Australia faces famine, expert warns

A food production expert says Australia may face a massive famine if governments fail to address an impending global food shortage.

A conference of food productivity experts in Sydney this week heard the greatest threat to the world is not climate change, but food production on land and in the water.

Science communicator Julian Cribb, an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney, made a keynote address at the seminar saying there is expected to be about 9.2 billion people in the world in 2050, barring wars or major accidents.

…Treasury head Ken Henry this week said that Australia’s population growth is the biggest challenge to Commonwealth and state governments since Federation.

Professor Cribb agrees it will cause problems, and says governments must not forget future famine goes hand in hand with population growth.

“They have grossly underestimated the potential for population growth in Australia,” he said.

“If you get a major collapse in food supply in an area like the north China plains or the Indo-Gangetic plains, there will be hundreds of millions of refugees cut lose so we could easily see 20 or 30 million refugees arrive in Australia over a couple of years.

“That’s going to completely alter any plans we might have for a managed population growth.

“This is quite a dangerous situation. We may be OK for food, but if others are not, we will cop the backwash.”

ABC