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Joshua Zeunert discusses research on the imagery depicting Australian agriculture’s industrial scales, degraded lands and landscape impacts.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 24, 2024

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The speaker discusses their research on agriculture, focusing on its environmental impacts and the balance between food production and ecological sustainability. They express concerns about the intensification of agricultural systems, particularly in the context of the neoliberal agribusiness model. This video video model has led to concentrated power structures that can negatively affect both local and global ecosystems.

They emphasize the necessity of examining the long-term viability of current agricultural practices, noting that despite claims of efficiency in the global food system, underlying environmental issues are emerging. In Australia, where agriculture occupies a significant portion of the land, most of it is devoted to livestock production, which poses significant environmental burdens.

The speaker critiques romanticized perceptions of agriculture, advocating for a more accurate understanding of agricultural landscapes through extensive field research. They propose the concept of "metropolitan agriculture" to differentiate urban agricultural practices in developed countries from subsistence farming in developing nations.

They highlight two forms of urban agriculture: peri-urban agriculture, which is commercially driven, and public urban agriculture, which focuses on community engagement and social aspects rather than profit. The speaker notes the challenges faced by smallholder farmers due to industry consolidation and the need for community-oriented practices that emphasize knowledge sharing and sustainability.

In conclusion, they argue for a reevaluation of how agriculture is perceived and practiced, emphasizing the importance of sustainable food systems that integrate social, environmental, and economic dimensions.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Look, the motivations underpinning my research, on, on

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agriculture, whether that's in Australia

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or in in any context in the world, relates

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to the environmental impacts that agriculture has,

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on ecological systems and, and the globe more broadly.

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So, you know, although we obviously all need food to live

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and to eat and to thrive, as a culture, we need

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to ensure that we're looking

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after the environments that provision us with our food

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and their, their ability to provide

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resources in an ongoing way, for food systems to,

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to continue to, to feed us.

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So it's concerning that, neoliberal

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of agriculture, which

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is more accurately termed agribusiness

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now in Western context.

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And, what we see over the last half century is,

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intensification of agricultural systems

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and, increasing concentration,

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in AgriFood sectors across both producing food

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and, also in the retailing and selling of food.

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Uh, so that that equates to,

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concentrated power structures

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and, leverage that can exert influence,

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that can have negative ramifications, at,

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you know, at at scales of, local ecosystems

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through to global scales.

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And while, the global AgriFood system will,

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will constantly tell you that it's incredibly efficient,

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well, incredibly productive,

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and will successfully feed billions of people, which is

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certainly something, unprecedented, when we step back

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and we look more broadly at that system over a longer term

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timeframe, and we consider, its, its ongoing,

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impacts and ability to provision us with,

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with food in the long term, then that's when some,

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some cracks, in, in that system, start to arise.

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The cracks that I talk of relate to

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what I would refer to as, the state

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of the agricultural environment,

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or, you know, in some countries we have what is termed,

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state of the environment reporting whereby,

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often government organizations or,

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or pseudo independent panels are set up to report back on,

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on the state of the environment.

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But in Australia's case, agriculture,

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despite it dominating, the landmass,

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which is largely true across the globe in terms

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of the ice free area of the earth, agriculture is,

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is the dominant land use.

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And it's certainly the case in Australia where 55%

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of Australia's land, land mass is, is devoted

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to agriculture.

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And, that is, is much greater proportion

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than other land uses that, that we find the great majority

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of that 55% is for livestock.

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It's, it's for cattle and sheep, pastoralism,

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or we'd call it ranching in,

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a North American vernacular.

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So agriculture dominates, the Australian continent

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to the point where we could liken it

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to a giant cattle station or a giant ranch.

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Uh, so we devote a huge, huge amount of, of the area of,

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of both the earth and, and Australia to both agriculture

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and specifically to, to livestock production.

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And in Australia's case, this is an, an import largely

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of colonization from the British whereby both

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owning a a cattle station or a ranch or,

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or a pastoral property was a very high status, activity

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as well as on the consumption side.

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Eating beef, was

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and is still associated, as a high status activity.

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But we're starting to see as,

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as the global population continues to grow, that,

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livestock intensive, diets,

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carrying a heavy environmental burden,

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there are certainly roles for livestock

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to play in agricultural systems,

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but in relation to the actual statistical

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and spatial reality of agricultural production,

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in Australia,

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and in most developed western nations, across the globe

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and, and also in, in the global south,

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we could say we do see a lot

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of problems coming from environmental problems coming from,

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from livestock production.

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And, and we see this, in, in the science as well.

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But the ironic thing perhaps is in the last

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half a century or so has industrialization

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of agriculture has occurred following what was termed the,

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the Green Revolution, which is not perhaps the most,

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accurate naming of, of that process of intensification

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and industrialization, of agricultural production

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and, very much a focus on synthetic modes of,

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of agricultural production as opposed to,

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the prior legacy of agriculture, which was, was largely

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organic in its production mode, certainly, prior

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to a century or so ago.

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So in this last half century whereby intensification,

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industrialization has, has occurred and,

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and certainly yields have, have gone up significantly in

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that time, as has the, the global human population.

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Uh, but what we see are images portrayed of agriculture

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that are still very much romantic.

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Um, they're bucolic.

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We see agricultural tropes thrown about if we look on,

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TV or in social media

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or in marketing, on, on the packaging

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of our food labels, we see these, these romantic images

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of agriculture that I certainly argue and,

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and hopefully document, you know, in my research that,

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these, these are effectively superseded or outdated.

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Certainly when we look at the statistical

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and spatial actuality of, food production.

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So one of the things I've, done, to,

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to evidence this in my research is, I had the,

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privilege of,

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doing extensive field research across Australia,

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traveled 35,000 kilometers.

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I accrued over 10,000 drone images,

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and videos to document the, you might say, the visual state

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of the agricultural environment.

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Uh, it's available on a, on a website.

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And what you see is those images,

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that are on the website and thousand many thousands more

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that aren't on that website do not match the

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bucolic romantic agricultural images that we see.

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Uh, as I mentioned, you know, on our food packaging

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and in the marketing, that's broadcast on our screens,

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there's a couple of important points

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when we talk about urban agriculture.

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Uh, the first perhaps is differentiating urban agriculture

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from, we might say the, the global north or from western

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or from developed, nations, as opposed

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to the global south or,

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or developing nations where in the latter,

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it's very much a subsistence practice that helps

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a lot of people around the world, survive basically and,

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and, and gain their, their sustenance.

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Whereas in the global north, it, it largely depends upon

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the parameters of, of which we conceive

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of urban agriculture.

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So, I'm from a built environment, background,

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and so the definition of urban can constitute anywhere that

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that's a buildup area, whether that's a, a hamlet, a town,

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a village, through to the megalopolis, that,

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that we might live in.

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So I prefer to call, urban agriculture,

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metropolitan agriculture in the sense that a,

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a greater urban area

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or a city area, encompasses a range

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of food production modes.

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And so what we see, within this sort

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of metropolitan remit of, of,

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agricultural production is we see,

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peri-urban agriculture,

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which means agricultural production on the urban fringes,

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which is normally, commercial,

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and small holder, often intensive

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Vegetable production, and also, poultry,

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although both of those things are in decline

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as agriculture continues to industrialize

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and scale up its practices in, in most regions.

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And, and these larger,

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larger operations outcompete the smaller operations

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that we've traditionally seen on the urban fringes

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of cities.

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And so that is very much a different practice from,

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you might say, inner city urban agriculture,

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or it can be suburban, urban agriculture,

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which is often in the form of, in, in the UK

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or in Europe, allotment gardens in the US

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or Canada or Australia.

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Uh, it might be community gardens.

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And so I prefer to call that public urban agriculture.

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And the social dimensions of, of that form of, of

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food production are much more important,

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than we might say the economic, dimensions of, of

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that form of urban agriculture.

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In other words, it's the intergenerational knowledge

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transfer we get from growing food in a collaborative

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environment across different generations

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and age groups and cultural groups.

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And it's that, that high mind of sharing of skills

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and knowledge and tools that is the sort of central focus

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of, of that form of urban, urban agriculture.

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And so it's not so much about, making money

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or even necessarily the yields that we return from this.

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It's, it's very much in a broader, broader remit,

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in terms of the way we, we conceive of this.

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So they're often, combined confus

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or conflated.

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So I think it's good to, to kind of differentiate,

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are we talking about, social

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oriented urban agriculture in, in public spaces

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or on, in parks or in community gardens or allotments,

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or are we talking about, small holder

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commercial agriculture?

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Uh, that is very much about, you know, being,

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still being as profitable as possible to survive in,

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an agricultural system that is shifting more

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and more to what we might call competitive pro protectivism,

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which in essence means get big or get out.

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So it is very hard for small holders increasingly to,

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to remain economically viable.

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And so we're, we're seeing these, these shifts whereby

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we get community scale food production,

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and then we're getting bigger

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and bigger farms that are agglomerating multiple farms

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to produce food, at what you can say on one sense,

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a very efficient,

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but that also takes a lot of energy input to, to create

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that food and to grow it

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and to transport it, to urban areas where the majority

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of of people now live and, consume food.

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Yes, thanks. So I've done a, a range

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of research over the years that in essence looks

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at the notion of how we perceive agriculture

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to be this beautiful thing, in, in rural environments,

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you know, so some examples of that might be,

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people going to visit, a lavender farm

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or an orchard when it's in blossom or a vineyard.

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And so,

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and photographing themselves,

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putting themselves on social media or whatnot.

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And, and so there's a long legacy of

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of seeing agricultural landscapes, which are often,

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you know, large scale monocultures, single crops,

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you know, that kind of industrial production

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or certainly, earlier modes of, of of industrial

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agriculture production.

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We see these as, as often as as beautiful things,

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when we live in the city.

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But then, certainly in

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certain western contexts such as, as Australia,

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and, and other places, we can, there can be a disconnect.

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We can see when we see food production in urban areas,

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people can, can see it as as inappropriate activity.

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And this can relate to the history of, of,

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that food production I was talking about earlier on,

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on the fringes.

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So when urban areas expand

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and push up against food production,

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particularly livestock production,

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then there's clashes from, from smells and noise and dust

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and, you know, historically disease

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and unsanitary conditions.

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And so there, there's this, I guess, recent memory of,

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of urban agriculture, that kind

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of urban agriculture being inappropriate in an urban

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context, but we see it as this,

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this beautiful thing in a rural context.

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And there's, there's very reasons for that.

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But, if carefully designed and managed and maintained

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and prefe professionally executed, we can be inspired

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by these, you know, beautiful rural production landscapes,

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and they can, be translated in, into urban context,

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to help address some of those aesthetic shortcomings that,

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that we might see or associate with, for example,

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a, a community garden

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or allotment that can, can be kind of messy,

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or perceived as, as messy or unmet

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or inappropriate, in, in certain contexts, you know.

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But when we look at, some of the countries

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around the Mediterranean, for example, where we see,

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for example, fruit trees in, in both public parks

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and street scapes, you know, that that's seen

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as normal in, in, in some of those countries.

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Whereas, doing that in, in other contexts can be seen

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as, as both inappropriate

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and also as, as a risk, for liability, if someone

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Slips on a piece of fallen fruit, for example.

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So I guess the research that I've done in that vein tries

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to, interrogate the cultural lenses that, that we hold

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and, and also the aesthetic views that, that we hold.

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Um, and then I guess the notion that, you know, it,

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it, it's a notion of sort of beauty in,

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in a wealthy city, you might say.

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Whereas as I mentioned in the global south,

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you know, food production is, is more about survival

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and the aesthetics don't, don't mess up.

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So, you know, it certainly can be, a concept,

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you know, in privileged context.

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But, again, when we think long term

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about the sustainability of our food systems, you know,

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I think there's, there's scope for, more crossover

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between those, those two polar opposites.

00:00 - Look, the motivations underpinning my research, on, on agriculture, whether that's in Australia or in in any context in the world, relates to the environmental impacts that agriculture has, on ecological systems and, and the globe more broadly. So, you know, although we obviously all need food to live

00:24 - and to eat and to thrive, as a culture, we need to ensure that we're looking after the environments that provision us with our food and their, their ability to provide resources in an ongoing way, for food systems to, to continue to, to feed us. So it's concerning that, neoliberal of agriculture, which is more accurately termed agribusiness now in Western context.

00:56 - And, what we see over the last half century is, intensification of agricultural systems and, increasing concentration, in AgriFood sectors across both producing food and, also in the retailing and selling of food. so that that equates to, concentrated power structures and, leverage that can exert influence, that can have negative ramifications, at, you know, at at scales of, local ecosystems

01:34 - through to global scales. And while, the global AgriFood system will, will constantly tell you that it's incredibly efficient, well, incredibly productive, and will successfully feed billions of people, which is certainly something, unprecedented, when we step back and we look more broadly at that system over a longer term timeframe, and we consider, its, its ongoing, impacts and ability to provision us with, with food in the long term, then that's when some,

02:08 - some cracks, in, in that system, start to arise. The cracks that I talk of relate to what I would refer to as, the state of the agricultural environment, or, you know, in some countries we have what is termed, state of the environment reporting whereby, often government organizations or, or pseudo independent panels are set up to report back on, on the state of the environment. But in Australia's case, agriculture,

02:44 - despite it dominating, the landmass, which is largely true across the globe in terms of the ice free area of the earth, agriculture is, is the dominant land use. And it's certainly the case in Australia where 55% of Australia's land, land mass is, is devoted to agriculture. And, that is, is much greater proportion than other land uses that, that we find the great majority of that 55% is for livestock.

03:13 - It's, it's for cattle and sheep, pastoralism, or we'd call it ranching in, a North American vernacular. So agriculture dominates, the Australian continent to the point where we could liken it to a giant cattle station or a giant ranch. so we devote a huge, huge amount of, of the area of, of both the earth and, and Australia to both agriculture and specifically to, to livestock production. And in Australia's case, this is an, an import largely

03:49 - of colonization from the British whereby both owning a a cattle station or a ranch or, or a pastoral property was a very high status, activity as well as on the consumption side. Eating beef, was and is still associated, as a high status activity. But we're starting to see as, as the global population continues to grow, that, livestock intensive, diets, carrying a heavy environmental burden,

04:26 - there are certainly roles for livestock to play in agricultural systems, but in relation to the actual statistical and spatial reality of agricultural production, in Australia, and in most developed western nations, across the globe and, and also in, in the global south, we could say we do see a lot of problems coming from environmental problems coming from, from livestock production.

04:53 - And, and we see this, in, in the science as well. But the ironic thing perhaps is in the last half a century or so has industrialization of agriculture has occurred following what was termed the, the Green Revolution, which is not perhaps the most, accurate naming of, of that process of intensification and industrialization, of agricultural production and, very much a focus on synthetic modes of, of agricultural production as opposed to, the prior legacy of agriculture, which was, was largely

05:32 - organic in its production mode, certainly, prior to a century or so ago. So in this last half century whereby intensification, industrialization has, has occurred and, and certainly yields have, have gone up significantly in that time, as has the, the global human population. but what we see are images portrayed of agriculture that are still very much romantic. they're bucolic. We see agricultural tropes thrown about if we look on,

06:06 - TV or in social media or in marketing, on, on the packaging of our food labels, we see these, these romantic images of agriculture that I certainly argue and, and hopefully document, you know, in my research that, these, these are effectively superseded or outdated. Certainly when we look at the statistical and spatial actuality of, food production. So one of the things I've, done, to, to evidence this in my research is, I had the,

06:39 - privilege of, doing extensive field research across Australia, traveled 35,000 kilometers. I accrued over 10,000 drone images, and videos to document the, you might say, the visual state of the agricultural environment. it's available on a, on a website. And what you see is those images, that are on the website and thousand many thousands more that aren't on that website do not match the

07:09 - bucolic romantic agricultural images that we see. as I mentioned, you know, on our food packaging and in the marketing, that's broadcast on our screens, there's a couple of important points when we talk about urban agriculture. the first perhaps is differentiating urban agriculture from, we might say the, the global north or from western or from developed, nations, as opposed to the global south or, or developing nations where in the latter,

07:43 - it's very much a subsistence practice that helps a lot of people around the world, survive basically and, and, and gain their, their sustenance. Whereas in the global north, it, it largely depends upon the parameters of, of which we conceive of urban agriculture. So, I'm from a built environment, background, and so the definition of urban can constitute anywhere that that's a buildup area, whether that's a, a hamlet, a town, a village, through to the megalopolis, that,

08:19 - that we might live in. So I prefer to call, urban agriculture, metropolitan agriculture in the sense that a, a greater urban area or a city area, encompasses a range of food production modes. And so what we see, within this sort of metropolitan remit of, of, agricultural production is we see, peri-urban agriculture,

08:45 - which means agricultural production on the urban fringes, which is normally, commercial, and small holder, often intensive Vegetable production, and also, poultry, although both of those things are in decline as agriculture continues to industrialize and scale up its practices in, in most regions. And, and these larger, larger operations outcompete the smaller operations that we've traditionally seen on the urban fringes

09:16 - of cities. And so that is very much a different practice from, you might say, inner city urban agriculture, or it can be suburban, urban agriculture, which is often in the form of, in, in the UK or in Europe, allotment gardens in the US or Canada or Australia. it might be community gardens. And so I prefer to call that public urban agriculture. And the social dimensions of, of that form of, of

09:50 - food production are much more important, than we might say the economic, dimensions of, of that form of urban agriculture. In other words, it's the intergenerational knowledge transfer we get from growing food in a collaborative environment across different generations and age groups and cultural groups. And it's that, that high mind of sharing of skills and knowledge and tools that is the sort of central focus of, of that form of urban, urban agriculture.

10:19 - And so it's not so much about, making money or even necessarily the yields that we return from this. It's, it's very much in a broader, broader remit, in terms of the way we, we conceive of this. So they're often, combined confus or conflated. So I think it's good to, to kind of differentiate, are we talking about, social oriented urban agriculture in, in public spaces or on, in parks or in community gardens or allotments,

10:51 - or are we talking about, small holder commercial agriculture? that is very much about, you know, being, still being as profitable as possible to survive in, an agricultural system that is shifting more and more to what we might call competitive pro protectivism, which in essence means get big or get out. So it is very hard for small holders increasingly to, to remain economically viable. And so we're, we're seeing these, these shifts whereby

11:24 - we get community scale food production, and then we're getting bigger and bigger farms that are agglomerating multiple farms to produce food, at what you can say on one sense, a very efficient, but that also takes a lot of energy input to, to create that food and to grow it and to transport it, to urban areas where the majority of of people now live and, consume food. Yes, thanks. So I've done a, a range

11:54 - of research over the years that in essence looks at the notion of how we perceive agriculture to be this beautiful thing, in, in rural environments, you know, so some examples of that might be, people going to visit, a lavender farm or an orchard when it's in blossom or a vineyard. And so, and photographing themselves, putting themselves on social media or whatnot. And, and so there's a long legacy of

12:24 - of seeing agricultural landscapes, which are often, you know, large scale monocultures, single crops, you know, that kind of industrial production or certainly, earlier modes of, of of industrial agriculture production. We see these as, as often as as beautiful things, when we live in the city. But then, certainly in certain western contexts such as, as Australia, and, and other places, we can, there can be a disconnect.

13:01 - We can see when we see food production in urban areas, people can, can see it as as inappropriate activity. And this can relate to the history of, of, that food production I was talking about earlier on, on the fringes. So when urban areas expand and push up against food production, particularly livestock production, then there's clashes from, from smells and noise and dust and, you know, historically disease

13:28 - and unsanitary conditions. And so there, there's this, I guess, recent memory of, of urban agriculture, that kind of urban agriculture being inappropriate in an urban context, but we see it as this, this beautiful thing in a rural context. And there's, there's very reasons for that. But, if carefully designed and managed and maintained and prefe professionally executed, we can be inspired by these, you know, beautiful rural production landscapes,

13:59 - and they can, be translated in, into urban context, to help address some of those aesthetic shortcomings that, that we might see or associate with, for example, a, a community garden or allotment that can, can be kind of messy, or perceived as, as messy or unmet or inappropriate, in, in certain contexts, you know. But when we look at, some of the countries around the Mediterranean, for example, where we see, for example, fruit trees in, in both public parks

14:33 - and street scapes, you know, that that's seen as normal in, in, in some of those countries. Whereas, doing that in, in other contexts can be seen as, as both inappropriate and also as, as a risk, for liability, if someone Slips on a piece of fallen fruit, for example. So I guess the research that I've done in that vein tries to, interrogate the cultural lenses that, that we hold and, and also the aesthetic views that, that we hold. and then I guess the notion that, you know, it,

15:10 - it, it's a notion of sort of beauty in, in a wealthy city, you might say. Whereas as I mentioned in the global south, you know, food production is, is more about survival and the aesthetics don't, don't mess up. So, you know, it certainly can be, a concept, you know, in privileged context. But, again, when we think long term about the sustainability of our food systems, you know, I think there's, there's scope for, more crossover

15:39 - between those, those two polar opposites.

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