As Australia begins the process of developing its National Food Security Strategy: \u201cFeeding Australia\u201d, Canada\u2019s National Food Security Strategy, launched in November 2025, offers valuable ideas for our own policymakers to consider.<\/p>\n
Food security as an issue has been growing in importance across the globe. Canada\u2019s strategy recognises that food security is more than an issue for import-dependent countries: it is a live, cost-of-living and domestic capability issue that sits squarely within a government\u2019s control.<\/p>\n
As Australia develops its own strategy, we should be asking ourselves the same question Canada just answered: are we building the domestic capacity to keep food affordable, accessible and resilient, or are we simply hoping the system holds?<\/p>\n
A whole-of-system strategy<\/p>\n
What makes Canada\u2019s approach instructive is the whole-of-system thinking behind it. The strategy backs a 10-year, $1 billion Food-Link Fund, a $1 billion Agri-food Project Finance Fund, and $750 million for controlled environment agriculture. But the funding is only part of the story. Canada is intervening across the entire food life cycle: production incentives and farm succession support; a target to lift the proportion of processed food produced in Canada from 70 to 80 percent; new food terminals and hubs to shorten and diversify distribution; competition reforms to address grocery concentration, where the top five retailers hold around three-quarters of sales; regulatory reform to cut approval backlogs at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and support for areas that Canada\u2019s consumption relies heavily on \u2013 such as packaging and pre-packaged goods.<\/p>\n
That is a government treating food security the way it should be treated \u2014 as an integrated system, not a series of disconnected interventions. Production, processing, distribution, retail and regulation are being addressed together, because a bottleneck anywhere in that chain shows up as higher prices, shorter shelf life or empty shelves for consumers.<\/p>\n
\tEssential reading for Australia\u2019s public service.<\/p>\n
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By continuing, you agree to our Terms & Conditions<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Feeding Australia must consider the Critical Middle<\/p>\n Unlike Canada\u2019s strategy, much of our current focus sits at the two ends of the food system: production on one side, and end-of-life recovery and recycling on the other. What gets far less attention is what happens in between, processing, packaging and distribution. The \u201cCritical Middle\u201d that actually determines whether food reaches consumers affordably and efficiently.<\/p>\n This is not a peripheral concern. Globally, over 13 percent of food is lost in the supply chain after harvest and before retail, and food loss and waste account for an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Packaging and processing decisions sit right at the centre of that equation. They are what allow food to travel further, last longer and reach more people with less waste.<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s strategy recognises this missing link by investing upstream, at the design and production stage of food and packaging, rather than concentrating policy effort at the point of disposal.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s packaging and recyclability frameworks, including those developed under APCO, would benefit from the same shift in emphasis: from \u201chow do we recover it at the end?\u201d to \u201chow do we design and build a system that needs less recovering in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n Three lessons for Australian policymakers<\/p>\n Australia and Canada are both large, resource-rich nations that share economic, cultural and political similarities. With this alignment in mind, there are three elements of Canada\u2019s approach that could translate directly to the Australian context.<\/p>\n First, back domestic processing capacity with real capital. Canada\u2019s billion-dollar-plus investment in processing infrastructure is a statement that food security requires physical, local capability, not just import diversification. Australia\u2019s own ambitions for a low-carbon, locally resilient food supply chain depend on the same kind of infrastructure commitment.<\/p>\n Second, set system-level, measurable targets. Canada\u2019s move to lift the proportion of processed food that is domestically produced in Canada from 70 to 80 percent by 2035 gives industry and investors a clear, whole-of-system goal to build toward. Australia\u2019s packaging and food policy settings would benefit from similarly explicit targets that span the full system, not just recovery rates.<\/p>\n Third, treat regulatory speed as a resilience issue, not just an efficiency one. Canada is cutting food-system regulatory approval times by a third by the end of 2026. In a country the size and geographic complexity of Australia, matching that ambition would materially strengthen our ability to respond to supply shocks.<\/p>\n The opportunity in front of us<\/p>\n Australia shouldn\u2019t simply copy and paste Canada\u2019s strategy. However, as Feeding Australia is developed, it should incorporate the same starting premise: that food security is a cost-of-living issue and a domestic capability issue, best addressed through coordinated, whole-of-system policy rather than isolated initiatives at either end of the supply chain.<\/p>\n Canada has shown what it looks like to back that premise with real investment, measurable targets and genuine attention to the Critical Middle of the food system. Australia has an opportunity to do the same, and the sooner our policymakers treat the middle of the supply chain as seriously as the two ends of it, the more resilient, affordable and sustainable our food system will be.<\/p>\n