Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I want the sepo's on my side if/when the sh!t hits the fan!... let them develop all the bases they want in the NT and Kimberley I say!

Do you think if the Chinese owned large agricultural and resource interests in Australia and we allowed them to develop a military prescence here to protect their assets... that they then wouldn't use that foot-in-the-door and their military weight to simply take what they wanted when the time comes?

According to 2007 CIA World Fact Book, when oil consumption is broken down per capita, the U.S. Department of Defense ranks fourth in the world (behind three actual nations, that is.

Why you would need guns and God at the same time I have never really understood?

Do you think if the Chinese owned large agricultural and resource interests in Australia and we allowed them to develop a military prescence here to protect their assets... that they then wouldn't use that foot-in-the-door and their military weight to simply take what they wanted when the time comes?

Yep.. we are a "food exporter".... but we are actually a net "food importer"... and have been for about 5 years...

We can't even guarantee our own food security.... with ownership of current resources....

:

2. Food security: Australia‟s agricultural production, prior to recent droughts, has been estimated to provide sufficient food for up to 100 million people. Currently, food exports contribute significantly to our national earnings, and to the food security of other countries 5. At our current growth rate, and assuming this production level is maintained, we would exceed our food production capacity in the last quarter of this century. However, with the risk of crop failures increasing due to climate change, much of our current grain land will become unprofitable to plant. Irrigated production is already declining rapidly, with reduced river flows and increasing competition between agricultural and urban water needs6. Australia is at risk of becoming a net food importer by the middle of this century, while it is likely that most food-exporting countries will also reduce or eliminate their exports, particularly of staple foods. No foreseeable agricultural advances will change this outcome. Such a vulnerable position should not be wilfully pursued through policies of deliberate population growth.


3 International studies reviewed in O‟Brien-Pallas, L., Griffin, P., Shamian, J., Buchan, J., Duffield, C., Hughes, F., Spence Laschinger, H.K., North, N. and Stone, P.W. 2006, The Impact of Nurse Turnover on Patient, Nurse, and System Outcomes: A Pilot Study and Focus for a Multicenter International Study. POLICY POLIT NURS PRACT 2006; 7; 169
4 If average infrastructure lifespan is 50 years, a 2% annual replacement rate is implied. A 2% annual population growth rate would double this requirement for infrastructure creation. Australia‟s current growth rate is 1.9% p.a.
5 Bureau of Rural Sciences 2008. Australia‟s agricultural industries at a glance 2008. http://affashop.gov.au/product.asp?prodid=13943
6 The above reference documents steadily declining water usage by agriculture, and agriculture‟s declining proportion of total water usage.

The question is:

AUSTRALIA'S capacity to feed itself is under threat

What this is saying is Australia may no longer be capable of producing
enough food to feed its population.

So how would you work this out?

1/ How much food does Australia produce?

2/ How many people are in Australia

3/ divide 2 into 1 and see how many calories Australia produces per person

So Australian beef cattle farmers produce 2.1 million tonnes of beef and veal each year.

ABARES, Australian Commodity Statistics, 2011

Assuming 25 million people in Aust (it's actually 22,861,586) but it's easier to divide by 25.

So this equates to 84kg/person/year or 230g/person/day or 484 calories/person/day

For caloric calculation consistency I only used this site:
http://caloriecount.about.com/calori...derloin-i13257

So let's take this further

beef.......230g......484cal
pork.......41g.......121cal
poultry....93g.......195cal
wheat..2252g......5549cal
barley.....651g...... 2326cal
lupin.......145g......168cal
oats.......164g......116cal
apples....28.4g.....15cal
pear.......14g........8cal
rice.........131g.....170cal
grapes....140g......95cal

So far I'm upto 9247 calories/person/day.

How many calories does the average adult require per day JUST 2000 calories.

So we are already upto 5X the amount of calories required per person per day

So theoretically with just 11 food groups we can feed 125 Million people

I have not included any vegetables
many fruits such as oranges,peaches,apricots and so on
milk and associated products as cheese,yoghurt,butter or cream
Any fish at all
any eggs
Sugar (this amount of calories would have distorted any data)

"We can't even guarantee our own food security"