Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
9
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE RESILIENCE OF
COMMODITY FOOD PRODUCTION IN
AUSTRALIA
Geoffrey Lawrence, Carol Richards, Ian Gray and Naomi Hansar
Introduction
The current view of Australian state and national governments about the effects of cli-
mate hange on agriculture is that farmers - through the adoption of mitigation and
adaptation strategies - will remain resilient, and agricultural production will contin-
ue to expand. The assumption is that neoliberalism will provide the best 'free market'
options for climate hange mitigation and adaptation in farming. In contrast, we ar-
gue that neoliberalism will increase the move towards productivist ('high-teh') agri-
culture - the very system that has caused major environmental damage to the Aus-
tralian continent. High-teh farming is highly dependent upon access to water and
fossil fuels, both of whih would appear to be the main limits to production in future
decades. Productivist agriculture is a system highly reliant upon fertilizers and fuels
that are derived from the petrohemical industry, and are currently increasing in cost
as the price of oil increases.
After examining the structure of food production in neoliberalist Australian agri-
culture, this hapter outlines the climate hange hallenges faced by Australian pro-
ducers. It investigates the most likely climate hange scenario facing farmers in the
Murray-Darling Basin (Australia's 'food bowl') and finishes by outlining the adapta-
tion options for farmers under the current neoliberal governance regime. It concludes
by aknowledging that, while productivism has been a key to securing Australia's do-
mestic food supply and export-oriented food production in the past, it is now a barrier
to more enlightened, environmentally sustainable approahes to food production for
the future.
