Our diverse soils and climate provide a wide variety of fresh food all year round. Historically we produce far more than we consume domestically. We sell around 65% of farm production overseas, making Australia a leading food-exporting nation.
The overwhelming majority of food sold in Australia is grown and supplied by Australian farmers. We are able to export more than half of our agricultural produce, while more than 90 per cent of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, milk and eggs sold in supermarkets are domestically produced.
Australia's 85,000 farms produce enough food to meet almost all the nation's needs, but the country's capacity to feed itself has a major limiting factor: Water.
Australia is one of the most food secure nations in the world, with access to a wide variety of healthy and nutritious foods. Australia is one of the most food secure countries in the world, for several reasons. Australia produces much more food than it consumes, exporting around 70% of agricultural production.
1. Chicken parmigiana. This classic Aussie chicken dish – with roots in Italian-American cooking – is a staple offering at many pub menus in the country. Whether you call it a parmi/parmy or a parma (but never a parmo), there's huge debate about where does the best parmigiana in Australia.
Here in Australia, however, McDonald's most prevalent nickname is “Macca's”.
The U.S. is the world's top food exporter thanks to high crop yields and extensive agricultural infrastructure.
New research by the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (FFW CRC) shows beef, bread, cheese, and salad are the most thrown out foods in Australian kitchens.
Water scarcity, heat stress and increased climatic variability in our most productive agricultural regions, such as the Murray Darling Basin, are key risks for our food security, economy, and dependent industries and communities.
Among the most self-sufficient countries, Argentina could feed itself with just 5.5% of its land. The US and Canada only need 12-13%, Sweden is also at 13%. Ireland is at 14.56%, Finland at 18%. Austria, Denmark, France, and Poland are in the 40 to 50% bracket.
Australia may not be directly able to feed Asia or the world. But our know-how in food production has the potential to contribute to the diets of hundreds of millions of people around the globe.
The US is self-sufficient in a large number of food types. The list includes eggs, dairy, chicken, pork, and even turkey meat.
Keeping them fed
Farmers need pasture to feed their cattle, meaning many have serious fertiliser bills. Australia imports a significant amount of fertiliser, so when China started holding back supplies for its domestic market during COVID-19, Australian farmers were left scrambling to get hold of it.
READ MORE. Factors such as the war in Ukraine, the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and rising production costs have all contributed to the increase in prices of grocery items. also said companies had been putting up prices more than they needed to.
Supply & Demand
It's the same for produce that is only available at certain times of the year – most fruit such as citrus, apples, cherries, grapes and berries are grown at specific times of year so there is an abundance of fruit available at its peak.
There are many reasons why we tend to waste so much perfectly good food. One of the most common reasons is that Australian households cook too much food and do not know how to use leftovers. We also throw food out by mistake before the use-by date, or forget about food in the fridge until they have expired.
The claim: The FoodWise campaign says Australians throw out $8 billion worth of edible food every year. The verdict: Based on the available research, the claim stacks up. But the $8 billion only relates to household food waste. The total value of food waste in Australia would far exceed this figure.
According to the nonprofit organization Feeding America, Americans waste more than $408 billion each year on food, with dairy products being the food item we toss out the most. The average American family of four throws out $1,600 a year in produce.
According to a study by CEO World Magazine, the United States and the United Kingdom are the most fast-food-obsessed countries in the world. France and Sweden ranked third and fourth spots, followed by Austria, Mexico, and South Korea.
US generated 91m tons of surplus food in 2021, representing 6% of all GHG emissions. Just 2% was donated. The United States generated 91 million tons of “surplus food” in 2021, representing 38% of the country's entire food supply, according to updated figures from food waste non-profit ReFED.
The traditional Australian breakfast is very similar, unsurprisingly, to a typical British or American breakfast, with a whole fry-up made up of smokey bacon, eggs in various ways, grilled mushrooms, and tomatoes, with the optional addition of hash browns, beans, pork or beef sausages.
The shoe known in Australia as a "thong" is one of the oldest styles of footwear in the world. Worn with small variations across Egypt, Rome, Greece, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Korea, Japan and some Latin American cultures, the shoe was designed to protect the sole while keeping the top of the foot cool.