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A secure food supply is the most fundamental requirement of all living organisms, including humans. In those countries with well-fed citizens, that food supply has increasingly been taken for granted. A symptom of the complacency of today's society is the discarding of long-held expertise and knowledge from institutions. These cost-cutting exercises demonstrate insufficient understanding of the value of hard-won accumulated knowledge about food production. The current emphasis on short-term, competitive funding of research in many organisations concerned with both managed and natural ecosystems is contributing to the problem. Also, across the globe, the increasing dominance of urban political influence - remote from the farming landscape - unwittingly contributes to land degradation. The credibility of science is today being questioned; the agricultural sciences need to respond by protecting the hard-won knowledge entrusted to this generation and pass it on in better shape to future generations. Farmers too need to play a leading role in the evolution of trustworthy food production systems which allow sufficient rewards to them for sustaining the natural resources on which we all depend. In Australia, the greater social disadvantage found in rural regions compared to cities means that it is increasingly difficult to sustain farming families and the infrastructure needed to support them. We must move beyond today's focus on the short-term, towards knowledge systems better suited to inter-generational timeframes. |
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