Grow your own vegetables
Not long ago we finished building our second veggie box. Like its companion, it stands nearly waist high, is three metres long and a metre wide. We filled the lower half with some excess soil, then filled it to the top with good compost that had come from our recycling bin, then a layer of cow manure and finally mulch. Both have good drainage and plenty of sunlight.
Why two such large boxes made of solid rot-proof timber? Because some day my wife and I are going to be glad we can garden the veggies without stooping and bending. The boxes will last longer than we will and in the meanwhile, the weeding, planting and harvesting is done at a convenient level.
Why veggies? Because all fresh food is becoming more scarce and prices are about to skyrocket. In our veggie boxes, after the recent rains, the rows of carrots are up, as are the green peas and beans, the potatoes and silver beet, spinach and herbs, lettuce and bok choy, the capsicum, all of the cabbage and cauliflower, the herbs, spring onions and so on. We will have months of food here at very little cost, and the advantage of all of them being really fresh and tasty. Every night, while preparing the evening meal, my wife just harvests what we need for that evening.
Why a coming global food crisis? We all know that oil price increases have resulted in escalating petrol prices at the pumps. Well, the same thing is happening with vegetables and fruit. All wheat, corn and rice prices have more than doubled in the past two years. These food-price increases combined with soaring energy costs have already stopped economic growth in many parts of the world.
Why are our supermarkets continually raising prices, and why are some countries running out of food? There are four interacting reasons: The first is the low productivity of farmers in the poorest countries, caused by their inability to pay for seeds, fertilizers and irrigation.
The second is the recent policy in the U.S., U.K., and Europe of subsidizing the diversion of food crops to produce biofuels like corn-based ethanol. The rapidly rising cost of petrol and the subsequent public outcry, has led these Western countries to develop alternative bio-fuels. Huge acreages were suddenly sown with corn, canola and grains, not for food but for processing as ethanol for motor vehicles. This has forced the sudden rise in the prices for all grains and corn making them beyond the reach of poor countries for their populations. Furthermore, what they can grow is now wanted for making fuel for Western cars rather than for food for the local population.
The third is climate change. Every continent has been experiencing drought. England, Europe, USA, Africa, the Middle East, China, and Australia, farmers have not been able to plant and harvest crops. In Australia, little of the millions of tonnes of rice exported overseas every year has been harvested this year.
The fourth trend has been the rapid rise of income support among ordinary people in India and China, which means that hundreds of millions of people in India and China want a variety of food for eating for the first time in history. Their competition in purchasing fruit and vegetables, have put our prices up.
Australia is now exporting hundreds of millions of dollars each year of fresh carrots, asparagus, onions, cauliflower and potatoes, predominantly exported to Japan, Malaysia and UAE. Fresh fruit lines mainly include oranges, grapes and apples are exported to the USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia. Australia has become a niche, high quality exporter of fruit and vegetables with the supply advantages in the world market due to its ability to supply in the counter seasons to the northern hemisphere.
Vegetable farmers and fruit growers are efficient producers but competition with export markets simply means higher prices in local supermarkets. You had better start growing your own. What can be done. At a global level rich countries must provide a fund to help poor countries with buying fertilizer and high yield seeds. Western countries should stop converting crops into fuel. USA is subsidizing the conversion of food into biofuels at a rate of 51¢ per gallon of ethanol to divert corn from the food and feed-grain supply.
Ethanol is great when made from sugar cane waste, but not when it uses food like corn. The Australian Government subsidises NSW farmers $230 million per year to subsidise the NSW E10 fuel. Yet Brazilian ethanol can be landed Australian port for 50 cents a litre. This ethanol is made from sugar waste. At this price our domestic grain ethanol producers will need protection to be economic for many years to come. A national E10 subsidy will cost us $690 million per year. One of my weekly readers Geoff Ward, writes: “If this grain ethanol industry is expanded I think it will be throwing good money away for years to come.”
Third, we urgently need to weatherproof the world’s crops as soon as possible. For a poor farmer, sometimes something as simple as a farm pond—which collects rainwater to be used for emergency irrigation in a dry spell—can make the difference between a bountiful crop and a famine. The world has already committed to establishing a Climate Adaptation Fund to help poor regions climate-proof vital economic activities such as food production and health care but has not yet acted upon the promise. Of course, we need every program to help water support our own farmers and food producers. They are among the world’s most efficient growers but they must have water.
In the meanwhile, grow your own veggies. You will save twice, once on harvesting your own fresh vegetables and second, on not driving with expensive petrol to the supermarket. What packaged and tinned food you do need, can be bought just once a fortnight. If you have the room, grow your veggies in boxes, even polystyrene fruiters boxes will do, and save while you enjoy totally fresh.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.
