Abundance of food is something we take for granted in Australia, however in other parts of the world this is not so. We had a glimpse of the panic of food shortages during Covid.

The weekly or monthly food shop is not unusual in country areas and shop keepers have a challenging task to keep the shelves balanced. During Covid mass busloads of city dwellers descended on the country supermarkets and emptied the shelves after their own were depleted by food hoarders. This was selfish and showed a complete lack of understanding of the finite supply cycles of goods to remote country areas.

Covid exposed the lack of local manufacturing in Australia of raw produce into consumer products for all to see. We have abundant raw product and it is government policy that sends it overseas to be value added. Government that values free trade on imports at the expense of manufacturing and food security.