Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

Progressive Dinner in Sunbury: A Fair Food Week Preview

by

sunbury-prog-dinnerThere are rumblings across the country. Murmurings and whisperings of plans afoot as preparations for Fair Food Week gather pace. Buoyed by the success of last year, organisers are putting together fun and innovative events that capture the themes of the week.

One interesting collaboration is being planned in Victoria. The Sunbury Community Health Centre, as part of the Healthy Together Hume program, is arranging a whole week of events culminating in a progressive dinner on the final Saturday night.

“We’re planning a dinner across three restaurants in O’Shaunessy Street, which has become a little dining strip in Sunbury. An entree at one, a main at another and culminating in desert at Just Planet,” says Bernadette Hetherington of Sunbury Community Health. “The progressive dinner is really about the discussion along the way. We hope people come ready to talk about the food system around them.”

It’s part of a program of events that aim to raise awareness of the local food system and support community members to take an active approach it. They will also host a produce swap, a raw cooking class and a film night to engage the community with the Fair Food Week theme 'Supporting Local Food Projects'.

“For us Fair Food Week is about Showcasing what Sunbury is doing to promote a healthy food system,” says Hetherington.

[button_link url="http://fairfoodweek.org.au/event/fair-foodies-progressive-dinner/" target="blank" style="" title="" class="" id="" onclick=“”] Visit Fair Food Week website for more detail [/button_link]

A journey, a conversation cafe, a garden

by

Story by Russ Grayson, May 2014

"Bring some warm clothes, it's getting cold in the mountains this time of year... and, oh, we'll se stopping at Penrith where I have a job interview... shouldn't take more than half an hour".

And so a somewhat convoluted and lengthy journey to the Blue Mountains starts when Virginia picks me up from home that warm afternoon in late May and we navigate our way across town to Parramatta Road.

Penrith bound

The Great Western Highway starts where Parramatta Road stops, and we follow it to the once-was-a-town, now a suburb, of Penrith.

I wander the main street while Virginia does her job interview. It's been years since I've set foot in the place though I've bypassed it many times on my way west to the mountains, yet as I walk the main strip in search of a decent-looking coffee stop I quickly realise that Penrith is an economically depressed sort of place... there are few people on the street, business seems slow in the underpopulated shops I walk past and the place has that seen-better-days feel. It was later that Virginia told me that the region around Penrith is low-socioeconomic. I believe her and, I wonder, what sort of economic development program could lift the prospects of local people?

Fortunately, I find a decent cafe at the end of the main commercial strip... black walls, dim lighting, two smart young women, friendly and clad appropriately in black dresses competently running it. The rest of my time in town I spend sitting in the park as the fading light of day tinges the canopy of the cabbage tree and Canary Island date palms yellow, as day heads towards evening and as Virginia's half-hour job interview passes the hour-and-more span.

Then it's off towards the Blue Mountains... only... only... "Oh, I forgot... I forget to get wine in Sydney... and petrol too... look–we're running on empty!... I'll drive carefully so we don't use much of whatever fuel might be left... I'm sure we'll make it to the service station at Glenbrook", Virginia says with an air of surprise in her voice as we exit Penrith, turn onto the highway again and as Virginia accelerates with what seems to me to be somewhat less than 'careful' in regard to consumption of our remaining fuel. I retain my skepticism at her optimism.

On to Lawson

Some might call it preaching to the converted, my talk about the work of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance with Permaculture/Transition Blue Mountains there in the community centre in Lawson that night. To think that, though, is to misunderstand how social change works. Just as throwing a pebble into a pond produces ripples of energy across its surface, so talking with groups already involved in the sort of things you are talking about is akin to that pebble spreading ripples of knowledge and motivation across the social milieu... that's why it's called the 'ripple effect'. Those sort of talks are essentially educational and motivational rather than informational.

Blue Mountains conversation cafe May 2014

First things first, though, and it's the shared evening meal that provides the tasty introduction to the evening. After that I ask a couple questions designed to gauge the readiness of the group for what I would talk about—what their level of knowledge is. Here's the questions:

  1. What is your interest in food (other than the obvious)?
  2. What do you understand by the term ‘food sovereignty’?

The response influences what you talk about and how you talk about it. So, I spoke briefly about:

  •  the history of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance as an accidental organisation set up to write a letter to the agriculture minister back in 2010 to encourage him to include small business, community food systems and family farmers in his proposed National Food Plan, and how that led to its establishment as a food education and advocacy organisation
  • the Alliance's activities, projects and campaigns.

That done, it's time to stop talking and to start people acting. So, with the assistance of Virginia and Katoomba online maven and community gardener, Kat, I set three different questions to people at three different tables for them to work on. After awhile, they swap tables and after doing that twice they have all had a go at all of the questions. And those questions:

  1. What are some of the issues around fair food in the Blue Mountains?
  2. Which organisations are contributing to food sovereignty in the Blue Mountains?
  3. Fair Food Week—what could we do were our organisation to choose to participate in Fair Food Week 2014?

Those in the know about this sort of stuff will recognise the first two as 'mapping' questions devised to describe the existing situation. The latter is speculative.

The event was quite convivial, with all there avidly participating. The ideas, written by participants on sheets of A1 flip chart paper, I brought back to Sydney to write up, retaining a copy for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and returning a copy to the host organisations for their own use.

For the Alliance, the information paints an image of the state of the fair food movement in the Blue Mountains. It will feed into what we do and how we do it.

Plum trees and farewells

It's been good, after overnighting at Virginia and Fraser's house in Katoomba, to go with her for a look at the Blue Mountains Community Garden with its collection of heritage apple trees.

blue-mtns-garden-may14
Mark, Michael and Virginia — regulars at Blue Mountains Community Garden

The apples and fruit trees there, the plums and the nuts and the hazelnut trees, have by this time in the season shed most of their foliage, bringing a cold and almost forlorn look to the community garden. That's brightened, though, by the appearance of Michael and Fred, two friendly middle aged guys who spend two days a week each in the garden working on their projects. Seemingly, community gardens cultivate social friendships as well as fruit and nuts.

Farewells are usually sad affairs even when they're temporary. That's how I feel now that I've said farewell to Virginia and watched her turn her vehicle westward towards Blackheath, as I turn on foot to check out the city, something I haven't done for some time. It's good to find Katoomba's long-running food co-op still there behind its shopfront, to have a conversation with the guy at Summit Equipment about how they manufacture adventure equipment right here in Katoomba and, unlike Penrith, to find a multitude of coffee shops dotting the main street.

Oh, yes... that warm clothing Virginia told me to bring, it stayed in my bag all the time I was there (even the locals commented on the unseasonably warm weather)... and that journey running on empty from Penrith to Glenbrook... my pessimism was wrong and Virginia's optimism was right... we just made it... maybe her driving was more careful and moderate than I thought. I never mentioned that to her and, if she ever reads this, I guess I'll have to offer her an apology for ever having such dire thoughts about her driving.

Download presentaton handout and conversation cafe notes

AFSA presentation blue mountains[button_link url="http://afsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/AFSA-presentation-blue-mtns.pdf" target="blank" style="" title="" class="" id="" onclick=""] Download 655 KB pdf of AFSA presentaton Blue Moutains — May 2014 [/button_link]

 

AFSA-presentation-blue-mtns-notes-1[button_link url="http://afsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/AFSA-presentation-blue-mtns-notes.pdf" target="blank" style="" title="" class="" id="" onclick=""] Download 879 KB pdf of AFSA presentaton notes — Blue Moutains, May 2014 [/button_link]

 

 

 

Join our National Coordinating Team for Fair Food Week 2014

by

ffw-2014-250x279We're now updating the Fair Food Week 2014 website for it to go live in early July.

For Fair Food Week 2013, we came together in a national coordinating team to make the week happen. That worked. Now, we want to do it again.

Here's our idea...

  • a team of volunteers in each city, state and territory would act as primary points of contact for local groups and organisations that want to host Fair Food Week events
  • members of this national coordinating team could consider their availability as state media contacts for Fair Food Week; AFSA will provide briefing notes, talking points and other relevant information and support
  • we are also looking for AFSA members and supporters at the local level who would be willing to act as contacts for local media; again, we will provide support and assistance.

For the national coordinating team, the commitment is to be available for an approximately two hour  Skype call once a month from July-October and to be in regular email and online contact during that period.

If you are interested or would like to know more, contact AFSA National Coordinator Nick Rose on:

[message_box type="note" icon="yes"]

Our Fair Food Week 2014 themes...

For Fair Food Week 2014 we have four themes for organising our events around.

Fair Food Week event organisers are asked to plan their event around at least one of the themes. For example, ‘Beyond the trolley’ could be combined with ‘Grow our urban agriculture’ so as to offer a solution to a problem facing smaller farmers producing for the domesic market.

The themes were chosen because they seem most relevant to the fair food situation in Australia at the present time.

Theme 1: Beyond the trolley

Support your local farmers and food businesses — fair food shopping and eating

Concentrating economic power is seldom a good idea. It’s even less of a good idea when that power controls what we and our families eat.

But that’s the situation we have today in Australia where two supermarket chains control more than 70 percent of the national grocery market. It’s not only the reality that what they offer their customers is a limited choice — a diet chosen by the supermarket buyers — it’s also that they use unfair marketing tactics to reduce small business opportunity and treat the farmers and Australian food processors that supply them in ways that are being increasingly questioned.

A fair food system in Australia would do otherwise…

>>> read more

Theme 2: Support your local community fair food projects and groups

Organise a fundraiser for a group that missed out on the Community Food
Grants or other food project or group you’d like to support

Where government fails, communities can succeed.

That’s the potential Fair Food Week 2014 offers event organisers across the country. Fair Food Week celebrates community self-help food initiatives such as:

  • food co-operatives
  • community supported agriculture
  • food rescue
  • farmers’ markets and the rest.

Fair Food Week 2014 is the opportunity to raise funds for community food initiatives denied promised funding when the federal government cancelled the Community Food Grants scheme.

>>> read more

Theme 3: Grow our urban agriculture

Encourage your Council to establish a food policy or support campaigns for Local Food Acts in your state

Cities feeding themselves? Seems a strange idea but it’s been the reality for a good many of the fresh foods urban people eat. Now, it might be a fading prospect unless citizens influence their governments to take timely and positive action.

>>> read more

Theme 4: Support gasfield-free communities

City and town dwellers connect with farmers and rural communities asserting their food sovereignty in the face of government and industry demands to hand over land for fracking

Farm land or gas land?

That’s the choice facing farmers when coal seam gas miners demand they hand over their land for gas extraction. It’s also a choice when miners demand access to public land like state forest and other government land.

Now, farmers and urban people are saying ENOUGH! and are forming alliances to retain farmland for farming and public land for less damaging uses.

>>> read more

[/message_box]

Did you miss out on the Community Food Fund grant? Let’s know

by

Fair Food Week 2014ONE OF OUR THEMES FOR FAIR FOOD WEEK this year will be — Supporting your local community fair food projects and groups — organise a fundraiser for a group that missed out on the Community Food Fund grants or other food project or group you’d like to support.

In February, the Federal Government axed the $1.5 mn Community Food Fund that was part of the National Food Plan.

364 groups around Australia applied for grants under this fund.

If you are from one of those groups, or you know of someone who applied, please let us know.

We want to profile and support you as part of Fair Food Week 2014.

[button_link url="mailto:admin@afsa.org.au" target="" style="" title="" class="" id="" onclick=""]Email and let us know if you missed out on the Community Food Fund grants[/button_link]

 

[message_box type="note" icon="yes" ]

Theme 2: Support your local community fair food projects and groups

Organise a fundraiser for a group that missed out on the Community Food Grants or other food project or group you’d like to support

Where government fails, communities can succeed.

That’s the potential Fair Food Week 2014 offers event organisers across the country. Fair Food Week celebrates community self-help food initiatives such as:

  • food co-operatives
  • community supported agriculture
  • food rescue
  • farmers’ markets and the rest.

Fair Food Week 2014 is the opportunity to raise funds for community food initiatives denied promised funding when the federal government cancelled the Community Food Grants scheme.


WoolloomoolooCG-09-12

[/message_box]

 

Our Cafe Conversation — talking food over food

by

Story by Russ Grayson, April 2014

DARK AND HUMID it might have been in Sydney last Friday evening, the weather didn't stop a small but convivial gathering of members and friends of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance at Glebe's Badde Manors cafe.

The gathering — the first Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance Cafe Conversation in Sydney — was organised last-minute with only a day's notice. The idea was to create an opportunity for people meet the Alliance's coordinator, Nick Rose, and president — farmer, Michael Croft — and to participate in a discussion about a Local Food Act for NSW, not dissimilar to the campaign to introduce an Act in Victoria, as well as catch up with other initatives and news about the Alliance.

As Virginia, who works with a national permaculture organisation, topped up my wine glass yet again I said in my introduction to the evening that it was interesting that here we were gathered around food to talk about that very thing.

Why an Act?

The idea of a Local Food Act is to create the legislative framework in which the emerging local food, or fair food movement — whatever your preferred term — can develop and thrive. Potentially, an Act would address food production and distribution from farm soil thorough processing and distribution and, through the processing of food wastes, back to the farmer's soil.

The ACT would benefit not only the community food systems spreading like edible fungus through our towns and cities, but mainstream farmers, livestock producers and food processors producing for Australia's domestic market. Presumably, it would address issues presently troubling farmers and those that eat what they produce and search for ways to provide a good financial return to farmers in return for supplying good quality food at affordable prices to urban eaters.

Good things to come — Fair Food Week 2014

Another topic of conversation was Fair Food Week and how we could improve it this year. The national event spans 10-19 October and is a largely-self-organising initiative in which participating organisation plan events in their local area or promote already-planned events as Fair Food Week activities. These they place on the Fair Food Week website.

Last year’s Fair Food Week was the first and attracted an estimated 15,000 people to over 100 events around the country.

Organisations interested in joining the national event this year are invited to place their event on the website when it is launched for 2014.

First of more?

The Alliance's Cafe Conversation followed that informal format we developed some years ago for Transition Sydney Cafe Conversations — introductions around the table followed by ten or so minutes for the guests — Nick and Michael — to tell their story, followed by Q&A.

The success of the evening on such short notice suggests that we may be able to temporarily corral other interesting visitors to our city so that local people can meet them and so all can expand their networks of mutual good.

Let's know in the comments window below — would you be interested in attending future cafe conversations in an accessible, moderately priced cafe near the city centre?

Newsletter

Become a member

Join or renew

Recent posts