If you are one of the 90 per cent of Australian shoppers who buy garlic imported from China you're spending around $2/kg. Buying organic, locally-produced garlic on the other hand, can set you back $38/kg. But don't be fooled about which is really cheaper.
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Around 70 per cent of the 500 million hectares of land used for agriculture in this country is degraded. The remarkable gains in agricultural productivity, which have helped make food so cheap, have been dependent on clearing, poisoning native grasses, draining swamps, and intensively fertilising.
The former chief of CSIRO Land and Water, John Williams, has put it bluntly in official reports on the environmental impact of Australian agriculture: 'business as usual is not an option'.
Patrice Newell is a biodynamic farmer of garlic, olives and beef cattle. She is adamant that cheap food is a furphy, as prices fail to factor in environmental expenses. Australia's industrial agribusinesses do not pay for their real water use or soil degradation: the big profits are a mirage.
For an industry that exports 70 per cent of its product (for some crops, such as wheat, the figure is more like 80 per cent), any changes to the way food is costed will have significant economic impacts. But Newell insists this dependence on exports is what we should be giving up, rather than small, independent, environmentally sustainable farms. 'What's the point of destroying the Murray-Darling Basin to export food? I mean, why?'
The real cost of food is not what politicians want to talk about, but we must. So how much do you pay for your garlic?
This article by Sarah Kanowski has been sourced from the folllowing link.
Australian farmers sold short by cheap food - Eureka Street
Her essay on FOOD AND FARMING IN AUSTRALIA is published in Griffith Review Edition 27: Food Chain and online here
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