Today (2 September 2011) the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance made its submission to the National Food Plan Consultation, being conducted by the Federal Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Our submission challenged the core assumptions and general approach which the Issues Paper reflected, with the following paragraph summarising our perspective:
Basically, the main point we want to make is that the Issues Paper in its essential aspects and its core assumptions continues to perpetuate the comfortable presumption that the future will look much like the past, and therefore downplays the urgent need for change towards much more resilient, sustainable and fair food and farming systems. We need a National Food Plan that presents to the Australian public a convincing vision of food and farming systems that will successfully meet the pressing challenges of the present and the future. At the heart of this vision must lie the recognition that food is a basic human right that everyone is entitled to; it is not simply another commodity produced for export and profit.”
Download the full submission here: AFSA Response to the National Food Plan Issues Paper (Sep 2011).