Good morning CVELU,

They say you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket so why are we putting all our food in one market?

That’s the question farmers are asking about Australia’s trading relationship with China, our biggest export destination by a country mile.

The Asian giant alone consumed almost 23 per cent of Australia’s total agricultural exports in 2023-24, valued at nearly $16.2 billion. 

On the face of it the massive Chinese capacity for our world class fresh produce looks like a gift horse — seemingly insatiable demand from a giant single market right here in our region.

But as the events of 2020 showed, it is more like a Trojan horse.

So reliant are our primary producers on this one single market that when a truculent Beijing slapped its trade barriers on Australian beef, barley, wine and seafood — an absurd trade war in retaliation for Australia questioning the origins of the Covid 19 virus — exporters struggled to find replacement markets and many individual farmers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And while trading relations have normalised since then it is only a matter of time before a new flashpoint arises, with China increasingly belligerent over Taiwan and the South China Sea and openly intimidating Australian military crews.

That’s why the nation’s peak farming body is calling for Australia to proactively explore other major trading partnerships like India and south east Asia, both to tap into emerging markets and to reduce our reliance on an unpredictable superpower.

Or we could take a leaf out of the book of one NSW farmer who has cast their gaze even further afield.

Aquna Sustainable Murray Cod is now selling its prized caviar-producing fish to the luxury Middle East market after receiving Halal certification, laying out a crisp white tablecloth for the premium product in restaurants and hotels across the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, for those of us at home Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page has come up with another reason to buy Australian-made.

Forget that it’s better for the economy, better for jobs and better for the nation. Page says customers should buy Australian products because they are just better full stop.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.