CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, has completed the first-ever national stocktake of our $800 billion food system, which feeds around 100 million people – including 27 million Australians – with food produced by 100,000 farmers.
Released today as part of the Food System Horizons initiative, the report urged a new approach to managing and reporting on our food system to make it more resilient to the challenges faced by farmers, to deliver healthy food for all, and to meet critical sustainability challenges.
The report also revealed the hidden costs of Australia’s food system could be as high as $274 billion – primarily environmental and health impacts – the highest hidden costs per capita in the world.
As the first national stocktake to deepen our understanding of Australia’s complex food system, the report highlights strengths and identifies practical strategies for improvement.
CSIRO Agriculture and Food Director Dr Michael Robertson said knowing and understanding the state of our food system through regular reporting is the critical first step in dealing with the complex challenges and opportunities facing Australia’s food system.
“Our food system is more than just producing and exporting commodities – it’s also about providing equitable access to safe, nutritious and healthy food, produced sustainably for all Australians,” Dr Robertson said.
“We have an intergenerational responsibility to pursue these goals vigorously," he said.
“This national stocktake provides an evidence base to guide our actions as social, cultural, environmental, and economic priorities shift.
“While Australia’s wider food system is an economic and production success, generating more than $800 billion annually and providing significant employment particularly in regional areas, the intersection of our food system with other critical goals calls for a more comprehensive way to evaluate its performance.”
Australia’s food system includes a range of factors from production to distribution and consumption of food and food ingredients, nutrition and health, alongside the natural and social systems that support it.
CSIRO Sustainability Research Director Larelle McMillan says food policy in Australia is currently fragmented across portfolios as diverse as agriculture, environment, industry, social services, health, transport and urban planning.
“We need to move from analysing specific parts of the food system, to establishing coordinated reporting for important food system attributes and interactions, thus enabling connected up action for a national food system that serves all,” Ms McMillan said.
The report identified three key steps to guide a systems-based approach for transformation:
- Recognising the food system as an integrated whole, moving beyond a fragmented, sector-based view
- Navigating responsibility across government, industry, and communities to ensure shared accountability for sustainability, nutrition, and equity goals
- Enabling interactions across disconnected parts of the system, from farming and nutrition to policy and innovation.
Ms McMillan said a reporting system would offer valuable insights into where the food system is falling short – for example, almost a third of Australian households experience moderate or severe food insecurity each year – and where it’s failing to meet the needs of all Australians.
“This can be used as a focal point to bring together a greater diversity of voice and vision to identify pathways to sustainable, healthy and affordable food for all Australians,” she said.
Towards a state of the food system report for Australia has been produced by the Food System Horizons initiative, a collaboration between CSIRO and The University of Queensland.
