APSM Executive Editor’s Special Interview with Major General John Hartley AO (Retd)
Major General John Hartley AO (Retd) is the Institute Director of Future Directions International. John is the former Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, Deputy Chief of the Army and Head of Army’s Land Command. John is leading research to determine the possibility and extent of a global food and water crisis and the relationship such as crisis would have on the Australian landscape.
APSM: What is Food Security?
Food security basically says that having access to affordable food which is nutritional and of a quality that will not make you hungry.
APSM: When you take on an issue such as Food Security what is the ultimate goal?
The ultimate goal would be to get some national policy that could be based on something that we’ve done. We want to present a document to the Government and say this is what Australia needs to think about. The factors we’ve looked at included population, water, arable land, food supply and demand, which includes issues such as wastage, the role of science and technology, innovation, potentially areas of conflict and the last one is where does Australia fit in all this.
Nationally, we tend to concentrate on East Asia and across the Pacific but there is an emerging area here to the West. The Pacific has been done to death by everyone but our knowledge of India, for instance, is abysmal, our knowledge of the Middle East is not very good, knowledge of East Africa is terrible.
APSM: In terms of foreign investment trends, with China buying land there is a call for changing our foreign investment ratios and our land holding ratios. How does all this come together, in particular in terms of population and land usage, to influence Australia’s longer term food security situation?
I am not at all convinced that we are in the Asia Century. There is a great sense that we’re going to be able to produce a lot of food because of the rise of the middle class in China and India, in particular.
By about 2050 our population is in fact going to peak and we’re going to have, across the globe, an aging population and an increasingly smaller population for the workforce.
So the long term future in terms of our minerals and energy exports is not entirely guaranteed, and no one wants to talk about that. On the other hand we’re going to need food. The world’s population is going to increase to probably at least 9 billion by about 2050 before it peaks out and then we have these other problems.
APSM: Is it potentially going to balance itself out in terms of the population simply because it can’t grow because of the mortality rates increasing due to a lack of food?
There’s a certain element of that, but I think what we will find is that a lot more people are born that will die sooner, but is that really what we want for our globe. I think there are two areas where we get it completely wrong. There is one group of people which say ‘we’re an innovative people science and technology, innovation, pragmatism will eventually evolve and overcome these problems. And I say to those people, that’s fine but why do we have a billion people today who are at starvation limits, who are really suffering because they can’t get access to food they can afford?
The second, there’s an attitude which says our market type economy will overcome this problem. As we require more food the price of food will go up and farmers will produce more food. The bottom line is where a majority of people come from who require food, they’re already spending anything up to 80 per cent of their income on buying food. They can’t afford anymore. And therefore that type of market economy outlook isn’t going to work.
Now go back another step and people will say what we’ve got to do is make those people wealthier, we have to give them a larger income which is guaranteed and then they can afford the food. There is an issue there and it’s much wider than simply providing food. Equally I don’t have great confidence that a lot of these countries that are already suffering from food insecurity are going to get any better. In fact, if anything they’re going to get worse.
APSM: Food Security has been on the most recent G8 Meeting agenda and the fact we’re in Perth and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Perth Declaration was based on tackling the Food Security issue, as well as coincided with the Federal Government opening a $36 million Food Security Research Centre. In terms of Government action and timeframes, what are the options?
It seems to me it’s only in the last few years that people have really started to come to terms with the fact that we’ve got a major issue here. The Food & Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, in particular has been looking at these issues for a generation. Senator Bill Heffernan and even the Prime Minister has been talking about Food Security for some time.
Yes there’s been a number of people who claim to have talked about it but basically they’ve been driven by their own interests. They tend to come from farming communities who quite correctly say that farming communities aren’t receiving the largest that they should get and certainly if we went back 50 years, farmers were the main stream of our society. They were the bread basket of the country. Now they’ve lost that and of course the latest minerals and energy sector expansion has caused that issue becoming more pronounced. So I think there’s a certain amount of talk and attitude which reflects that. My concern though with it is we’re really not getting past the stage of talking about it. Its good headline stuff. It’s something on an agenda. But where’s the follow up?
It’s got to be handled by a whole range, private enterprise, philanthropic organisations, it involves research, and our western research has declined dramatically since the green revolution in the 1970s. Research by non western developing countries has gone up.
The other issues are things like education and training. We have the lowest number of agricultural graduates today than we have had for fifty years in Australia. We have an aging farming population who don’t have children to hand over their farms to and who are quite prepared to sell their property to a foreign investor because for them there’s no other option.
APSM: In terms of potential conflict, do you see it developing to a point where we cannot sustain a 20 million plus population as the rest of world over populates and lacks food?
I think it’s fair to say that up until now, most potential conflicts have occurred over water and most have been resolved through diplomatic processes. As we move on and the demand for water increases the potential for conflict becomes significant.
Right now there are seven different areas around the globe where there is the potential for interstate conflict sometime in the future. The other issue though is that it may not be interstate, it may be intra state, potentially between societies in the same country.
It’s in our interests to try and remove that, because if populations are going to move, they’re certainly going to look for places to come to.
APSM: Processes such as desalination, energy supply and , what role will technology play in solving these issues.
Technology will certainly play a role, but whether it will play a role sufficient to overcome the problem is, I think, very questionable.
We talk about desalination for instance and yes it is an option in some places but it requires huge amounts of energy. What drives energy? Water. You almost have a vicious circle, a lot of places we’re talking about can’t afford that sort of investment.
The other issue to do with water, in particular, is that as we need more food in an increasingly arid planet is in fact to use more water. So the water issue becomes increasingly more important. And unfortunately, the aquifers which provided, if you like, the reserve of water, are rapidly drying up, and that’s the problem which we’re not even remotely facing.
APSM: What about on the other side in terms of Food Production and technology. Governments may not be able to solve all of this but they can set up the structure for it. It could be argued that if there is a demand there the market will find a way to supply it. What do you see in research relating to making better foods?
I think one of the problems is that the market forces will not provide the food where it’s needed. The other major issue is that a lot of the pure research is not being transferred to outcomes on the ground.
We also need to think about the way we train and educate people. And I use the word training more than education. The issue of training is very important. Where you get the knowledge that people need to have in a practical way so they can understand it and be prepared and convinced to adopt it.
We don’t have a food security problem in this country. In fact we produce food that could sustain 60 million people, so three times our population. So it’s terrible we see the plight of other people, but its other people. It’s for them to sort out, not for us to sort out. Yet if we are to sort out the global problem, a lot of the sorting out has to be initiated and paid for by us. And do we have that sort of attitude. Right now the answer is we don’t . So I think the crisis, which is happening now, will get a lot worse, before suddenly we start to realise that if we don’t do something about it it’s going to have a great impact on us.
Those first signs of the crisis are those issues of population movement, immigration issues, change in urbanisation, increased poverty, those types of signs are starting to happen in western societies.
We are seeing the arrival of many more boat people. We see the price of our food go up because there is a greater demand globally for higher nutrient food. These are factors which have an instant impact on us. But I hope there is another, when we watch our televisions we see millions of impoverished people, where we see women having to walk 20 kilometres a day to pick up water. Where children have stunted growth and will never get over that problem. When we start to see these issues I would hope our Governments start thinking about taking action.
In September, FDI will release ‘Food and Water Security in Southern Africa: Potential for Crises?’, the first instalment of its analysis of food and water security in the Indian Ocean region.
Other Recommended Reading from FDI:
- Burma and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Claims, Controversies, Consequences
- The Sino-Australian Relationship: Toward a Brighter Future
Future Directions International – The research provided by FDI’s Strategic Analysts is ably assisted by FDI Associates who have skills and experience relevant to the focus areas. It is an extensive network, many of whose members are in senior leadership, academic and policy development positions. FDI is a not-for-profit organisation with Deductible Gift Recipient status.
For more information visit www.futuredirections.org.au
