The example of Israel/Palestine
Tim Flannery, Doug Cocks and others make great play about the enormous difference in the agricultural potential between Australia and Europe, pointing to what they call ENSO or, in other words the variable Mediteranean nature of the climate, as an enormous obstacle to agriculture.
This comparison is a bit beside the point. Australia is obviously different agriculturally to northern Europe because of its Mediteranean climate. Therefore, it is useful to study and emulate the highest points of agricultural developments in similar Mediterranean environments.
As an example, the whole area of Israel/Palestine is about 20 per cent larger than the Sydney statistical district from Broken Bay to Loftus and out to Katoomba.
Sixty per cent of Israel/Palestine is desert, but it supports five million Jews and three million Arabs, with a Western diet, on a high calorific level, and in fact produces about a net 25 per cent agricultural surplus for export. While it is true that very special circumstances have applied there over the last 70 years, it is a fact that while developing agriculture to its maximum, the Israelis have substantially remediated the land from past environmental degradation resulting from more than 5000 years of relatively unplanned human activity.
The technical achievements of the Israel/Palestine agricultural set-up are of enormous practical importance in Australia, and include optimum use of water, very frugal and effective irrigation techniques, carefully designed arid agriculture, use of saline water in some circumstances, etc.
Looked at in the framework of the Israel/Palestine experience and comparing it, say, with the Sydney region, the argument over Australian carrying capacity falls more clearly into place. The intrinsic upper limits to Australian carrying capacity are still very far off.
The real task is to design optimum development, both to expand agriculture and to remediate the environment at the same time, and to do that you need more people and the creation of development credit at government level to overcome the artificial grip on credit of the global rentiers.
What the argument is about
It is worth noting at this point, even allowing for the aridity of the Australian continent, and taking into account the rainfall and the amount of well-watered land, that if Australia was to have a similar level of population development to the United States, the population would be 50 million.
Using a similar method of calculation, if we were to have a similar level of population to Europe, Australia could support 130 million people. Presently, we only use for agriculture about 11 per cent of the water that falls on Australia as rain.
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Nevertheless, political and social realities underline all arguments about population. No one like myself, who is in favour of increased population and the continuance of mass migration, is arguing for anything more than the average continuance of the basic 1.5-2 per cent annual net population increase that has been the norm over the past 200 years.
The argument is between the continuation of the normal highish migration of a relatively new country, or the adoption of net zero population growth, which is appropriate to overpopulated countries. As the above figures indicate, we are a considerable distance from any situation where a continuance of the substantial mass migration of the last 200 years could present any real threat to the interests of the Australian people.
The footprint of cities
Another argument of the anti-immigrationists is that because most migrants settle in cities, the footprint of cities is the problem.
There is a limited element of truth in this in Australian conditions. In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, due to the relatively unplanned nature of city growth, too much agricultural land has already been lost to urban development.
Even in these cities, however, this could be overcome for the future by a change to forward planning for city growth. For instance, further population expansion in Melbourne could be concentrated in the area out towards and past Tullamarine Airport (obviously away from the flight paths) where the land is of little agricultural potential.
In Sydney the logical places for further urban development are the sandstone plateaus north of Hornsby and south of Loftus which, in both instances, happen to be on major rail lines, rather than allowing further urban sprawl on usable agricultural land in the far western suburbs.
The Sydney region, Melbourne region and the Brisbane region could thus be developed into mixed urban and agricultural areas, like many similar areas in Europe and in Israel/Palestine. Australian society and the environment will degenerate rapidly, whether we have more population or we don’t, unless we make major and serious changes to our agricultural and urban practices.
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The real task is the adoption of appropriate technologies, including the highest level of modern agricultural practices in all fields.
For the past 20 or 30 years many thousands of urban Australians have been stirred by a strong desire to go back to rural life, evidenced by the popularity of magazines such as Earth Garden and Grass Roots and the many thousands of people who have settled in rural areas, either individually or as part of collective experiements.
Much of this phenomenon has been marked by enormous human enthusiasm, sometimes not enlightened by much careful scientific experiment and enquiry. Nevertheless, the existence of this deep urge provides a basis for possible future development in agriculture.
What is to prevent us using all the technical achievements of Israeli agricultural practice in Australia? Other potentially useful techniques are the well-tested, Australian-invented, P.A. Yeomans keyline water harvesting and irrigation system, permaculture techniques, and the cultivation of new varieties of food crops, for which the markets are now emerging.
The possibilities in these areas are very great, and maximum government research and development funds should be devoted to such projects. What is so irritating about the Flannery/Cocks/O’Connor view of agriculture is that it is almost totally static, and focussed on the past.
Unless we dramatically improve agricultural practices, the Australian environment will suffer, regardless of the population. With appropriate agricultural improvements, increased population will benefit the environment.
Youth unemployment is a chronic problem in all major Australian cities. Many young people, including many young unemployed, share the urge to get back to the land that is fairly widespread in the population. The federal government has exploited this, in a mildly cynical way, by forcing unemployed youth to engage in work-for-the-dole schemes, a lot of which involve rubbish collection and land care activities, which are often rather cosmetic in relation to the real problems and possibilities of agriculture.
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A much more useful kind of scheme would be for the government to sponsor the development of kibbutz-style farming experiments on usable agricultural land on the fringes of major cities, which are in fact locations quite close to big concentrations of youth unemployment.
Such experiments, if backed by government support and funding, could be combined with well-organised agricultural education for unemployed youth. Such activities would beat the hell out of some present cosmetic make-work schemes.
In the area of the new technologies that could contribute in agriculture, industry and other areas, to a more civilised energy-efficient Australia, once again an Earthscan Worldwatch book is of great assistance. This book is Factor 4 by Weizacker, Lovins and Lovins.
This book describes a fascinating variety of technologies that have been used successfully in different places, all of which could be adapted for Australian use. There is no lack of possible technologies to remediate both Australian agriculture, Australian industry and the Australian environment.
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