Minutes/Policy Development Committee/Agriculture and Food WG/2014-03-24

Meeting Minutes This document is a record of a meeting. Do not edit this document without contacting the relevant group first.

Agenda

• Acknowledgement of country
• Aims of WG
• Discussion
• Timeline: what is a suitable process?
• Frequency of meetings, when is next meeting?

Attendance

• Laura Killian
• Mark Gibbons
• Brendan Molloy
• Andrew Downing
• Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer

Apologies

• Simon Frew

Minutes

Acknowledgement of country

• Laura: "I'd like to start of by acknowledging that we are meeting on lands which Indigenous peoples were/are traditional custodians of. I'd like to acknowledge that most of these lands were stolen and have not been returned. I think it is important, particularly when discussing agricultural policy, to keep in mind this ongoing historical context."

Aims of WG

• To create an agricultural & food policy.

Discussion

• Identified issues:
  • Seed patents
  • Loss of biodiversity (already covered to some extent by existing policies)
  • Drought (including climate change and longer droughts)
  • Loss of farmland due to changes in use (e.g. mining) (mining vs farming covered to some extent by existing policies)
  • Economic imbalance resulting from small number of dominant food distributors controlling all of the farming
  • General corporate control aspect.
  • Predominance of monocultures
  • Poisoning of pollinators such as bees and loss of habitat
    • http://www.apvma.gov.au/news_media/chemicals/neonics.php
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
    • http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2013/10/12/where-have-all-the-bees-gone/
  • Encouraging permacultures
    • Subsidy might be a good method
    • A biodiversity fund, administered by a scientific committee, with the job of supporting sustainable practices in key areas?
    • Going anti-neonicotinoid as a policy seems presumptious given all the science that seems to be going on in the space.
    • Something that encourages non-risky farming practises like permaculture on the other hand could be more straightforward and positive.
    • Economic issues — permaculture may tend to be more labour intensive (compared to fully automatable mono-culture farming).
    • Avoid binary solutions to complex problems.
    • Funds are good options because they are self-administered once the money is granted and are independent of political interference.
    • Polinators are an integral part of any farming system.
    • Possible approach: a basic income to safeguard the industry, a biodiversity fund to support sustainable practices, a feed-in tariff to encourage farmers to broaden their business model into renewable energy provision, and helping farmes set up some kind of coop to match major supermarkets.
      • A feed-in tariff promotes renewable energy production by giving farmers a long-term contract with utility companies if they build turbines or solar.
  • Transportation for trade vs local production.
  • Urban agriculture movements.
  • Food cooperatives.
  • Suicide rate of farmers
    • http://ruralhealth.org.au/sites/default/files/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-14-suicide%20in%20rural%20australia_0.pdf
    • http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/general/news/rural-suicide-trend-alarming/2687171.aspx
  • Biochar
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar
    • Seems to fix several problems concurrently.
    • Sequesters carbon in quantities large enough to reverse global warming, improves soil, gives farmers secondary sources of income.
    • There are likely many alternative farming and fertilization techniques.
      • Need to find the right technique for the particular block of land.
    • http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Flagships/Sustainable-Agriculture-Flagship/Biochar-Overview/Biochar-Research.aspx
    • http://www.csiro.au/~/media/CSIROau/Flagships/Sustainable-Agriculture-Flagship/Biochar-factsheets/NBI-I%20detailed%20scientific%20report_26_06_2012.ashx
    • http://www.business.vic.gov.au/industries/science-technology-and-innovation/programs/driving-business-innovation/market-validation-program/portable-biochar-maker
    • http://www.daff.gov.au/climatechange/cfi/biochar/grant-program-guidelines
  • CSIRO could do more to investigate land management.
  • Organic and biodynamic alternatives to consider:
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture#Studies_of_efficacy
• Should create a new "environmental and land" policy and merge this new policy with the old environment policy.
  • General agreement that this is the likely course of action.

Timeline

• Proposed timeline:

1. Compile lists of resources
2. Read
3. Discuss
4. Draw links between them
5. Look at different perspectives and motives
6. Evaluate

• Next step is to search out decent resources and paste them in the pad
• Put in a few lines of detail about what the resource is about and what the 'takeaway' message is for our purposes
• Links to go in the pad — http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/AgricultureWG

Frequency of meetings

• Next meeting to be in about a fortnight, pending resources.

Action items

• Read and research, compile links in pad (link to pad above)