The Australia-ASEAN AgriFood Opportunity

Abstract

Australia and ASEAN have the potential to grow their existing AgriFood relationships toward a sustainable and mutually beneficial regional industry. This can be achieved through an improved understanding of each country’s food supply and demand realities and how each is expected to evolve over the next 50 years. The nature of AgriFood and the natural environment, climatic change and pollution, is inevitably interconnected and pays little attention to national borders. The most effective agricultural production systems require Australia and ASEAN countries to connect and collaborate to ensure sustainable and abundant food supplies for the region’s growing populations. Southeast Asian nations have already made a number of important strides in beginning to address the region’s long-term food security challenge. However the sensitive nature of food makes bridging the gap between an open and free regional market, and the temptation to protect domestic food markets, all the more difficult.