit at interest" power developed. Thousands were drawn in. This movement arose because the National Farmers Federation ( NFF ) worked hand in glove with Elders-IXL (John Elliot ) and Westpac bank to force farmers of their lands. No one was active at the "coal face" for the farmers. The Union of Farmers was a key patriotic movement that stood up for ordinary people. The Union of Farmers kept many small producers on their properties.

The National Party played at this time-a treacherous game. It did its best to shield the NFF/Elders-IXL connection from public exposure and often pretended that it would give a real voice for farmers in this age of declining prices and high bank interest. It often linked up with supposed "protest groups". It was all deception.

Today is no different. Despite their noises, the Nationals are so far involved in the politics of globalisation that it's a wonder anyone votes for, or supports, them at all. Why ? Because the Nationals are masters of deceit. They rely on patronage and social connections that maintain their networks.



It appears nothing has changed regarding the Nationals modus operandi, as we see in the press release below ( 14.11.12 ) by Riverina National Michael McCormack. Same old lies !

Mr McCormack admits he is in support of the proposed Chinese State owned Trade Centre in Wagga, the Northern Zone agenda, 457 visas remaining relaxed and corruptible, while Australians lose their jobs hand over fist ! Mr McCormack supports the destruction of Riverina farmland via CSG and other mining set for the Riverina and let's not forget the recent in principal, lack of principal theatre regarding the MDBP issue.

How is a young person supposed to have a go at farming in Australia without the certainty of water and if managed investment schemes, body corporates, banks and foreign investment groups ( many State owned ) keep buying up all the land ?

Shame on you Mr McCormack !

 Foreign takeover slammed by McCormack

Nov 14, 2012, Michael McCormack MP.

A proposal for a Chinese conglomerate to gain a 50-year lease on a north Australian irrigation area has incensed Nationals’ Member for Riverina Michael McCormack.

Shanghai Zhongfu has reportedly won the sole right to develop 15,200 hectares of prime agricultural land in Western Australia after more than half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds was spent building road, irrigation, port and local community infrastructure to support the deal.

Mr McCormack said the Federal Government had tipped in $195 million at a time when it was busily tearing apart purpose-built irrigation areas in the Riverina “paddy by paddy, channel by channel”.

“How dare an Australian Government allow such a sale to proceed so the Chinese can grow food and send it directly back to China at a time when Australian farmers are facing such uncertainty due to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan,” Mr McCormack said.

“This latest Chinese land grab is not in the national interest.”

The Australian newspaper reported today that a Chinese company has been handed all available land in the second stage expansion of the Ord irrigation scheme in Western Australia’s Kimberley region for a peppercorn rent, on the condition it is cleared, developed and farmed.

“Why is the Federal Government propping this up while at the same time the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, which is this year celebrating its centenary of irrigation and of being a dependable, viable food-bowl, is facing such uncertainty?

“If the Government is serious about being a source of food and fibre to meet the demands of the so-called Asian Century, it ought to be doing whatever it can to preserve and protect Australian interests in already-established irrigation districts, not selling out like it is,” Mr McCormack said.

The latest takeover comes just days after Chinese interests bought land in Western Australia to grow wheat for direct export to Asia.

“A national interest test must be applied to any foreign acquisitions,” Mr McCormack said.

“Foreign investment is important but within reason. Australians could not go anywhere and buy up parcels of agricultural land in Asia, the United States of America or New Zealand yet it is open slather here at the moment.

“We’re just mugs for letting them do it and we will regret it in the long term.”

Mr McCormack said food and water security would be the greatest challenges of our time in the years ahead and Australia was best placed to feed a growing population – provided our farmers were given the opportunity to do so.


No wonder McCormacks latest ruse is grooming young first time
voters via social media, facebook and twitter in a  conceited attempt
to gain some sort of rock star type following amongst local youth.
A seedy plan to acquire votes based on celebrity, rather than any
policies on offer by the Nationals.

So this is what it has come to. The Nationals know they are hog tied
to all the international treaties they have signed up to along with
their Coalition partners and are effectively powerless to do what
needs to be done to save the Riverina, but the pantomime must go
on.

Folk that have been around over the years aren't buying it anymore, they've heard all the lies
and false promises before, it's like a broken record, nothing changes.

The Red Cross - The Power Of Inhumanity

Systematic deceit has been rewarded by systematic support. Asylum seekers who have avoided immigration control, destroyed their identity documents and not yet had their 'claims' decided are eligible for support under the ASAS ( Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme ).  SMH  

Australians demand an end to this 'refugee' racket ! Australia First demand the Red Cross ASAS programme  be cancelled forthwith and the funding attached to this programme of community terror, targeting our most vulnerable citizens, young women and the elderly ( see articles below ), be used to repatriate the so-called 'refugees' without delay, any remaining funds to be used to house Australian homeless.

As quoted over 10,000 'asylum seekers', yet to be assessed are already enjoying living in the Australian community, their tenancies require cancellation to provide an immediate 10,000 placements for Australian homeless and most vulnerable, elderly, children, families, mentally ill and disabled currently living on our streets.

The Red Cross organization has earned itself a blanket boycott Australia wide, of any donations or assistance of any kind. the Red Cross peddle the line 'humanity', yet they have rained terror down on Australia's most vulnerable by their actions, in what can only be described as the power of inhumanity and Red Cross executive greed.

A local article about the Red Cross describes the 'charity' as an equivalent to Wall St, regarding its operations and the executive salaries. Robert Tickner is on upwards of $350,000 plus perks and another Board member is on upwards of $480,000 ( figures from 2008). People should consider these matters when they consider the Red Cross. Just more high rolling executives of the 'charity' cartels we see in Australia.

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20100519009


Asylum Seekers Living At Retirement Home
(8.2.13)
The Immigration Department has ordered an investigation after asylum seekers were uncovered living at a retirement home in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.
Asylum seekers on bridging visas have been rotating through the accommodation at the Harwin Retirement Village at Salisbury for six months – at taxpayers’ expense.

Some residents at the home say they have serious safety concerns, and say the facility should only be used for aged care.
The section of the building where the asylum seekers are staying is not owned by the retirement facility, but by a private developer who collects the rent, Susie Pierce.

But some of the retirement home residents live under the same roof.
“We don’t know where they come from, what their background is,” said retirement home resident Lawrie Arnold.
One of the asylum seekers told 7News the weekly rent is $85, and is paid for by the Red Cross.

When asked if he liked living there, he said: “oh like, very much like, very good.”
A village manager says the asylum seekers have set off fire alarms nine times while cooking in their rooms, sometimes at night.

“It goes off pretty regularly, yes, and it’s pretty scary when it goes off because you never really know if there’s a fire or not,” said resident Val Knight.
Residents and their families say they have been left in the dark by the retirement village management, who never told them about the new arrivals.

The Immigration Department says it is taking the concerns seriously.
“We’ve asked the Red Cross, and the building owner and manager, to investigate them as a priority, the last thing we want to do is to be upsetting local residents,” said Sandi Logan from the Immigration Department.

A village executive says he will visit the residents next week.

Building owner Susie Pierce says she will build a new kitchen within a month, but until then, cooking in the rooms will continue.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/nsw/watch/6233d231-def7-39ff-a3b5-2dffb9a8fdac/retirees-worried-about-asylum-seekers/


http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national/watch/0739646a-5c35-3f6f-8469-b9d32fe3b3b7/asylum-seekers-in-retirement-village/


Sleeping University Student Assaulted
7 News Sydney
(22.2.13)

A Macquarie University student who lives on campus has been indecently assaulted in her bed by an intruder.
The attack has left her traumatised, and other female students living in fear.
While the intruder hasn't been identified, they want asylum seekers moved out of their student accommodation.

Police forensics show where the intruder forced his way into campus accomodation in the early hours yesterday, and enterred the woman's room.

Friends at Macquarie University, who did not wish to be identified, said she woke to find the man at the end of her bed.

"She was screaming at him to get out, she she fought back and chased him," one friend said.

Police are investigating an indecent assault and have issued a description for a man aged 20 to 25.

The man has dark skin, dark hair, is of slim build and was only wearing grey tracksuit pants.

But the incident has sparked student complaints, with about up to 80 Sri Lankan refugees housed temporarily on campus.

The University says it could have been anyone.
"You just got to look around you its an open campus, part of embracing the community is that people come and go."

The Federal Opposition says there are up to 10,000 asylum seekers waiting for approval to stay. It questions whether university's are the right place.

"That question about its appropriateness is not even asked by the Government," Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/16208192/sleeping-university-student-assaulted/


It must be noted that Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has no alternatives on offer here, that is because there is only one solution, rip up the UN Refugee Treaty, but neither Lab/Green or Lib/Nat would ever do that !

This Is What's In Store For Towns Around The Riverina

Coal meets the last man standing

• by: Andrew Fraser
• From: The Australian
• June 18, 2011 12:00AM

   

Glen Beutel is the only resident left in the Acland township on Queensland's Darling Downs. Picture: Jack Tran Source: The Australian

GLEN Beutel's story is almost a parable of modern Australia.

As the last man standing in the Darling Downs town of Acland, where mining company New Hope has been buying its 50 houses in a bid to expand a coalmine, Beutel is one of the forgotten faces of the two-speed economy. Mining may have enriched the nation as a whole, but individuals such as Beutel are feeling impoverished and frustrated.
Beutel's former neighbours have taken New Hope's money and moved to nearby towns, leaving the 58-year-old the sole landowner in a town situated squarely in the middle of a planned 7km-wide open-cut coalmine. And yet Beutel, who grew up in Acland, would never live anywhere else.
"I've travelled a lot, but this will always be home," he said. "I've got an attachment to the town that I feel I'd regret if I abandoned it."

 His main attachment is the town's gardens, where many of the trees were planted by his mother and father back in the 1970s.

The gardens changed the town. Previously it had been the standard, dry, dusty, Darling Downs township, but the plantings encouraged the citizens to sharpen up their own houses and gardens.
Acland became a regular winner of the Tidy Towns award throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But when the council abandoned the town in 2007, it cut off the contractor who would mow the lawns, so Beutel now mows them himself. "I think I'm keeping Mum and Dad's work going. The leaves that the koalas eat -- they come from the eucalyptus trees my parents planted. The birds sit in the other trees that Mum and Dad planted.
"I think one of the worst moments in all this came when a fella from New Hope rang me and said they'd move me to Jondaryan and they'd put up a plaque there to honour my parents' work.
"I yelled at him -- a plaque for a park! Is that all it's worth? All those days spent working down there at the gardens, creating something for everyone to enjoy. And all that's worth is a plaque somewhere else?"
At a time when Australia's mining industry is growing rapidly, Beutel's story touches a nerve. The question his life and his stand pose is how far Australia wants to go in pursuit of financial gain while destroying people's quality of life.
It's especially galling for farmers to see their elected representatives -- the government -- coming in on the side of the miners. The Acland project was declared a Project of State Significance by the Queensland government, meaning it can be fast-tracked and the state has the ultimate sanction of being able to direct people to sell their land.
Beutel may be the last man left standing but he's certainly not alone, receiving support from all over Australia. Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones, the best-known alumnus of Acland Primary School, is championing Beutel's stand on radio.
Jones told his 2GB listeners yesterday "prime agricultural land is being raped" and "landholders robbed" by mining companies on the Darling Downs.
"The movie The Castle is alive and well," Jones thundered.
The irony is that Acland has been a mining town for most of the 130 years that it has been in existence. Beutel's father was a miner, and most of his schoolmates went down the mines.
"But that was an underground mine. It was the centre of our community. We'd fish for yabbies in the tailings pond; we'd go for showers at the mine's bathhouse.
"The mining people now all tell you that mining and farming is compatible -- it is if it's an underground mine. It's not if it's an open-cut mine."
The Darling Downs in Queensland, the Liverpool Plains in NSW and the Hunter Valley in NSW are the three main areas in Australia where the question of whether to use land for farming or mining is most difficult.
Acland is in the middle of rich blacksoil country, which supports the growing of crops such as sorghum, wheat and barley, while cattle graze in some parts on the plentiful grass.
The Acland mine and another about 60km due south at Millmerran are the only two mines in the inner Darling Downs at the moment, but there are plenty of applications for more mines in the western part of the Downs.
Further out on the Downs, farmers are concerned about how coal-seam gas will affect their operations, especially their bore water supplies.
Many farmers and landowners feel the impact on their lifestyles and businesses is being shoved aside in the scramble for export dollars.
 

The Eleventh Hour Has Arrived

Food Bowl At Risk !            

18 Feb, 2013 08:17 AM

BY PAUL SHEEHAN

OPINION: WE NOW know why the Prime Minister has instigated the longest election campaign in political history. It will stave off the need for any by-elections, thus preserving the Gillard government for its full term.
Yet even in a campaign lasting eight months, the most important issue may still be related to the margins. The issue that dwarfs all others is the fundamental soundness of the eastern food basin, where 40 per cent of Australia's food is grown. That food basin is no longer fundamentally sound. It is stressed, though still sound, but not fundamentally sound. It is far less self-sustaining than it was when Europeans arrived and thought they could do better than a million years of evolution. The buggering process has been under way for 200 years and is ongoing. More water and soil is being depleted than is being replenished - and now an entirely new threat has emerged. Consider this remarkable statistic: according to the maps published by the Queensland Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the area covered by mining leases in Queensland's Murray-Darling catchment area is now 40 per cent. Think about that. Mining is water intensive. It consumes as much water as agriculture. It is going to be impossible for extensive new mining operations in Queensland not to impinge on the production of food downstream. The area was stressed even before the coal and gas boom, so much so that the latest report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation describes the Murray-Darling Basin as ''at risk''. The organisation's report says a number of the basin's river systems ''face the risk of progressive breakdown of their productive capacity under a combination of excessive demographic pressure and unsustainable agricultural use and practices''. The CSIRO is also concerned and has been for some time. It issued a warning in 2006 that Australia's water resources were ''precariously balanced''. This was before the NSW and Queensland mining booms were in full swing.

Last week, the federal Minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, granted approval to expand coal seam gas projects in NSW that represent a potential 500 per cent increase in the state's coal seam gas production. Burke also granted conditional approval for the Maules Creek coalmine in north-western NSW, the site of extensive community opposition. He also granted conditional approval for expansion of the nearby Boggabri coal mine. NSW farmers also face a real threat from Queensland. If all or most of the proposed Queensland mines go into production, it would have a significant effect on the food-growing capacity downstream. Last month, Cubbie Station, the vast cotton-producing and water-diverting farm operation in the head of the Murray-Darling catchment area in southern Queensland, was sold to a Chinese-led consortium for $240 million. This was a golden opportunity missed. According to the CSIRO, the cotton industry uses about 1600 litres of water to generate $1 of output. During a 12-year drought, in 2009, Cubbie went into voluntary administration with a debt of $320 million. That was the time for government intervention to buy the operation, take it out of production and dismantle its extensive system of reservoirs, which stretch for 28 kilometres. It is a system made massively inefficient by evaporation. Cubbie has been the source of intense and sustained criticism by farmers downstream in NSW who have accused the operation of destroying river flows, an accusation always denied. Buying Cubbie Station to shut it down is not a new idea and it is not my idea.

How, you may ask, does the eastern mining boom fit with the CSIRO assessment in 2006 (Echohydrology: Vegetation Function, Water and Resource Management) that ''the Australian continental water budget is precariously balanced - Too many aquifers are being over-extracted - Groundwater use across Australia doubled between 1983 and 1996 - In most states, groundwater extraction exceeds licensed allocations - the beef cattle industry uses 800 litres of water to generate $1 of product''? All this was written before much of the massive allocation of mining leases for coal seam gas, coal, oil and minerals extraction. I recently reminded Bob Carr of his Cubbie project when he launched a new book by Michael Mobbs, the owner of a famous sustainable house in Chippendale. The book, Sustainable Food, addresses what people should do to buttress themselves against any future food price shock. He recommends a return to backyard vegetable gardens and communal street gardens like the ones he has been successfully operating in his home and along his street, Myrtle Street, Chippendale. ''Why is it important to farm in the city?'' he asks. ''Because soon we may have no choice.'' That may seem unduly bleak, but Australia is going to have to do something about expanding its food production capacity, because too much reliance has been put on a system under too much stress. This gives the Coalition's idea of creating a new food bowl in northern Australia a new perspective, because at the rate NSW and Queensland are going, more food will have to be imported from overseas as domestic supplies become both more scarce and more expensive. If all this does not become an election issue, we will reap what we deserve.

http://www.theland.com.au/news/nationalrural/general/opinion/food-bowl-at-risk/2647162.aspx?storypage=3