There’s not a week that goes by when someone in the media isn’t talking about food supply and the worry of where it’s all going to come from by 2050.

Yet when I travelled around the major food-producing areas in 2010, what I mostly saw was massive under-production.

I remember being on a bus in Brazil after visiting a research station and the group were working out how much food was going to be produced by Brazil by 2035, given the current projections of agricultural growth.

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Not only was Brazil going to be the biggest food-producing nation in the world, but alone it could account for the extra food production required by 2050.

When travelling around the UK and Europe, I thought the amount of land that wasn’t being used for agriculture was very noticeable. The single farm payment system means that land just had to be farmed and there wasn’t the incentive to farm to its maximum potential.

And look at Africa, a continent that has arguably the richest agricultural land in the world – it produces almost nothing.

Here in Western Australia, without the interference of subsidies or regulation, we lead the world in water-use efficiency – maybe with the exception of Israel.

With some of the oldest and poorest soils in the world, farmers are increasing yields of grain crops, despite decreasing rainfall.

Many farmers are achieving 2t/ha crops on as little as 200mm, on land that in most places in the world would be classified as desert.

Food and its production are ultimately about price and profit. Farmers are not benevolent food providers. We produce enough to sustain our businesses and provide income for our own families.

When the price signals are right, we’ll put on more fertiliser and grow more food. Less-efficient farmers will be bought out and their farms will also hit peak profitable production.

Do I go to bed at night worrying about the world running out of food? No I don’t. All we need is the politicians to let us get on with the job.

Rob Warburton farms 3,000ha with his wife, Jen, and two daughters in Kojonup, south of Perth, in Western Australia. Cropping includes wheat, barley and oilseed rape. Wildflower seed is grown for retail. Merino sheep are reared for wool and meat