Recently, when the issue of how much water the Murray-Darling system needs (and how much less will be available for irrigation) was the hot topic, Australians were also hearing a claim that the country had already become a “net importer”of food.
I heard it on a right wing radio show (Michael Smith on 4BC in Brisbane, who, as with all right wing radio jokes jocks also swallows any climate science skeptic argument without a second thought.)
I immediately thought that this claim could not be right. And I was correct.
This is all nonsense. Australia? A net importer of food? Yeah, sure. If you fell for it, your bulldust detector has seriously failed you in the media space.
He then explains how this silly claim came to be calculated. The true situation is as follows:
According to figures compiled by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in calendar 2009 we had total food exports of $25.4 billion and imports of $11 billion, leaving us with a surplus of $14.4 billion. Even if we ignore unprocessed and look only at processed food, we still had a trade surplus of $5.8 billion.
Why did it take so long for the media to note this correction?
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