Foodprint Melbourne: Building the Resilience of Melbourne’s Food System (Short)

Summary

In this lecture, Rachel Carey from the University of Melbourne discusses the vulnerabilities of Australia's food system, exposed by COVID-19 and the 2020 bushfires. Despite being a food exporter, Australia's food security is not as robust as perceived, with issues like labor shortages, food waste, and supply chain disruptions. Carey emphasizes the need for a resilient food system, advocating for diverse, local food supply chains, circular food economies, and sustainable production methods to ensure future food security.

Takeaways

• 🌏 Australia, despite its food production capacity, has experienced food security challenges during events like COVID-19 and the 2020 bushfires.
• 🛒 Images of empty supermarket shelves during these events highlighted the vulnerabilities in the food supply chain.
• 🌱 The country's narrative of food security masks underlying vulnerabilities in the food system.
• 🔄 The food system's resilience is about its ability to withstand shocks, adapt to changes, and transform for long-term resilience.
• 📊 The Foodprint Melbourne project reveals the impacts of COVID-19 and bushfires on the food system, including labor shortages and disruptions in food distribution.
• 🚚 The bushfires caused significant crop and livestock losses, affected crop yields due to smoke haze, and increased transport costs.
• 🏭 COVID-19 led to reduced capacities in food processing and manufacturing, and increased food loss and waste due to power outages.
• 🌾 There's a need to rebuild regional and local food supply chains to strengthen the resilience of Melbourne's food system.
• ♻️ Building circular food economies and promoting sustainable production systems can contribute to a more resilient food system.
• 🌐 A resilient food system should draw on diverse, sustainable farming approaches and not rely heavily on external inputs.
• 🏛️ Governments need to recognize access to appropriate food as a fundamental human right and ensure citizens can realize this right, even during shocks and stresses.

Q & A

What is Rachel Carey's role at the University of Melbourne?

Rachel Carey is a lecturer in Food Systems in the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

What misconception does Rachel Carey address about food security in Australia?

Rachel Carey addresses the misconception that Australia is always food secure, highlighting instances like the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 bushfires where this was not the case.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the food system according to the transcript?

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed stress on the food system in various ways, revealing vulnerabilities such as labor shortages, disruptions to food manufacturing and processing, and challenges in supermarket distribution.

What is the significance of the celery crop image mentioned in the transcript?

The image of the celery crop being dug back into the ground signifies the impact of labor shortages due to COVID-19, leading to food waste and highlighting the vulnerability of the food system.

What does Rachel Carey suggest is needed for a more nuanced conversation about the food system?

Rachel Carey suggests that a more nuanced conversation is needed about matching food supply with a healthy, sustainable diet that people might want to consume in the future.

What does resilience in the food system mean according to the transcript?

Resilience in the food system means the ability to withstand shocks and stresses, adapt to changing circumstances, and transform to build longer-term resilience to future shocks and stresses.

What is the Foodprint Melbourne project and how does it relate to the discussion on food system resilience?

The Foodprint Melbourne project is a research initiative led by Rachel Carey, which involves interviewing stakeholders about the impacts of COVID-19 and the 2020 bushfires on the food system, aiming to understand and improve its resilience.

How does urban development threaten food growing areas around Melbourne?

Urban development threatens food growing areas around Melbourne by encroaching on farmland due to the city's rapidly growing population, potentially reducing the area available for food production.

What are some of the key features of a resilient food system according to the transcript?

Key features of a resilient food system include diversity, adaptability, innovation, and strong networks and collaboration at all levels, which enable quick responses and adaptation during disasters.

What actions and policies are suggested to build the resilience of the food system for the long term?

Actions and policies suggested to build resilience include rebuilding regional and local food supply chains, protecting farmland and natural water resources, building circular food economies, promoting resilient and sustainable production systems, and addressing insecure employment and low wages in the food industry.

Why is it important to focus on local and regional food supply chains according to the transcript?

Focusing on local and regional food supply chains is important because it can provide economic benefits, support local farmers, and ensure a more diverse and resilient food system that is less reliant on longer global supply chains.

Outlines

00:00

🌏 Food Security Challenges in Australia

Rachel Carey, a lecturer in Food Systems at the University of Melbourne, discusses the misconception of Australia as a food-secure nation. Despite being a significant food exporter, recent events like COVID-19 and the 2020 bushfires have exposed vulnerabilities in the food system. Carey points out that while supermarket shelves are typically full, sudden consumer demand can lead to temporary shortages. She also highlights issues like the waste of crops due to labor shortages and the reliance on imported food during crises. The lecture emphasizes the need for a more nuanced conversation about food system resilience, considering both production capacity and the ability to meet a healthy, sustainable diet.

05:02

🌱 Building Resilient Food Systems for the Future

The second paragraph delves into the characteristics of a resilient food system, as identified by Carey's research. She suggests that a resilient system should be diverse, adaptive, and innovative, as demonstrated during the pandemic. The centralization of distribution and processing facilities poses risks, and the importance of trust-based networks for rapid response and adaptation is highlighted. Carey proposes 'no regrets' actions to strengthen the food system's resilience, such as rebuilding local food supply chains, protecting farmland and water resources, and promoting circular food economies. She also advocates for sustainable production systems that are less dependent on external inputs and better adapted to climate change. The need to address employment and working conditions in the food industry, as well as redesigning food relief systems, is emphasized to ensure access to a healthy and sustainable diet for all.

Keywords

💡Food security

Food security refers to the availability and access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for all people at all times. In the video, the speaker discusses how Australia is generally perceived as food secure, but recent crises like COVID-19 and bushfires have exposed vulnerabilities in the system, such as empty supermarket shelves and labor shortages impacting food production.

💡Resilience

Resilience, in the context of food systems, is the ability to withstand shocks and stresses, adapt to changing conditions, and transform to better cope with future challenges. The speaker emphasizes the importance of building a resilient food system in Melbourne, particularly in response to climate change, bushfires, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

💡Urban encroachment

Urban encroachment refers to the expansion of cities into surrounding rural or agricultural areas. The speaker mentions that Melbourne's rapidly growing population is putting pressure on food-growing areas, which are at risk of being converted into housing developments, threatening the city’s food supply.

💡Climate change

Climate change is described as a key factor contributing to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as bushfires, floods, and droughts. The speaker highlights how these events are affecting food production, causing crop and livestock losses, and disrupting food supply chains in Australia.

💡Food loss and waste

Food loss and waste refer to the reduction in the quantity or quality of food available for consumption. The speaker provides examples, such as a celery crop being wasted due to labor shortages and power outages causing food spoilage during bushfires, both of which highlight the fragility of the food system.

💡Local and regional food supply chains

Local and regional food supply chains involve sourcing food from nearby farms and producers rather than relying on national or global suppliers. The speaker argues that Melbourne has neglected these shorter supply chains, and rebuilding them would strengthen food resilience and support local farmers, ensuring a stable food supply.

💡Labour shortages

Labour shortages refer to the insufficient availability of workers to perform agricultural and food production tasks. In the video, the speaker mentions how labor shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic affected food harvesting and processing, causing disruptions in the food supply and contributing to food loss.

💡Circular food economy

A circular food economy focuses on reducing waste and reusing resources to create a more sustainable system. The speaker advocates for closing the loop by using city waste on local farms to boost food production and reduce reliance on external inputs, contributing to long-term food system resilience.

💡Food relief

Food relief involves efforts to provide food to people in times of need, especially during disasters or crises. The speaker discusses how COVID-19 exposed the weaknesses in Australia's food relief system, which struggled to address widespread food insecurity during the pandemic, particularly for vulnerable populations.

💡Sustainable farming

Sustainable farming refers to agricultural practices that minimize environmental impact, use natural resources efficiently, and adapt to climate change. The speaker emphasizes the need for diverse, resilient farming systems that reduce dependence on external inputs like synthetic fertilizers and fossil fuels, contributing to a more sustainable food future.

Highlights

Australia is often perceived as food secure, but recent events like COVID-19 and bushfires have exposed vulnerabilities in the food system.

Supermarket shelves were not always full during the pandemic, indicating supply chain challenges.

There were instances of crops being wasted due to labor shortages for harvesting.

International students faced food insecurity, queuing for assistance at Melbourne's Town Hall.

The narrative of Australia's food security masks underlying vulnerabilities in the food system.

If the population were to consume recommended amounts of vegetables, current production would be insufficient.

The need for a nuanced conversation about matching food supply with a healthy, sustainable diet.

Food system resilience involves withstanding shocks, adapting to changes, and building long-term resilience.

The Foodprint Melbourne project interviews stakeholders on the impacts of COVID-19 and bushfires on the food system.

Food growing areas near Melbourne are at risk due to urban development and a growing population.

Climate change leads to more frequent and severe extreme weather events affecting food production.

The food system has shown resilience during recent shocks, but vulnerabilities have been exposed.

Impacts of the 2020 bushfires included livestock and crop losses, and disruptions to food distribution.

COVID-19 has led to labor shortages, reduced capacity in food processing, and increased food waste.

The pandemic has highlighted the fragility of food relief systems in addressing widespread food insecurity.

The food system needs to be more resilient with diverse, adaptive, and innovative supply chains.

There's a need to rebuild regional and local food supply chains and protect farmland and water resources.

Promoting circular food economies and sustainable production systems can strengthen food system resilience.

It's crucial to source food from diverse types of sources, including local, national, and global suppliers.

Addressing insecure employment and poor working conditions in the food industry is key to building resilience.

Redesigning food relief systems to ensure all Victorians have access to a healthy and sustainable diet is urgent.

Governments must recognize access to appropriate food as a fundamental human right and ensure its realization.

COVID-19 presents a transformational moment for systemic change in the food system.

Protecting land and water resources on the fringe of Melbourne is essential for a resilient food system.

Locally produced food is a neglected but critical part of a more resilient food system.

Transcripts

Hello, I'm Rachel Carey. I'm a lecturer  in Food Systems in the Faculty of  

Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the  University of Melbourne. We tend to think of  

Melbourne, and Australia, as being places that  are food secure. So we often hear about how  

Australia produces enough food to feed around 60  million people, many more than we need to feed,  

and we often see that the supermarket shelves are  generally full of food all year round. But in the  

last year, during COVID-19 and during the 2020  bushfires, that hasn't always been the case, and  

sometimes we've seen images of empty supermarket  shelves when there was sudden consumer demand  

for food and it took supermarkets a while to catch  up with that demand; or images like this one,  

of a hundred and fifty thousand dollar celery  crop being dug back into the ground because  

of a shortage of seasonal workers to pick that  crop; or images like this one, of international  

students who are queueing outside the Town  Hall in Melbourne. COVID-19 has placed stress  

on the food system in many different ways and it's  revealed some of the cracks, some of the places  

that the food system is currently vulnerable.  It's certainly true that we produce a lot of food;  

we're a big food exporter. This narrative that we  have, about Australia being a food secure country,  

it masks some of those areas where the food  system is more vulnerable underneath. So,  

in fact, if people were to actually eat as many  vegetables as we recommended, we wouldn't have  

enough vegetables to meet those needs. I think  we need to have a more nuanced conversation  

about the food system and also about how it  is that we match up our food supply with the  

type of healthy, sustainable diet that we might  want people to be consuming in future as well.  

So, by resilience we mean, broadly, that the food  system is able to withstand shocks and stresses.  

It's also about the capacity of the food system  to adapt to the changing circumstances and to  

transform to build longer-term resilience to  future shocks and stresses. This talk draws  

on the findings of a research project that I  lead at the University of Melbourne called the  

Foodprint Melbourne project. And as part of this  research, what we've been doing is we've been  

interviewing stakeholders about how COVID-19 and  the 2020 bushfires have affected the food system.  

And this is the region that we've been looking  at: so it's an area around 100 kilometres  

outside of Melbourne's CBD. But food growing areas  in this region are at risk of urban development,  

of urban encroachment into farmland on Melbourne's  fringe as a result of Melbourne's rapidly growing  

population. Climate change is leading to more  frequent and more severe, extreme weather events,  

like bushfires, floods and droughts. Really,  our food system has coped relatively well during  

these recent shocks and stresses; for the most  part, most people have had access to enough good  

supplies of food. But the impacts of these shocks  highlight some of the places that the food system  

is vulnerable. Some of the cracks have appeared.  And these impacts include things like a decrease  

in the amount of some foods produced  due to crop losses and livestock losses,  

labour shortages that can affect some types of  foods being harvested, a reduction in capacity of  

some types of food manufacturing and processing,  and disruption to supermarket distribution centres  

and to food freight. So the major bushfire  event in early 2020 had impacts throughout  

the food system. And they include significant  livestock and crop losses, and also smoke haze  

affected the productivity and yield of some types  of crops. Road closures and major supply routes  

led to higher transport costs and forced freight  and trucks to find new routes. And many people in  

fire affected areas experienced difficulties  in accessing food, particularly vulnerable  

population groups, and there were widespread food  relief efforts in the aftermath. There was also  

increased food loss and waste due to power  outages. And more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic  

has had other impacts throughout the food system.  There are labour shortages on farms in Victoria;  

supermarket distribution centres, abattoirs and  some types of food processing and manufacturing  

have had their capacity reduced to around  60 to 70 percent. International and state  

border closures have also disrupted road and  air and sea freight. We also saw, of course,  

demand surges in supermarkets, and there's  also been an increase in food loss and waste  

on-farm. COVID-19 has really highlighted the  fragility of our existing systems of food  

relief for addressing widespread food insecurity  during events like COVID-19. I think there was  

beginning to be a shift, I think, that COVID-19,  for instance, has had an impact in terms of  

a higher level of awareness about the fact that  our systems of - our food supply systems are more  

vulnerable than we might first have thought.  For the first time some of us have seen empty  

supermarkets shelves or have, you know, been aware  that we're not always able to get the food that we  

want, when we want it. And I think that's been  a bit of a wake-up call. So it's really about,  

you know, looking to the future, thinking  about the stresses that we're likely to face,  

and saying "what can we do now, what actions  should we take now to ensure that we have a secure  

food supply for what is still a rapidly growing  city?" So what are these experiences of bushfires  

in COVID-19 telling us about the features of food  systems likely to be resilient into the future?  

There are limits to our ability now to plan for  all eventualities, and so it's important that we  

start to take actions that are going to build the  resilience of the food system no matter what type  

of shock or stress comes along next. So our  research suggests that a more resilient food  

system is likely to have a number of key features:  one is that the system is likely to be diverse.  

Resilient food supply chains are also adaptive  and they're innovative, and we saw this during  

COVID-19. The pandemic's also highlighted the risk  of centralised supermarket distribution centres  

and processing facilities. Our interviewees  have also emphasised how important networks and  

collaboration are at all levels to more resilient  food systems. Existing networks of stakeholders  

that are built on relationships of trust enable  quick responses and enable rapid adaptation when  

disasters happen. So what types of "no regrets"  actions and policies might we want to build the  

resilience of the food system for the longer term?  One is that we need to rebuild regional and local  

food supply chains. We're incredibly lucky in  Melbourne that we are situated within a highly  

productive food bowl. It's really important that  we now protect the farmland and the natural water  

resources that are on the city fringe as well.  Another opportunity to strengthen the resilience  

of Melbourne's food system is to build circular  food economies that close the loop and use natural  

resources efficiently by reusing city waste on  local farms. Another way is to promote resilient  

and sustainable production systems that don't  rely heavily on external inputs like synthetic  

fertilisers and fossil fuels, and that are  well adapted to the impacts of climate change.  

A resilient food system is likely to draw on many  diverse types of sustainable farming approaches,  

each adapted to different contexts so we're not  putting all our eggs in one basket and betting  

on just one type of sustainable farming approach  for the future. It's really important for a more  

resilient food system that we're able to source  food from different types of sources. Obviously,  

national food supplies are really important.  Global food suppliers are also important and  

in fact food prices would have risen much more  in Australia during the millennium drought than  

they did if we weren't importing food, so that's  a really important part of our food system. But I  

think that we relied on those longer food supply  chains quite heavily and we've neglected the  

importance of our short, local and regional food  supply chains. So it's really important now to  

start to fill that gap, to start to rebuild those  local regional food supply chains. And of course,  

there are multiple benefits that we can get from  that as well, including, of course, economic  

benefits and supporting local farmers. Another  opportunity to build resilience in the food system  

is to address insecure employment, low wages and  poor working conditions in the food industry. Most  

importantly, there's an urgent need to redesign  systems of food relief so that all Victorians have  

access at all times to a healthy, sustainable and  culturally appropriate diet. If we accept that one  

of the most basic goals of the food system should  be to ensure that everyone has access to enough  

healthy and sustainably produced food, then it's  fair to say the current food system is failing.  

An important part of resetting that system is for  governments at all levels to recognise access to  

appropriate food as a fundamental human right  and to examine their role in ensuring that all  

citizens are able to realise that right and also  to realise that right through shocks and stresses  

to the food system. And lastly, many interviewees  in our research highlighted that COVID-19 is a  

transformational moment with potential for deep  systemic change for our food system, as in many  

other areas of our lives, if we leverage the  opportunities. So how should we seize this moment  

to redesign our food system so that it's resilient  in the face of increasing shocks and stresses and  

so that it achieves its most basic and fundamental  purpose of ensuring that everybody, at all times,  

has access to enough healthy, culturally  appropriate and sustainably produced food?  

I think the one thing that we really like  people, everybody, to understand is just  

to recognise that we are living in a, perhaps,  a less certain environment than we have in the  

past and we - I think we all recognise that  we are - there are more shocks and stresses  

that are affecting many different aspects of our  lives, climate-related shocks are already here,  

you know, we're seeing them. And I think  some of the most important things that we  

really like to see is just that we ensure that  we protect the land, protect the water resources,  

on the fringe of Melbourne, ensure that we  are no longer moving into areas of highly  

productive soil to build housing estates. It  just doesn't make sense from a long-term point  

of view. Locally produced food is just one part  of a more resilient food system, but it is a part  

that we've neglected in the past. I think it makes  sense to focus a lot more on that in the future.