Following the October 2022 floods, Chloe Fox, an organic practice vegetable farmer in Seymour, is more certain than ever that climate change is leaving Australia’s food security hanging by a thread.
In the days leading up to the floods, Ms Fox was expecting a couple of inches of water.
However, on Thursday, October 13 she woke up to heavy rain — her property cut off from the roads, the farm soon to became part of the river.
Days later Ms Fox returned to devastation, a line on the wall marked the floodwater’s peak. It reached just over Ms Fox’s head — she is 167cm (5ft foot 6in).
“We lost pretty much everything that we had in the ground,” she said.
Ms Fox accepts she is in the wrong industry for certainty, but says that for farming to continue as a viable occupation for Australians, climate change policy must be addressed.
“For the majority of food production in Australia, farming is always going to be in an area that is vulnerable to natural disasters,” she said.
“In the same way we are vulnerable to the floods, we are also vulnerable to the increasingly hot summers, drought and incredible days of heat.
“These increasing events caused by climate change are only going to threaten food production more and more.
“If you like eating ... [this] needs to be treated as the pressing global disaster that it is.”
Climate Council economist Nicki Hutley agrees with Ms Fox’s assessment, warning that with each 0.1ºC of global warming we can expect to see increased weather events.
“What we have seen in the last three years is not going to go away,” Ms Hutley said.
“We are all vulnerable; and if you are on a river system … you are among the most vulnerable to these climate impacts.”
Ms Hutley and Ms Fox agree renewable energy is the only way forward for an Australia that wishes to maintain its position as a ‘lucky country’.
“There is no doubt the fossil fuel sector is most responsible for fossil fuel emissions in Australia and around the world,” Ms Hutley said.
“A future that is not catastrophic cannot involve fossil fuels.
“Even the International Energy Agency that represents the fossil fuel industry says this.”
As an economist, Ms Hutley believes that planning for the transition to clean energy will be essential to making the transition as fair as possible for all involved.
“It’s not that it won’t be hard, it’s not that it won’t be painful … but to deny what we are seeing is to condemn others to these terrible and worsening climate impacts,” she said.
“Australia has changed before. We used to ride on the sheep’s back, we used to have a lot more manufacturing in different sectors, we are evolving all the time.”
Ms Fox wishes people could see the true face of Australian farming the way she sees it: forward thinking and environmentally caring.
“We are people that are not only affected by climate change but see our industry as part of the solution,” Ms Fox said.
Ms Hutley agrees, saying it is not yet all doom and gloom, but we must take action.
“If communities and governments act together there is a pathway for us to have a better environmental, economic and social future for all Australians,” she said.
“We shouldn’t give up yet.”