MUCH has been said about the issue of food security and how a projected population of 9 billion people by 2050 will be fed.
The WA government believes a new initiative will set this State up to capitalise on increased export opportunities that will arise in the future.
Labelled "Agrifood 2025+", the initiative was launched by Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman this week at the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) conference held in Fremantle.
At this stage the initiative will focus on stimulating debate about possible opportunities in the future via a series of workshops with industry sectors.
This was kicked off last Monday night when members of the Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) executive met with international economists in town for the AARES conference.
Mr Redman said the initiative builds on the State Government's priority plan for agriculture and food launched three years ago.
"Several potential scenarios have been developed by DAFWA as a starting point," Mr Redman said.
"We hope they will stimulate debate and feed into policy development as the sector takes part in this important dialogue to help shape the future of our State's agriculture and food sector.
"Our State must be ready to capitalise on rising world demand for food. By 2025, the world's population is estimated to grow by as many as 2.5 billion people with an explosion of the middle class in Asia.
"We currently export more than $5b worth of agricultural products each year while offering an array of fresh, quality produce to WA consumers.
"These global changes will create opportunities to significantly increase the value of agricultural exports."
Mr Redman said the Government was already preparing for the future through projects such as the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre; building the regions through Royalties for Regions; and continuing to develop export markets.
Mr Redman said an important part of the process was to continually look over the horizon.
"Agrifood 2025+ is stimulating debate about all the opportunities and challenges that presents," he said.
"The discussions with the international economists led to a whole range of viewpoints from people more engaged in the international game than we are.
"WA is well positioned geographically and we are net exporters food so we need to take up whatever international opportunities present.
"I would like to see us pitch ourselves as food suppliers that can meet the food security needs of other countries.
"In order to set ourselves up for that and set up the environment for business to achieve that, we need to get as good an understanding about what the future holds for us, where we can pick up the opportunities and capitalise on some of those new parameters that are emerging on the international scene.
"Sixty per cent of the world's population is within our time zone and they are all countries that are talking about food security. That includes China, South Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Middle East inclusive.
"These countries are setting policies around this issue and we are an export state that is right in the middle of their geography - we need to set ourselves up to capitalise on those opportunities."
Mr Redman said WA had the capabilities to lift food production capacity, particularly in the north of the State.
"There are still huge opportunities in the irrigated agriculture sector in the Kimberley and Pilbara," he said.
"Other countries are looking at investing in WA and we do need to ask ourselves how we manage that but the agricultural sector is crying out for investment.
"We need to work out how we take that on board and look after farmers who are out there now to ensure they are benefiting from the opportunities that will come out of these changing parameters.
I think it is exciting for agriculture and we need to be talking it up and as a government set ourselves up to capitalise on those opportunities."
For more information on Agrifood 2025+: the future WAy go to http://www.agrifoo d2025.agric.wa.gov.au or Twitter: @agrifood2025.
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