Food that alienates

The sale of Cubbie Station should provoke more than a raised eyebrow. For China – that nation of eminent practical bent – the question of food security is central. In a climate-challenged world, its food production is put at risk. Elsewhere, corn crops fail in the United States, droughts, fires, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis become more frequent. ‘Green revolutions’, once held as panaceas, are of limited reach. Consider Australia and each of its towns and cities. Our nation has become steadily sundered from the reality of food-growing. Once – of necessity – every community, large or small, was practically self sufficient. It had to be so. Roads were poor, fuel expensive, transport options limited and container ships were of the future. This began to change post Second World War and the rapidity of change has been astonishing.