Export trade feeds balance sheets but Markets feed households.

From Global Trade Floors to Local Markets: What Gulfood Reveals About Australia’s Food Reality Each year, Gulfood presents Australia to the world as a premium food nation. Safe. Sustainable. Scalable. Export ready. At Gulfood, Australian food and beverage companies appear under national pavilions supported by trade agencies, exporters, and government agreements such as the Australia–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. The message is clear. Australia is positioned as a reliable supplier capable of feeding fast growing global markets with consistent, high quality food. That message is true. But it is only part of the story. Because while Australia presents itself internationally through scale, aggregation, and export logistics, the food system Australians rely on every week looks very different. It looks like farmers markets. Australia Abroad: Scale and Trade The Gulfood article shows how Australia’s presence in Dubai is carefully structured. Pavilions highlight premium produce, red meat, dairy, seafood, grains, and branded food products. These are usually presented through industry bodies, large processors, or export focused aggregators. This is how global trade operates. International buyers need certainty. They need volume, compliance, logistics, and consistency. Gulfood is not designed for fragmented supply. It is designed for countries to present the most scalable and organised version of their food systems. Australia performs well in this space because it has invested for decades in export infrastructure that speaks the language of global trade. But this export focused version of Australia is not the food economy most Australians engage with day to day. Australia at Home: Small and Human Now step away from an international expo and into a local Australian farmers market. What you find is not scale, but closeness. Not aggregation, but direct connection. Not branding exercises, but people. Most stallholders at Australian markets are small operators. Family farms. Sole traders. Micro producers. Growers selling directly to customers. These businesses are not built for export. They are built for community. They operate on thin margins. They carry weather risk, transport costs, labour shortages, and compliance pressures. At the same time, they are expected to deliver transparency, trust, and affordability. This is not a side activity. This is the real food interface for millions of Australians. The Quiet Reality Export trade feeds balance sheets. Farmers markets feed households. While national discussions often focus on export growth, domestic food security depends on short supply chains, direct relationships between producers and consumers, regional distribution, and many small producers rather than a few large ones. Farmers markets reduce reliance on long logistics chains. They keep producers visible. They keep food pricing grounded. They keep food cultural and local, not abstract. Yet these markets, and the people who operate within them, are rarely central to national trade narratives. Two Systems, One Country What Gulfood unintentionally highlights is that Australia operates two food systems at the same time. One is international. Export driven. Capital intensive. Politically supported. Highly consolidated. The other is domestic. Driven by small and medium businesses. Labour intensive. Risk heavy. Deeply embedded in communities. Both systems matter. But only one is regularly described as strategic. Markets & Fairs exists to document and give visibility to the second system. The one that is often overlooked, but essential. Why This Matters As global trade accelerates and food becomes more financialised, the risk is not that Australia exports too much. The risk is that local food systems become invisible by comparison. When small producers disappear, resilience weakens. When markets struggle, communities lose more than places to shop. They lose access, transparency, and connection. International expos like Gulfood show how Australia wants to be seen overseas. Farmers markets show how Australia actually eats. The Role of Markets & Fairs Markets & Fairs is not anti export. It is not anti trade. It is not anti growth. Its role is to ensure that the people who feed Australia every weekend are not erased from the national conversation. Growers, makers, bakers, farmers, and stallholders. If Gulfood is where Australia speaks to the world, then markets are where Australia speaks to itself. Both stories matter. But they are not the same story.