Australian Farmers Part of the Global Food Security Solution

Australia's National Farmers' Federation led by its president Jock Laurie has acknowledged the importance of investments in agricultural research and development, and a resolution to the international trade talks to realize global food security. The launch of Oxfam's international GROW campaign attests to the role of Australian agriculture in addressing global food security. 

"Food security has long been an area of concern for the agricultural sector, as Australia's and the world's farmers are being asked to produce more food to feed the growing world population, at the same as natural resources like water and arable land become more scarce," Mr Laurie said.

To answer the issues on how  farmers produce more with less, and how to ensure all people have access to food, Mr Laurie said that, "The answers lie in investing in agricultural research, development and innovation in order to boost productivity; ensuring a balanced outcome in the development of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan; ensuring any carbon policy reduces emissions while also not loading additional costs into our industry; improving our freight transport infrastructure networks; and ensuring trade restrictions and protectionist measures that distort market signals and bleed inefficient resource allocations are removed." 

For more on the news, see http://www.nff.org.au/read/2089/australian-farmers-part-of-global-food.html.