Eighth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

To understand the circumstances of present agro-systems needs an understanding of the historical and ecological factors that influenced their development. Western Australia colonisation and environmental change began in 1829 and was ecologically a consumer front. State Government policies supported changing the landscape to culminate in large scale industrialized agricultural systems producing large amounts of simple foods from crop monocultures based on wheat. Pastures for sheep and cattle, were created by terraforming country labeled as ‘wilderness wastelands.’ The clear at all costs attitude continued until the 1980s, when the last vast areas of mallee–heath and mallee woodlands were cleared along the South- East Coast of WA in the Esperance bioregion. This was encouraged despite clear evidence-based predictions of future land degradation problems, especially from salinity.