As Australians pour more and more money into real estate and travel pursuits, farm sector leader, Emma Germano, says consumer expectations for farmers and processors to deliver cheaper food are out of kilter with reality.
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Cheap food had become a benchmark for community expectations, especially in the midst of a much-politicised cost of living "crisis".
Yet Australians were actually so well fed they were losing perspective on what was really involved in food production, including the current cost strains and land use conflicts weighing on farmers.
Ms Germano said while households were freely spending up on hospitality and tourism and supporting a generally bullish real estate market, food supply chains were under continual pressure to cut prices, even as farmers were repeatedly slugged with more expensive energy, machinery, fertiliser and labour costs.
Equally insidious were requirements to spend more time and money managing increasingly complex farm labour, business compliance and production expectations, including the corporate world's surging enthusiasm for ESG credentials.
Renewable energy project expectations, poor transport infrastructure and tougher water use regulations were further complicating and undermining farming's cost effective production capacity.
"It's not just the big things that hurt - I think it's an attitude problem (in the community) we have about caring that we do primary production in this country," the Victorian Farmers Federation president said.
"If you want cheap food, maybe the answer is to just buy it from South America and Asia. Problem fixed.
"In some people's minds that is the answer.
"I agree consumers should be able to afford to buy groceries, but just saying the end goal should be to have cheap food really bothers me."
We need to have the right attitude about farming in Australia and valuing all the things that come with our food and fibre security
- Emma Germano, Victorian Farmers Federation
The Gippsland lamb, beef and vegetable producer felt food had become so plentiful in Australia in the past 70 years consumers were losing perspective, which was especially alarming given the unstable geo-political climate in nearby regions.
"We need to have the right attitude about farming in Australia and valuing all the things that come with our food and fibre security, including quality, food safety and reliability," Ms Germano said.
Australia was also undervaluing food processing done here, despite government hype about wanting to promote onshore manufacturing.
"Agriculture is actually the true manufacturing industry we have here right now," she told the Farm Writers Association of NSW's June forum on supermarket competition, pricing and supply chain issues.
"As a society we need to have a conversation about what we expect, and what we deserve - and how wealthy we really are as individuals.
"We expect supermarkets to give us the convenience of being able to buy all the fresh or imported food, and nappies, we want, at all hours of the day or night.
"But there's a cold hard reality that food is expensive - it costs money to grow, it needs fertiliser imported from overseas."
The corporate world's expectations could be more realistic, too.
If supermarkets, banks and other corporates were so focused on setting ESG (environmental, social and governance) goals for the farm supply chain - including natural capital, biodiversity, lower emissions and endangered wildlife populations on farms - they could set themselves higher targets to support domestic food production and processing.
Supermarket ESGs should include more emphasis on domestically sourced products in their frozen food cabinets, canned food shelves and cooking ingredients aisles - items which were frequently sourced overseas.
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
