SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

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"A SUSTAINBLE COMMUNITY IS ONE THAT ENCAPSULATES BOTH THE HEALTH OF PEOPLE AND PLACE, WHERE PEOPLE CAN BE PHYSICALLY HEALTHY AND LIVE IN A NEIGHBOURHOOD THAT IS THRIVING SOCIALLY, ENVIRONMENTALLY AND ECONOMICALLY."

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A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Let’s get started...

FOOD FACTS

CHALLENGES FOR AGRICULTURE IN AUSTRALIA

THE SUSTAINABILITY CIRCLE

ENVIRONMENT

farmer stories in r.m.williams outback magazine

Today’s young farmers and young consumers believe the future of food and farming lies in their hands. However, both groups acknowledge there are many obstacles to being able to work together to solve the challenges facing food and farming.

Importantly, both next-gen consumers and farmers feel they do not currently have a big enough say in how food is farmed, sold and consumed. This is despite the fact that 80% of consumers and 94% of farmers agree that they already have opinions on what food should be produced and how.

It’s not surprising therefore that there is strong agreement that governments and food production companies need to listen to farmers and consumers when making decisions, and that consumers need to be more involved in how their food is farmed.

Despite support for collaboration and partnership, farmers and consumers believe that certain barriers prevent them from coming together. Among these are lack of knowledge about — or understanding of — each other, perceived socioeconomic differences and no means of direct communication. Source

At Picture You in Agriculture we know young people can be empowered to solve tomorrow’s problems today.

Through The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas we are providing a platform where young farmers and young consumers can come together to talk about vital issues and solutions like sustainability and climate smart agriculture.

We help them amplify and activate their ideas.

Understanding Australian Agriculture

Agriculture is an excellent platform for the exploration of a range of issues and the development of skills in establishing and testing solutions to modern day challenges.

Many of the views and understandings that students and the community have on agriculture are developed from mainstream media, social media or from interactions with their peers and other community member.

Using concepts like the Sustainability Circle students can build the skills and knowledge to be critical and creative thinkers and conscious consumers and use their informed opinions to be influential communicators.

Australia has a reputation internationally as a modern, safe, reliable and sustainable producer of food.

FOOD FACTS

• Australia produces close to 93% of its own food. This is a good thing in a world of global crises.
• Australia produces enough food to feed almost 3x our population.
• The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates the value of Australian farm production in 2018–19 at $58 billion, or around 3% of GDP.
• Australia’s agricultural exports are forecast to earn $45 billion in 2019–20, representing around 14% of our total goods and services exports.
• We are one of only 11 countries that are net food exporters.
• In 2019 our GFSI ranking dropped to 13th, after the addition of a weighting for ‘susceptibility to natural disaster and impact of weather events’. The convergence of natural disasters and agricultural disruption has caused considerable concern globally because of the cumulative and compounding impacts on water stress, food production and other ecosystem health measures.
• Food standards are applied across the food supply chain—from paddock to plate—and cover:
  • general food standards (including labelling requirements),
  • specific food product standards (including genetically modified foods), and
  • food safety standards.

THE SUSTAINABILITY CIRCLE

The Sustainability Circle model demonstrates the range of issues that must be balanced and managed by farmers and agricultural professionals when producing food, fibre and energy.

Why farmers farm the way they do may be more complex than it first looks.

Producing affordable, safe and nutritious food means famers must balance production challenges with community expectations while maintaining a profit margin that can sustain their business.

Commonly when sustainability is mentioned, it is environment considerations that are at front of mind. While farmers and the agricultural professionals who support them are highly aware of their responsibilities to manage natural resource under their care, other issues must also be considered.

Sometimes, different community members and groups only focus on only one aspect that they see as important to them. This can leave farmers to meet a combination of unachievable and competing community expectations and regulatory requirements.

The Sustainability Circle highlights this diverse range of issues that must be considered, balanced and managed by farmers and agricultural professionals when producing food, fibre and energy.

The Sustainability Circle is divided into seven sections which are in no particular order and their importance will change depending on the decision under consideration.

The sometimes competing needs and priorities of the Sustainability Circle means decisions are often made by balancing these different aspects. This also means different farmers may make different decisions based on how they are impacted by the different sections.

Farming also involves risk around such things as production, climate and market prices. A farmer must also take account of these future risks in their decision frameworks.

What may look from the outside as a simple action, may or may not be possible due to the complex balancing of the many issues shown by the Sustainability Circle.

Responsible and sustainable production requires and understanding and thoughtful balancing of all the sections of the Sustainability Circle by farmers.

In your PYiA projects (The Archibull Prize and Kreative Koalas) students are encouraged to consider an issue from all the perspectives of the Sustainability Circle. Students may find that there are often several solutions rather than a single way forward. No solution may be ideal with trade-offs required between sectors of the circle. Students can explore the implications of these trade-offs and find different people may view these trade-offs differently.

Australian agricultural industries are committed to supplying safe, affordable, nutritious food from profitable, climate smart resilient farming systems.

To help them meet (or exceed) consumer expectations our farming industries are developing Sustainability Frameworks that allow them to measure, review, improve and report on the key priority areas they have identified in consultation with their stakeholders.

The examples below outline the core pillars and themes of the respective frameworks, under which prioritised material themes are allocated to guide the sustainable development of the relevant sectors.

The challenge of the 21st century is clear: to feed the world’s growing population while safeguarding our natural resources in the process. We have a long way to go considering one billion people are undernourished today.

With more people to feed and house there is growing competition for land and water and energy between housing land, farming land and mining land Our land, our water and our non-renewable energy are precious resources and we all should use them wisely.

Resourceful land use

Right now, it takes less than a second to add two people to the world population.

In the same second, farmland available to feed our growing population is shrinking by an area about the size of a soccer field. We must produce more food from less land to feed our growing population.

Past farming practices have left the soil vulnerable to be swept away by wind and rain. Already, an area large enough to feed Europe has been so severely degraded, it cannot produce food.

Better farming practices can halt and even reverse the process of soil degradation. At the same time, farmers are now using existing farmland more efficiently.

It is pivotal that governments monitor what is happening to their land and incorporate soil protection measures involving agriculture, forestry, water management, industry and waste disposal sectors.

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Key Facts

93% of the food we eat is produced by Australian farmers
Australian farmers look after 60% of the landscape
Only 4% of the Australia’s landscape is suitable for growing crops and fruit and vegetables

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By 2050, our global population is expected to reach 9 billion people and the demand for food will grow by 70%.

Even if we convert all remaining land to cropland, we will get nowhere near meeting the future demand for food without increasing agricultural productivity and efficiency.

Success requires farmers having access to a range of agricultural solutions, education to gain necessary skills, and financial incentives. Sustainable farming solutions include not tilling the land, crop rotations, bringing vegetation back to degraded land and planting vegetation around fields to prevent erosion and transitioning to green energy technology.

Resourceful land use also contributes to mitigating climate change. Globally 2 to 3 billion metric tons of carbon can be stored per year in soil. Farmers can produce higher yields on existing farmland, prevent further loss of fertile land, and find innovative ways to make use of marginal land, especially in developing countries.

Technology is an important part of the solution, but we must also partner to share knowledge. An unprecedented level of global collaboration must take place between farmers, consumers and entrepreneurs, governments and companies, civil society and multilateral organizations. Governments must support resource use efficiency and environmental stewardship, and the private sector must develop new technologies that enable these practices. People should be able to make informed choices about the crops they grow, the products they buy, and the agricultural systems they use. Agriculture should be viewed as a productive investment that drives economic development and builds long-term economic, political and environmental stability.

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Resources

- More resources can be found HERE in your teacher resources tool kit -

Water Use Efficiency

Success in agriculture hinges on many factors, but farmers worldwide have perhaps one common fear: lack of water. And for good reason. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture uses about 70 percent of the world’s fresh water and shortage will have a huge impact on food security.

It is imperative that we all make water efficiency a priority if we are to manage water scarcity. Farmers need incentives to implement better water management. They need infrastructure and financial support to explore innovative solutions that produce crops with greater water efficiency.

Worldwide up to 40% of the water used by some farmers is lost due to inefficient practices such as field flooding. A recent study by the 2030 Water Resources Group found that existing agricultural technology can sustainably increase water use efficiency, at reasonable cost and with little investment.

For example, improving soil structure can conserve water. Weed control using herbicides lowers the need for tillage, leaves roots in the soil and improves water absorption. Efficient irrigation systems deliver water to roots and planting grasses around paddocks helps keep water in the soil. In combination, these practices dramatically reduce surface evaporation and water run-off.

Stopping run-off can also ensure agricultural chemicals and soil from paddocks don’t reach rivers and streams.

In addition, we need to broaden our focus to include land productivity and water productivity. We have to get the more crop per drop. Use of drought resistant and water and fertiliser efficient crops and pastures can help produce reliable yields even when water is scarce.

There is no one solution to deal with water scarcity. Investment is needed to develop innovative water-efficient technologies, drought-tolerant seeds, crop protection products and optimized irrigation systems.

But the best solutions can only help when farmers can afford them and understand the advantage of using them. Thus, infrastructure for knowledge sharing and access to technology must be strengthened. Incentives such as access to affordable credit and financial risk-management mechanisms such as insurance for weather-related crop losses will also be critical.

Access to safe water plays a pivotal role in sustainable development and poverty reduction. To positively alter the way the world uses limited water resources, communities need to understand their options for managing water, make better choices, and to take responsibility for them.

 

With appropriate settings and technologies, projected increases in water demand need not increase pressure on water limited catchments.

Payments for carbon sequestration could be harnessed to reward rural land owners for restoring ecosystems, increasing native habitat by 17% and decreasing extinction risks by 10%, without large additional government outlays.

Non-agricultural water use is projected to increase by 65 to 150% by 2050, while the value of national economic output increases by more than 150%.

While water use is projected to double by 2050, this growth can be met while enhancing urban water security and avoiding increased environmental pressures through increased water recycling, desalination and integrated catchment management.

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Resources

- More resources can be found HERE in your teacher resources tool kit -

Biodiversity can be defined as the functioning of all living things through providing "ecosystem services". Those services are creating clean air, clean water, shelter for food and fibre production and native animals and cultural value. Biodiversity exists in the soil, vegetation supported by the soil, wildlife that access soil, vegetation and habitat.

Biodiversity is in the eye of the beholder. For some it is our life support system, for others it is a resource to be used, for others it is a precious cultural symbol. Australians have long had a sense that our biodiversity is special, but despite our sense of its importance, in many parts of our country biodiversity is in trouble.

1. BIODIVERSITY IS THE VARIETY of all lifeforms on Earth – all the different plants, animals and microorganisms, and the ecosystems they live in. in the context of farming, biodiversity refers to the woodlands, native scrub, trees, shrubs and native grasses, as well as the insects and other animals that live on farms. Farmers strive to manage the environment in a way that not only allows this rich biodiversity to coexist with food and fibre production coexist, and also helps biodiversity thrive.
2. Biodiversity makes human life on Earth possible yet it goes beyond mere measurable scientific facts; understanding biodiversity highlights the benefits of the natural world, many of which are at risk due to the pressures of human resource-use.
3. Biodiversity is a human paradigm reflecting various values – economics, ecological life-support, recreation, culture and science – placed upon it according to perceived benefits and risks.

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VIDEO RESOURCES

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WHY BIODIVERSITY MATTERS

Values are the lasting beliefs or ideals that will influence a person’s attitude and which serve as broad guidelines for that person’s behaviour. Understanding biodiversity, and why it matters, is assisted by comprehending the range of distinctive values that individuals and societies may assign to the living world and the ecosystems that it comprises. It is an indication in itself of the complexity of views about biodiversity, and the variety of interactions with it, that at least five separate categories are necessary to cover all possibilities. Source CSIRO  Biodiversity: Science and Solutions for Australia

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HUMAN IMPACT ON BIODIVERSITY

"If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish."
Jonas Salk

Our planet is undergoing a biodiversity crisis. Globally, at least 16,000 species are threatened with extinction, including 12 per cent of birds, 23 per cent of mammals and 32 per cent of amphibians.

Biologists know what is causing this environmental crisis — human impacts from development, deforestation, pollution and climate change are destroying the homes and habitat of wildlife around the world.

More importantly, biologists understand that the trend can be reversed.

The greatest threat to biodiversity is the size and rate of growth of human population. Every day, more people need more space, consume more resources and generate more waste as world population continues to grow at an alarming rate.

Human population growth is reducing biodiversity in the following ways:

• We cause habitat change through agricultural, urban and industrial development, and the exploitation of natural resources.
• We pollute soil, water and air.
• We overharvest resources which reduces both population sizes and genetic diversity of commercial species, such as fish.
• We introduce exotic species which damage land and water resources and sometimes bring diseases with them. In addition, they may compete with native plants and animals for food and shelter. Some animals, such as cats and foxes, directly destroy native species.
• We cause global warming by releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, which will alter the nature of ecosystems everywhere. One of the causes of increased levels of carbon dioxide is the burning of carbon-based fuels such as coal, oil and gas.

Farming and Biodiversity

All forms of food production contribute to a loss of biodiversity to varying degrees, and it is important that impacts on biodiversity are managed effectively. There is no denying that farming practices throughout the 1800s and first half of the 1900s had some detrimental impacts on Australia’s biodiversity. This was mainly due to government-mandated land clearing, in a belief that Australia should be farmed using European methods. Land clearing reduced areas of native vegetation that, coupled with some traditional land management practices, resulted in a decline in biodiversity.

Loss of habitat

Many ecosystems have been lost during the past 200 years.
Some of these ecosystems include:

• 75% of rainforests and nearly 50% of all forests;
• over 60% of coastal wetlands in southern and eastern Australia;
• nearly 90% of temperate woodlands and mallee;
• more than 99% of south-eastern Australia's temperate lowland grasslands;
• over 83% of Tasmania's lowland grasslands and grassy woodlands;
• about 95% of brigalow scrub that originally grew in Queensland;
• over 90% of Victoria's grasslands.

Students at Gresford Public School champion protection of habit for our Native Animals.

Loss of species

Loss of species is a major threat to biodiversity in Australia. Species of animals and plants under threat may be listed in one of the following categories:

• Extinct
• Extinct in the wild
• Critically endangered
• Endangered
• Vulnerable
• Conservation dependent

Source australianmuseum.net.au/whats-happening-to-australias-biodiversity

WHAT IS RENEWABLE ENERGY

Renewable energy is energy which can be obtained from natural resources that can be constantly replenished.

Renewable energy technologies include technologies that use—or enable the use of—one or more renewable energy sources. Types of renewable energy technologies include:

Fashion Waste

The Australian textile industry is diverse and has some 680 firms that supply textiles to consumers and other manufacturing sectors. Textile production undergoes many separate processing steps with each step having a potential environmental consequence. One of the many sustainability issues that relate to this large and important industry is textile waste sent to landfill. This issue is a great cost to the industry and the economy. Both the industry and consumers produce textile waste.

Knowledge Bank

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FOOD WASTE

fast facts

• Approximately 8 to 10 billion dollars of food is wasted each year in commercial and residential waste. That’s around four million tonnes of food that ends up as landfill.
• Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.
• Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).
• Australians throw out one out of every five shopping bags, which equates to every Australian household throwing out $1,036 worth of groceries each year.
• Australia produces enough food to feed approx. 60 million people, yet two million people still rely on food relief every year.
• Food relief agencies are not able to meet demand. Nearly 90% of agencies reported not having enough food to meet total demand. 6 in 10 agencies require at least 25% more food with almost 3 in 10 agencies requiring double the food.
• Nearly one million Aussie kids go without breakfast or bed without dinner.

Knowledge Bank and resources that will help us all live sustainable lives

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What can we do about this?

There are simple choices and changes we can make in our daily lives that will help us live more sustainably. We need to change the way we live to reduce our over-consuming lifestyles.

Australians consume more of just about everything, per person, than people in other countries. We consume lots of food, paper, timber, metals, energy, water, plastic, glass – you name it, as a nation we consume a lot of it. One way to measure our environmental impact is through an ecological footprint. On a global scale, Australia is a big-foot. We are our very own Yeti of consumption of natural resources.

Over consumption is a significant contributor to global warming and climate change and this consumption is the major cause of Australia’s large footprint. The other cause is our reliance on fossil fuels for everything ranging from the electricity in our homes to the petrol in our cars. Our way of life in Australia is threatening the future of our planet.

We all have a part to play, as we all contribute to our ecological footprint and to global warming. This is where we can work together.

But we can’t do it without you.

You have the power to change the way you live and reduce Australia’s ecological footprint. One step at a time. Visit here to find out how you can get involved.

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- More resources can be found HERE in your teacher resources tool kit -

Now let’s look at how we nourish our bodies and how our choices impact on the planet

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Everyone in Australia deserves access to safe, affordable and nutritious food. In return, everyone in Australia should value their food and the role that physical exercise plays in maintaining a healthy body, mind and lifestyle.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Students will investigate and reflect on how they can act to encourage themselves and others to have a healthy lifestyle and value the people behind the food we eat and the clothes we wear.

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THE KNOWLEDGEBANK TOOLKIT

Healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, healthy planet

Social and community health is about building resilient individuals and communities.

Personal health consists of focusing on all aspects of ‘health’:
Physical
Emotional / social
Psychological

Good health is about understanding the balance between what we put into our bodies and what we do with them; it’s about how we deal with the stresses of everyday life; it’s about how we manage our emotions and interact with others.

All aspects of our health are impacted upon by the food we eat, the exercise we undertake and the ways we take care of our mental health. Studies have proven the links between a healthy diet, and efficient and effective brain, physical and psychological functioning.

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Healthy Diet

Some Scary statistics

Overweight and obesity

• In 2014-15, 63.4% of Australian adults were overweight or obese (11.2 million people). This is similar to the prevalence of overweight and obesity in 2011-12 (62.8%) and an increase since 1995 (56.3%).
• Around one in four (27.4%) children aged 5-17 years were overweight or obese, similar to 2011-12 (25.7%). Source ABS National Health Study 2014-2015.
• Less than 7% of Australians follow the Eating a healthy diet guidelines, as recommended by the Australian Dietary Guidelines.
• The average Australian adult derives at least 35% of their energy intake from “junk” foods and drinks.

Daily intake of fruit and vegetables

• In 2014-15, nearly one in two (49.8%) adults met the Australian Dietary Guidelines for recommended daily serves of fruit, while 7.0% met the guidelines for serves of vegetables. Only one in twenty (5.1%) adults met both guidelines.
• Nearly seven in ten children (68.1%) aged 2-18 years met the guidelines for recommended daily serves of fruit, while 5.4% met the guidelines for serves of vegetables. Only one in twenty (5.1%) children met both guidelines.

Exercise

• In 2014-15, 55.5% of 18-64 year olds participated in sufficient physical activity in the last week (more than 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or more than 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both, including walking).
• Nearly one in three (29.7%) 18-64 year olds were insufficiently active (less than 150 minutes in the last week) while 14.8% were inactive (no exercise in the last week).

Department of Health, CC BY

The Australian Guide To Healthy Eating recommends eating a variety of nutritious foods including vegetables, fruit, grain and lean meat to achieve a balanced healthy diet.

This guide indicates the need to increase the consumption of cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruit, while consuming meat, fish and dairy products in lesser quantities.

Meat is an important source of protein and certain micro-nutrients, including iron, zinc and vitamins and milk is a rich source of protein and calcium. That’s why the Australian Guide recommends two daily serves of milk and dairy products, along with two serves of meat, fish and eggs.

Protein intake is important for a balanced diet, as insufficient protein intake can lead to obesity due to excessive carbohydrate and fat intake to meet energy requirements.

Plant foods – including grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes – are also vital for keeping us healthy. That’s why the Australian Guide To Healthy Eating recommends a higher consumption of plant foods each day, along the lines of seven serves of cereals, five serves of vegetables and legumes, and two serves of fruit. Doing that can reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer, and increase life expectancy.

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Healthy Lifestyles

A healthy and active lifestyle is a lifestyle that contributes positives to physical, mental and social well-being and includes regular exercise.

The Australian Health Survey 2011-12 indicates that:

Physical Activity

• Only one-third of children, and one in ten young people undertook the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity every day.
• 60% of Australian adults did less than the recommended 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per day.

Sedentary Behaviour

• Fewer than one in three children and young people (5-17 year olds) met the “no more than 2 hours of screen-based entertainment” every day.
• Nearly 70% of Australian adults (i.e. almost 12 million adults) are either sedentary or have low levels of physical activity.

Children and Young People

• In 2011-12, toddlers and pre-schoolers (aged 2–4 years) spent an average of around 6 hours per day engaged in physical activity. They also spent almost one and a half hours per day (83 minutes) in the sedentary activities of watching TV, DVDs or playing electronic games.
• On average, children and young people aged 5–17 years spent one and a half hours (91 minutes) per day on physical activity and over two hours a day (136 minutes) in screen-based activity with physical activity decreasing and screen-based activity increasing as age increased.
• Just under half (44%) of all children and young people (2–17 years) had at least one type of screen-based item (e.g. TV, computer, or game console) in their bedroom. For the 15–17 year olds, three-quarters had some kind of screen-based media in their bedroom and this was associated with them spending an extra two hours per week watching/playing screen-based media compared with those who did not have any such item in their bedroom.
• The children and young people who participated in the pedometer study, recorded an average of 9,140 steps per day. Children aged 5–8 and 9–11 years were most likely to reach 12,000 steps per day (22% and 24% respectively), while 15–17 year olds were least likely (7%) to reach this number of steps.

Adults

• The highest levels of physical activity were among the young adults with 53% of 18–24 year olds being classed as sufficiently active. Levels of physical activity tended to decline in older ages, with the lowest being among people aged 75 years and over, where the average time spent in physical activity was 20 minutes per day, and just one in four this age were classified as sufficiently active against the guidelines.
• Levels of sufficient physical activity were associated with a range of factors:
• Relative socioeconomic disadvantage: Adults in the least disadvantaged quintile were 1.5 times more likely to have done sufficient physical activity compared with those in the most disadvantaged quintile.
• Health status: Adults who described their health as "excellent" were over twice as likely to have done sufficient physical activity compared with people with "poor" self-assessed health.
• Body mass index (BMI): The underweight/normal weight population were 1.4 times more likely to have done sufficient physical activity compared with the obese population.
• Smoking status: ex–smokers and people who never smoked were 1.2 times more likely to have done sufficient physical activity compared with current smokers.
• Sedentary activity occupied an average 39 hours per week for adults, with close to 10 hours of this sitting at work. People employed in more sedentary occupations (such as clerical and administrative work) spent on average 22 hours a week sitting for work.
• Watching TV was the most prevalent sedentary activity, at nearly 13 hours a week, peaking at over 19 hours per week on average for people aged 75 and over. Using the computer or Internet (for non-work purposes) peaked at almost 9 hours per week for 18–24 year olds.
• The adults who participated in the pedometer study, recorded an average of 7,400 steps per day. Less than one in five adults (19%) recorded 10,000 steps per day on average.’
  Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2013 - Australian Health Survey: Physical Activity, 2011-12. ABS Catalogue number 4364.0.55.00

Make your move – sit less – be active for life

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Healthy Planet

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The global impacts of our diet

A sustainable diet has low environmental impacts and contributes to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Source

The Double Pyramid developed by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition in Italy shows the synergies between food that is good for our health and environment.

This model consists of two pyramids: one is the traditional food pyramid like the Australian guide, while the other is an upside-down pyramid ranking the environmental impacts of the same foods. In general, foods at the base of the food pyramid are also those with the lowest environmental impact.

The double pyramid, showing which foods are best for us as individuals and for the environment. Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition, CC BY-SA

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Eat your cereal, beans and vegetables

Cereal grain crops are primary producers and have a lower water and carbon footprint.

Legumes such as chickpea and lentil have less than half of the greenhouse emissions of other cereal crops, as they are able to fix nitrogen naturally from the air and do not require any nitrogen fertilisers.

Compared with animal products, emissions from vegetables are lower on a per tonne basis. Most emissions associated with vegetable production come from fertiliser use, electricity use and post-harvest refrigeration and transport.

Even a modest replacement of energy-intensive animal products with less-energy-intensive grains, fruits and vegetables would be significant at the global scale.

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Rethinking healthy diet advice

Given that fewer than 3% of people in Australia and the UK are vegetarian, it’s unrealistic to suggest a meat-free diet for everyone. It is important to note In Australia and New Zealand, grazing animals are mainly grass-fed rather than grain-fed (more common in the US), which may play an important role in soil carbon sequestration in grasslands, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

If a healthy and sustainable plant-based diet is better for our health and environment, why is it that consumption of plant foods in many developed countries does not meet recommended levels?

In Victoria, for example, fewer than 8% of adults consume the recommended daily intake of five or more serves of vegetables, and fewer than 46% eat the recommended daily intake of two or more serves of fruit.

The recent Australian Health Survey found that one in four adults were eating no vegetables on an average day and only 7% were eating the recommended five servings.

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What can be done?

Our current diets cost more than healthy diets, so factors other than price must be helping drive preference for unhealthy choices. These likely include the abundant availability, accessibility, advertising and promotion of junk foods that exploit people’s vulnerabilities. It’s therefore important not to blame victims for responding as expected to unhealthy food environments.

Given the rapidly rising costs to all Australians of our growing waistlines – 25% of us are now obese, one of the highest rates in the world – failing to act is already proving extremely expensive, in both personal and economic terms.

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Government action

It has been suggested that the government can help by promoting a healthier diet by considering educational and policy measures, such as reinstating the healthy-food star rating systems and restricting junk food promotion.

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How can you help?

Before you let total and utter despair get the best of you – we can all work together to break the vicious cycle of rising obesity and ensure nutrition policy actions tackle barriers to healthy eating. Ways to do this include increasing availability of healthy foods and drinks in schools and hospitals and regulating against “junk” food and drink advertising directed to children. Together, these small steps can help shift the whole population to a healthier diet.

These statistics show there is huge room for improvement and opportunities for you as an individual, as a school and as a community to design and deliver idea/s and solutions for action.

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It’s up to each of us to make healthier choices, for our own sake, as well as for the environment that our children will inherit from us – and that starts with the food we eat today.

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Resources

- More resources can be found HERE in your teacher resources tool kit -