Abstract
Australia has no national food security strategy, and no overarching suite of law and policy to regulate the risks associated with food insecurity. We, as a nation, are long overdue for a comprehensive national response including law and policy to address critical regulatory deficits. This article considers possible explanations as to why food security as a fundamental responsibility of the State has been neglected in Australia and argues for a consistent regulatory response at all tiers of government and between government departments, informed by a national policy.
Australia is a wealthy country, and a net exporter of food. We produce more food than we consume – sufficient to feed our own population, and to also export enough to feed roughly an extra 60 million people. 1 Statistics such as these may have led our federal agriculture department to explain, in 2020, that ‘the COVID-19 pandemic has taken Australia and the world by surprise’ and ‘coming after severe drought conditions in eastern Australia, concerns have been raised about Australian food security’. 2 The department then offered reassurance that ‘these concerns are understandable, but misplaced. … Despite temporary shortages of some food items in supermarkets caused by an unexpected surge in demand, Australia does not have a food security problem’. 3
This pronouncement may have come as something of a surprise to Australia’s charitable food relief sector, which exists only to help Australians having problems with food security. The 2022 report by Australian food relief charity Foodbank, was blunt in its findings: In the past 12 months, over 2 million Australian households (21%) experienced severe food insecurity, which means they ran out of food because of financial limitations and at worst went entire days without eating.
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Food security worsened in 2023, with Foodbank’s 2023 report finding that 3.7 million Australian households (36 per cent) experienced moderate to severe food insecurity and 48 per cent of the general population now feels anxious or struggles to consistently access adequate food. 5
Food insecurity is primarily driven by financial circumstances, which means it hits hardest the most disadvantaged households. There are factors of intersecting vulnerability traditionally associated with the risk of food insecurity, such as low income, single parenthood, gender, race, age, geography and renting. Crisis events like the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and sharp increases in the cost of living, including grocery prices and mortgage interest rates, also push households with a less traditional risk profile into food insecurity. 6
The accepted international definition of food security is ‘a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’. 7 There is a fundamental conflict, then, between the position of the State – that we produce enough food in Australia to feed ourselves and about 60 million people overseas at the same time – and the reality, as reported by the charitable food relief sector, that the food Australia produces is not consistently available to all the people who live here. A significant proportion of Australians – about one-fifth of us – do not enjoy food security.
The same federal agriculture department report which claims ‘Australia does not have a food security problem’ also cites the official international definition of food security. 8 The report claims that, as we are a net exporter of agricultural products and also not as food insecure as other, less-wealthy countries, we do not have a problem with food security. This is internally contradictory logic – having enough of a resource to share around so that everyone has what they need is not at all the same as that resource being shared around and accessible for everyone. All Australian people do not, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life; quite a lot of Australians are not so fortunate. The pandemic and natural disasters, combined with cost-of-living pressures, have worsened that situation. The impact of climate change and the associated increased frequency of natural disasters and their greater severity will only serve to exacerbate food insecurity.
So how did we arrive at a situation where the position of the federal department in charge of food production is that there is no problem with food insecurity in Australia, even as a coordinated State law-and-policy response becomes increasingly urgent? Richards et al attribute political neglect and State inaction on food insecurity to the neoliberal ideology of the Australian State. 9 Certainly this serves as an umbrella explanation for State indifference to food security, including at the level of defining food insecurity and measuring its incidence and distribution. This article examines some of the enabling mechanics of that ideological indifference being expressed as a law and policy vacuum. The lack of an overarching national food security strategy means that individual government departments focus narrowly on their own sphere of responsibility. The recent House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture’s Inquiry into Food Security in Australia, for example, had terms of reference confined (unsurprisingly) to food security issues related to agricultural production (although climate change, at least, was included). 10 Social and environmental determinants of health, such as poverty, did not rate a mention. A further possible explanation as to why a federal department would state that there is no problem with food insecurity in Australia lies in nominal or token engagement with the accepted international definition of food security, as demonstrated by the federal agriculture department citing, but not meaningfully engaging with, that definition. More disturbingly, a part of the reason for State indifference lies in the way Australia formally measures (or, more accurately, does not measure) the prevalence and severity of food insecurity.
(Not) measuring food insecurity in Australia
Australia does not gather regular or reliable official data on the extent of food insecurity at a national level. 11 This may help explain the State position that ‘Australia does not have a food security problem’.
Food insecurity estimates from official Australian sources – albeit outdated and unreliable – have put the national prevalence figure at 4 per cent, following the Australian Health Survey of 2011–12 conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 12 The 2014–15 survey did not assess food security. 13 The single-item measure of food security used in the Australian Health Survey is likely to underestimate the prevalence of food insecurity ‘by at least 5%’ 14 in comparison with surveys which use the better testing instrument, the HFSSM (Household Food Security Survey Module), an 18-item survey instrument from the US Department of Agriculture that offers a more fine-grained measurement of severity indicators. 15 There are also validated 6-item and 10-item US survey tools. 16 However, the 18-item HFSSM tool is preferable as it betters captures data on the prevalence of food insecurity in households with children. 17 None of the validated survey tools have been used by official Australian government surveys, so there is no reliable official data on national prevalence of food insecurity.
Foodbank’s yearly report, from 2021 onwards, used the more sophisticated and reliable 18-item questionnaire HFSSM methodology to measure food insecurity. 18 Foodbank’s 2022 report, using that better measuring tool, overall showed that food insecurity (including reliance on food relief charities) has worsened in correlation with the COVID-19 pandemic, with 21 per cent of Australian households experiencing severe food insecurity and 32 per cent of households with children experiencing severe food insecurity in the previous 12 months (mid-2021 to mid-2022). 19 While Foodbank’s data uses the 18-item methodology, the data does have inherent limitations as a function of sample size and sampling procedures. That the task of attempting a survey using a rigorous measuring tool falls to a non-profit organisation with limited resources reflects a longstanding pattern of the State defaulting its responsibilities in relation to population food security to the charity sector. 20
In summary, then, Australia needs to measure food security/food insecurity more regularly, using the most reliable and valid measuring tools. This is essential as the basis for an informed, effective and equitable regulatory response to the population health risk of food insecurity – good law and policy require good data. A population health intervention into food security-related risks cannot be targeted at the most at-risk population groups, if it is unclear who those groups are, where they live, or the extent of their food insecurity.
As a relatively wealthy country, Australia’s food insecurity problem is not as extensive as that of less wealthy countries. That status potentially contributes to poor national research data collection practices and infrequent measurement of food insecurity in, for instance, the Australian Health Survey. According to the respected Global Food Security Index, which measures relative national food security across 113 countries, Australia is 22nd in the world. 21 We are ranked first in the world for affordability of food; 13th for quality and safety; 33rd for sustainability and adaptation; however, we are 48th for availability. 22 That last figure illustrates that while Australia produces enough food to hypothetically feed our population more than three times over, this does not translate to all Australians finding that food is consistently available to them.
Interestingly, although Australia is generally doing better than the majority of other nations across most indicators, we are notably underperforming in ‘food security and access policy commitments’ with a score of 0 compared with a global average of all countries at 47.1 per cent. 23 That is based on whether Australia has a national food security strategy (we do not), and whether our government ‘is responsible and can be held accountable for food security’. 24 Australia is lagging badly on both indicators of national food security. Other areas of relative underperformance are ‘volatility of agricultural production’; the health of ‘oceans, rivers and lakes’; and the health of land, and ‘land degradation’. 25 These are areas of concern, considering the future impacts of climate change on food security. 26 Thinking about the potential impacts of climate change as an emerging threat for Australian food security points to a critical question for a national legislative food security agenda: what sort of risks have to be regulated?
Chronic and crisis food insecurity, and the emerging ‘chronic crisis’ of climate change
Food insecurity in Australia is a multi-faceted problem, with distinct but overlapping forms: encompassing chronic food insecurity, crisis food insecurity, and arguably an emerging third challenge, the ‘chronic crisis’ of increasingly frequent and severe climate-change related shocks to the food system. Chronic underlying food insecurity is experienced by vulnerable population groups; crisis food insecurity results from short-term shocks to the food supply system, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, bushfires and floods. These manifestations of food insecurity are overlapping in that the people suffering long-term chronic food insecurity are even more vulnerable to crisis disruptions in food supply than the general population; their already precarious food situation is exacerbated by food system shocks. 27
At the international level, the Food and Agriculture Organization and other international food and development organisations point to the crisis or transitory form of food insecurity as an additional threat to the food security of already vulnerable populations, arising from shocks such as conflict and civil unrest, climate extremes, pandemics, and economic slowdowns and downturns. 28
The phenomenon of crisis food insecurity, and its intersection with underlying chronic food insecurity in vulnerable population groups, is evident in the food insecurity landscape in Australia following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 29 The pandemic demonstrated that the State regulatory response to both chronic and crisis food security challenges in Australia is inadequate and full of gaps. From worsening food insecurity among vulnerable groups, to the major supermarkets being left to self-regulate panic buying in the face of State inaction, and to supply chain and distribution disruptions caused by staff shortages and compounded by concurrent natural disasters, the pandemic has shown the urgent need in Australia for governments at all levels to take food security seriously and to formulate regulatory responses. The weaknesses in the food system, including regulatory deficits, were already there; the pandemic brought them to broader public attention and awareness.
The regulatory response to the risks of food insecurity in Australia therefore needs to encompass chronic and crisis forms of food insecurity, as well as the ‘chronic crisis’ of climate change causing more frequent and severe food system shocks. Food security is a complex regulatory challenge – it is a social, economic, and environmental problem with local, national and global scale. A comprehensive regulatory response has to cut across a diverse range of governmental portfolios, and therefore law and policy instruments. Food security has resonance across several areas of law and policy, for example as a national security issue 30 an environmental protection issue, 31 and a public health issue. 32 Regulating multiple forms of food insecurity, across multiple governmental departments and areas of responsibility, and between multiple levels of government requires an overarching national strategy, starting with agreement on terminology.
A shared understanding of terminology needed across all levels of Australian government
The widely accepted international definitions of both food security and food insecurity should inform Australia’s regulatory response at all levels of government. A comprehensive regulatory response, especially in a federal system with three tiers of government and multiple government departments within each tier, requires shared understanding and consistent usage of terminology and definitions. The federal agriculture department’s misconstrual of what ‘food security’ means illustrates why this is a critically important first step in evaluating the adequacy of the regulatory response. The department defined ‘food security’ as Australia producing enough food to hypothetically feed the entire population several times over, concluding that Australia therefore does not have a problem with food security. This negates the need for State intervention. If, however, ‘food security’ is defined as all Australians consistently having enough quantity and quality of food, at all times, a different conclusion is reached as to the urgency of State regulatory intervention into the associated population health risks. Consistent use of definitions and terminology matters, both in the formation and evaluation of law and policy.
Once all levels of government have agreed upon the definition of food security – and committed to measuring it properly – a coordinated local, state/territory and federal regulatory response will be required which prioritises equitable outcomes for the population groups most vulnerable to food insecurity.
A fair and equitable national food security strategy
Population groups at higher risk of food insecurity than the general Australian population include children, youth, older people, single parents, people receiving welfare/government assistance, socioeconomically disadvantaged people, mentally impaired people, people in remote areas, Indigenous people, homeless people, disabled people, and asylum seekers and migrants. Poverty is the most significant standalone risk factor, however the intersectional nature of the food security problem for people with coinciding risk factors is clear. The gaping holes in the State safety net for chronic food insecurity are currently being patched by the efforts of charities and non-government organisations. The high and increasing demand for food relief from this sector demonstrates the imperative for the State to rectify its response.
The scope of what would be captured within a comprehensive national law and policy response to the risk of chronic food insecurity illustrates the urgent need for an overarching national food security strategy. At the federal level alone, this would include identifying and remedying gaps and deficits across: • the current lack of a national food security strategy
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• interventions in the agricultural sector including the National Food Plan
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and National Food Waste Strategy
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• the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ),
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and Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code • the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and relevant legislation • federal subsidies and incentive schemes • federal community development and grant schemes • remote and outback store funding schemes • federal welfare (social security) law.
A national food security strategy also has to ensure consistency and coverage of risks by regulatory interventions for chronic food security in each of the jurisdictions of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory (for example, responsibility for land use planning, and for health, both lie with the states and territories under Australia’s federal constitutional arrangements). A comprehensive and coordinated national food security strategy also needs to cover the role of local government level regulation in the food security law and policy landscape. 37 Finally, while Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) contains the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, the ICESCR ‘has not been incorporated into Australian domestic law and is not justiciable’. 38 Without enactment of human rights obligations into domestic legislation ‘there is no legal recourse in Australia for alleging a violation of the right to food’. 39 Enacting a right to food into federal legislation should form part of the necessary federal law reforms and shape a national food security strategy.
A comprehensive national food security strategy also has to anticipate food system shocks
In addition to the chronic underlying form of food insecurity, a national food security strategy also needs to pre-empt the risks of population food insecurity in relation to crisis or transitory food system shocks. Such shocks include natural disasters, such as bushfires, floods, cyclones and pest plagues. A fully rounded strategy also needs to encompass food system shocks caused by outbreaks of infectious disease, and shocks caused by international conflict such as the Russia/Ukraine war. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a crisis in the Australian food system causing supply chain and workforce disruption, product shortages and panic buying as well as exacerbating existing food insecurity in vulnerable populations.
A comprehensive law and policy response should be informed by reliable data on the current levels of risk and past occurrences of natural disasters causing food system shocks. Challenges for regulation include anticipating how fuel and transport networks across Australia are vulnerable to food system shocks, and how this vulnerability is compounded by the ‘just in time’ food manufacturing and delivery mode prevalent across Australia’s food system. These vulnerabilities require stronger proactive food system risk regulation – a deficit clearly exposed by recent food system shocks including the pandemic, the 2019–20 summer bushfire season and 2022 flood season.
Regulatory aspects of Australia’s resilience to food system shocks created by international conflicts include the links between fuel prices, fertiliser prices, and food security; and the vulnerability created by geographically concentrated production of key food commodities such as wheat. 40
At present only limited law and policy responses to crisis-related food security risks are in place. The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements Report of 2020, 41 for example, pointed out that the federal government can and should play a greater role in natural disaster response and management including in relation to providing food to emergency responders and communities, and in restoration of disrupted food supply chains. 42 In relation to food security disruptions caused by the economic impact of the pandemic, the Coronavirus Supplement payment to welfare recipients from the federal government during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic provided some regulatory response, however those payments ended in March 2021. 43 Possible risks to food security caused by disruptions to critical infrastructure, which include food and grocery assets, are regulated by the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cth) and the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Strategy, 44 however the scope of that legislation is a narrow national security focus. We also have some regulatory protections against agricultural pests and disease outbreaks in the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth) and related legislation.
There are, however, glaring regulatory vacuums in the State response to the risks of crisis food insecurity. ‘Panic buying’ during both the 2019–20 bushfire season and the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the extent to which the State failed to meet its obligations to ensure population food security. Regulation was defaulted to the private sector of individual food retail outlets and supermarket chains, requiring the market to self-regulate the risks to consumers. 45 Further instances of the State’s failure to formulate law and policy to anticipate crisis threats to food security include the pandemic interruptions to supply chains caused by workforce shortages across the food system, including the agricultural, manufacturing, transport and retail sectors. There are evident challenges for legislatures in anticipating the differential effect that crisis shocks to the food system have on the most vulnerable communities and population segments. For example, food price spikes and supply chain disruptions in remote and Indigenous communities during the pandemic exacerbated existing affordability and accessibility problems for vulnerable communities. 46
State inaction or future-proofing the food system? Climate change and ‘chronic crisis’
The emerging ‘chronic crisis’ of food system shocks in Australia and the resilience of the food system to the risks of climate change urgently call for a regulatory response. A national food security strategy should be predicated on assessing the preparedness of Australia’s regulatory framework for the emerging threats to national (and indeed global) food security posed by climate change. Intermittent shocks to the food system will, as a result of climate change, become more frequent and severe. The evidence points to this being a permanent change to the way human societies ensure a steady and reliable food supply to the population. Previously isolated extreme weather events will become more regular and more extreme.
This new challenge to Australia’s food security is an emerging ‘chronic crisis’ or a ‘permanent state of emergency’ – a departure from the historical context in which the Australian food system has operated and been regulated. The regulatory response will have to anticipate and mitigate this new reality if the risks to population food security are to be managed. A diverse range of emerging regulatory challenges related to food security and climate change, and across multiple portfolios and layers of government, include: climate change challenges for Australian food producers; climate change adaptation and mitigation; food production and competition from emerging industries; health risks from the changing climate; the impact of climate change on Australian agriculture; the financial cost of disaster/risk management and insurance; building disaster resilience; climate change risk mitigation strategy; biodiversity loss and resource management; agricultural inefficiency and phosphate dependency; and regenerative agriculture. Two related issues pose risks of food system shocks and lessen system resilience – increasing market concentration in Australian food supply chains, and fossil fuel dependency in the food system, including agricultural production and transport.
A legitimate and equitable national food strategy will need to factor in the differential impacts of climate change on the food system for more vulnerable populations. ‘Good law’ in this situation, must fairly distribute the benefits and burdens of regulatory interventions, and incorporate the nuances of social and environmental determinants of food insecurity.
Law and policy coverage of Australia’s food security: complex, enormous, urgent and overdue
The majority of Australians enjoy food security and, as a nation, we are relatively privileged in food security by comparison with the rest of the world. This does not, of course, abate the need to address the chronic underlying food insecurity affecting a significant proportion of the population, nor the need for effective regulatory and policy mechanisms to respond to emerging crisis situations of food insecurity. We cannot conflate ‘most people in Australia’ with ‘all people in Australia’. We also cannot ignore the ‘at all times’ component of food security, which comes to the fore in situations of crisis where formerly food-secure households become food insecure, and already vulnerable households are even worse off.
Fundamental responsibility rests with the State to ensure population food security – that all Australian people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The three layers of government in Australia’s federal democratic system each have a role in regulating the food system to guard against the risk of food insecurity. The current law and policy response to the challenge of Australian food security is fragmented and patchy. We lack a national food security strategy, a critical deficit in such a complex regulatory environment. Any such strategy, and ensuing law and policy response, has to be informed by agreed international definitions and terminology, as well as validly measured and up-to-date population data about the incidence and distribution of national food insecurity.
Australia needs a comprehensive and coordinated regulatory response across jurisdictions which targets both chronic and crisis food insecurity and strengthens the resilience of Australia’s food system to future shocks. There is an urgent need for government at all levels to take food security seriously and to formulate a comprehensive, effective and equitable series of law and policy reforms.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
