Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

Join us in Canberra for the 2017 Food Sovereignty Convergence!

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Join us in Canberra on the 23rd and 24th October 2017 for two days of debate, stories, analysis, sharing, strategising and planning, all in the cause of building a fair food system for all Australians! Farmers, consumer advocates, right to food activists, urban agriculturalists, educators, communicators, innovators - whoever you are, wherever you're from - if you see yourself as part of Australia's food sovereignty movement, this is for you!

Food sovereignty asserts the right of peoples to nourishing and culturally appropriate food produced and distributed in ecologically sound and ethical ways, and their right to collectively determine their own food and agriculture systems. 

The Food Sovereignty Convergence will begin on Monday with a discussion on indigenous food sovereignty and land sovereignty led by Ngambri man Shane Mortimer. We will then move into a discussion about the global food sovereignty movement led by AFSA President Tammi Jonas, who has recently returned from the VIIth International Conference of La Via Campesina (the international peasant farmers' movement) and meetings of the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the UN.

The majority of Monday and Tuesday will be MC'd by Alex Bayley in unconference style - How does this work?

Early in the day, we will have an unconference scheduling period where people can propose sessions.

Proposed sessions will be scheduled using large post-it notes on the wall, and facilitators will help ensure that sessions have as little overlap or conflict as possible.  Sometimes, two sessions may be combined together if the topics are similar.

At the end of the day, we’ll come back together for a closing session to gather feedback and talk about what we’ve gained from the day’s activities.

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Tuesday afternoon, details TBC.

Sunday night, we will gather at local restaurant A. Baker, sharing seasonal food and drinks and meeting with our hosts for the next few days. This is a self-funded dinner/drinks.

On Monday night, Convergence attendees will gather at Canberra City Farm for a potluck dinner. Tickets are also sold separately for this event. The evening will begin with a tour of Canberra City Farm followed by the main event:

Bruce Pascoe, author of the acclaimed Dark Emu, and regenerative farmer Tammi Jonas discussing 'how we can reconcile indigenous land management with the new movement of farmers' regenerative land management'.

2 days convergence (including potluck dinner) $110
2 days convergence (govt)(including potluck dinner) $160

Potluck dinner only $20

Lunch and refreshments will be provided for both days of the Convergence so please let us know if you have any dietary requirements via email at admin@afsa.org.au. You can also email us for information about interstate and local car pooling or if you're interested in being billeted within the local community.

This event is not a fundraiser, however, you're welcome to donate to the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance's Legal Defence Fund when you purchase a ticket.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Book now!

23 and 24 Oct 2017
09:00 AM - 4:00 PM

LOCATION

Burringiri Culture Centre
245 Lady Denman Dr Canberra Central ACT 2602

CONTACT DETAILS

admin@afsa.org.au

A few changes for the AFSA National Committee

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Earlier this month, AFSA sadly farewelled Sally Ruljancich and Chris Balazs from the National Committee due to changed circumstances for both of them.

Sally was co-opted onto the Committee mid-2016, and served as President from October 2016, bringing a wealth of knowledge around fundraising, and promoting the principles of food sovereignty and AFSA’s objectives both on her own farm and her work for the Committee.

Chris has served as both Vice President and Secretary over nearly two years, and has contributed his knowledge and experience as a small-scale farmer with on-farm processing to the growing movement of farmers taking control of their value chains. He has been an ongoing support on the Executive, and we are grateful for his willingness to just get in and do whatever work needed to be done.

Thank you, Chris and Sally, for your contributions and commitment to working for a fair food future for Australia!

The Committee has appointed Tammi Jonas as interim President and Katarina Munksgaard as interim Vice President to serve until the AGM in October, which will take place at the Food Sovereignty Convergence to be held in Canberra 23-24 October.

AFSA also has several new committee members including Penny Kothe of Caroola Farm as secretary, Deepa Dureja as treasurer and Katie Johnston as Communications Officer. Phil Stringer of Tamworth Flyers is stepping into the role of Chair for Fair Food Farmers United.

Cheers from the AFSA team!

Strategic Report

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AFSA Strategic Retreat, Lorne, December 2016

The AFSA National Committee gathered in Victoria’s Lorne for almost two days of reflection on the year past, some pretty incredible food, and the rare space to think deeply about 2017. We’ve come away from the retreat renewed in our commitment to create and fight for a democratic and resilient food system - one based on agroecological principles which nourish a community of eaters connected to their food supply and the people who grow it.

For all eaters and growers, whether urban, regional or rural dweller, food which is accessible, clean, nourishing and delicious is a right not a privilege. Food which is grown with the building of the soil’s health in mind, with the rights of the workers of the land in mind, with the ethical treatment of the animal in mind, and with the well being of the farmers in mind – these are the things we must continue to fight for.

Unfair, inconsistent regulations, illogical planning laws, a lack of transparency in labelling (including ingredients, GMOs and country of origin), food deserts, lack of education around cooking whole foods in season - these issues abound. If we do not continue to push back against the heavy-handed regulatory creep and continued erosion of our democratic rights as food eating citizens, we stand to further lose a genuine farming culture and supply of food which benefits us all.

AFSA’s mandate for 2017 is to support, raise funds for, and run the Legal Defence Fund (LDF) and to continue to cultivate the nexus between farmers, producers, and eaters, by way of advocating food hubs, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and other direct models of sale.

In thinking about the relationships between small producers and eaters, AFSA would like to see the creation of more CSAs. A solidarity economy brings the risks and rewards of real food production and distribution into sharp relief, whilst popular in Japan, North America, Europe, and many other parts of the world, it is a system not well known in Australia. What can we do to change that?

It’s that old chestnut of education. AFSA will be talking more about eating seasonally, ethically, and the benefits of solidarity economies with small-scale producers. As multiple AFSA committee members are small producers who offer CSA shares within their own farming practices, we are well-placed to provide forums for advice and discussions on how they best work, how to get them up and running, and how to market them. Let’s not lose any opportunity to mentor and “grow the growers”. As a personal aside, my family farm, Colin and Sally’s released its first CSA shares on January 1 2017, and we sold all of them within 11 hours. This highlights the incredible opportunities that exist for small producers to better connect with their eating community. The need and the want are there. AFSA is a member of Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture and we will be sharing more resources over 2017 as a way in which to better educate and support this method of exchange between farmer and consumer. A system of economy which better supports the relationship of eater to producer, eater to the seasons, and the economic strength of a local community is the healthiest of food systems.

Sounds simple. Should be. Unfortunately, regulatory overreach in the planning laws, lack of access to abattoirs (for poultry in particular), and overly burdensome and expensive processes are standing in the way of many small producers from feeding their communities. A decline in confidence in the kitchen, a persistent uncomfortable reliance on supermarkets due to convenience and a price model that disrespects every aspect of the growing of the food, and a lack of awareness of just what it takes and what it costs, environmentally and ethically, for an item of produce to go from tractor to trolley, these issues need highlighting and addressing. Alternative models of purchasing will be championed heavily in 2017.

2017 will see AFSA continue to run and fundraise for the LDF. Having now ratified the LDF’s Terms of Reference at the last AGM, a Steering Committee is being established and legal expertise drawn upon, in efforts to both address current illogical planning regulations and producers’ regulatory burden and to anticipate where next we might focus our energies. After a successful crowdfunding start, which many of you may have supported directly, we have the funds to commence the LDF’s work in earnest in 2017. This will be expensive but essential work for argoecological farming systems to fight for their rightful place in the food system

So. Perhaps you have already heard, or perhaps this finds me the bearer of some pretty exciting news, but in late-February 2017 AFSA is hosting a fundraiser for the LDF at Jonai Farms, near Daylesford, with the amazing Joel Salatin, in all his cowboy-hatted, intellectual, straight-talking glory. Jonai Farm embodies many of the values AFSA is fighting for; a resilient, diverse family farm that utilises many of Polyface’s teachings about using animals for optimum soil health, respecting the ‘pigness of the pig’, with control of their supply chain in their on-farm boning room and farm gate shop, plus a thriving CSA that has already demonstrated the value of the model by supporting them through a period of low fertility in their herd. The Save the Date is here. AFSA members will get first dibs on tickets which will be released for sale in the very early new year, so if you are not a paid-up member, we invite you to join us.

Moving along the calendar year and the AFSA National Committee has committed to shaking things up at the Fair Food Convergence and AGM in October 2017. To be held in Canberra, we are hoping a number of committee members will be able to conduct a few whistlestops along the way, collecting stories from eaters and small producers, with the idea of presenting our experiences, grievances and recommendations on fair and agroecological ways forward, to members of Parliament during their sitting week. A Fair Food Convergence, converging on Parliament – brilliant. We’ll let you know more in the new year what this will look like, and a Save the Date will be up soon.

By becoming a member of AFSA, you are committing to support the volunteer national committee achieve its mandate. Whilst we do seek out services for AFSA in the pro bono space, and we most certainly are reliant on these amazing volunteers, there are a range of needs that AFSA cannot acquire without funds. Pamphlets and other collateral, website maintenance and server costs, funding committee members to travel to conferences and speak at events – all to further grow the food sovereignty movement in Australia.

A membership-based organisation can be powerful, but in order to sit on the world stage, we need to turn up. In 2016 Fair Food Farmers United (FFFU), the farmers' branch of AFSA, was officially accepted as a member of La Via Campesina (LVC), the leading voice of the global food sovereignty movement. LVC brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. AFSA is also a proud member of both the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty and Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture. These connections put AFSA in a strong position within the global food sovereignty movement. By joining us as a member, you will be invited to have your say every year about what the issues are that we will focus on. There’s strength in numbers.

At the AFSA retreat in Lorne, there was an article and idea we kept coming back to, which was Toward thick legitimacy: Creating a web of legitimacy for agroecology - “To achieve real change in how food is produced and eaten, we need to change people’s expectations of what “normal” agriculture should look like”. Like Joel Salatin, Maywa Montenegro and Alastair Iles argue that our movement needs to change the narrative. The industrial food system has failed us, and to add insult to injury, along the way they have usurped the narrative of normalcy and justified the failures as only modernity, nothing to worry about, just keep moving “forward”.

The many allies who’ve come together to make up AFSA today haven’t bought into the lie. The industrial food system is harming people, the environment, and our barometer of normal. Rather than continually positioning ourselves as the alternative, let’s remember that a regenerative and agroecological approach to food production was the norm until recently; industrial agriculture is the new, albeit powerful beast that requires the checks and balances proportionate to the risks that it has inflicted upon all areas of the food system. It’s time to redress the narrative.

As always, I thank the AFSA committee for their intelligence, time spent away from family and businesses, and their commitment to change. Onwards!

A peek into the mind of Joel Salatin is a fitting place to finish, this should whet your appetite for late-February: “From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems”.

 

Sally Ruljancich

President

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

 

 

2017 AFSA Committee Members

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President:

Sally Ruljancich

Sally Ruljancich has worked in fundraising for over 8 years at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to this position, she was a research assistant at the University of Melbourne for The Encyclopaedia of Melbourne and a postgraduate in the field of history. Her PhD thesis [incomplete but never forgotten] was on the regulation of the food supply of Melbourne, circa 1860-1920.

Sally is also one half of Colin and Sally’s Organic Lamb and Beef, a direct to consumer, grass-fed and certified organic farm-to-fork business. Together over the last three years they have built Colin and Sally’s, farming on 81 acres of their own land and leasing two other farms nearby.

Starting their business was a way to more fully engage with a community of conscientious meat eaters and has increasingly alerted Sally to the need for thoughtful advocacy around issues of the rights of small producers, food sovereignty and food hubs.

 

Vice President:

Chris Balazs

Chris is a first generation farmer. Starting with a small herd of Herefords, Chris has expanded his paddock to plate business (SageChoice) to run a sustainable business supplying ethically raised grass fed beef and lamb through a network of like-minded farmers to the local community. Passionate about ethical livestock farming and ethical meat consumption - you will find him at VFMA markets talking and advocating the need for people to understand where their food comes from and how consumers have the power to change the food paradigm for the better. Chris comes from a corporate background having worked in a large pharmaceutical company for over 18 years. Now having left the corporate life behind, Chris is primarily focused on the farming and food production. Trained and educated as a scientist, Chris is also passionate about continual education having recently completed a MBA, he brings fresh thinking to traditional farming. Years of business, management and science experience is being used to help improve and create a sustainable farming future.

 

FFFU Chair:

Tammi Jonas 

Current AFSA President Tammi Jonas is nominating for Chair of Fair Food United (FFFU) for 2017 to continue to lend her strong female farmer’s voice to the fight for food sovereignty in Australia.

Tammi considers herself an ethicurean farmer, mindful meatsmith, and agrarian intellectual. Along with her hypercompetent husband and three #orsmkids, she raises rare breed Large Black pigs, a motley crew of cattle, and Australorp chickens on the volcanic soils of central Victoria at Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths.

Former vegetarian academic Tammi does whole-carcass butchering on the farm (thanks to two successful crowdfunding campaigns to build a boning room, commercial kitchen, & curing room), and sells their ethical pork and beef predominantly through a thriving CSA (community-supported agriculture).

Jonai Farms is an ethically viable no-growth model – Tammi often says we need to multiply our farms, not scale them, to support more people working the land fairly and to revive rural communities and local food economies.

Tammi has been writing about food culture, ethics and politics since 2006 at her blog Tammi Jonas: Food Ethics, and speaks regularly on food sovereignty at public events, on radio, and in print media. She is also a founding member of Fair Food Farmers United (FFFU), the producers' branch of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA).

Jonai Farms features in Australia’s first food politics documentary Fair Food, and Tammi also has a chapter in the anthology Fair Food, published by UQ Press.

As President over the past two years Tammi has worked solidly for fair and consistent regulation of farming and food production and distribution, and is leading a process to establish a Legal Defence Fund to protect and promote the right of people to determine their own food and agriculture systems. The Legal Defence Fund campaign has more than doubled AFSA’s membership over the past year.

During Tammi’s time as President, AFSA was influential in triggering the 2015 review of PrimeSafe, the Victorian meat regulator, resulting in 24 recommendations for improvement of its regulation of the meat industry.

She has helped AFSA establish its voice and authority on a range of issues and secured frequent meetings with a number of politicians to lobby for significant reform, as well as leading the process for submissions to government inquiries, including the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the impact of regulation on agriculture, and the Victorian Government’s Animal Industries Advisory Committee, which has just released its report that includes recommendations for more scale-appropriate application of the planning scheme around extensive and intensive animal husbandry.

Tammi has also had the privilege to attend a variety of meetings of the global food sovereignty movement, including the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty meeting in Gujarat in August 2015, Urgenci: the International Network for Community-Supported Agriculture outside Beijing in November 2015, Slow Meat in Denver in June 2015, the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) in Kuala Lumpur in March 2016, and Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Turin in September 2016. She helped lead the process to gain membership of the leading voice of the global food sovereignty movement La Via Campesina (LVC) in August 2016. LVC brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world.

The extent of Tammi’s work in Australia and internationally has deepened and broadened her understanding of the issues in the food system locally and globally and she is keen to continue applying that knowledge and experience to assist farmers and eaters, AFSA, the FFFU and the global food sovereignty movement in the role of FFFU Chair.

 

Ordinary Committee Members:


Ben McMenamin

Ben McMenamin is a chef, social entrepreneur and founder of the Social Food Project. Having worked as a chef for over 10 years and gained a degree from RMIT, Ben has come to realise the power that food has to bring people together and catalyse social change.

Ben has cooked with a number of great social initiatives including the Food Know How project, Scarf Community Dinners, Give a Fork Sustainable Seafood lunch, OzHarvest and more! His work as a food educator has taken him all over Australia presenting at sustainability conferences and community festivals.

Ben's passion for food and education is matched only by his love of gardening! While at RMIT, Ben started a student project called Greening RMIT dedicated to creating more urban gardens and increasing food literacy on campus. He has hosted numerous gardening workshops and cooking demonstrations for students and staff alike.

In 2016, Ben joined the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance as the Membership Officer and Co-founded the Fair Food Challenge, to promote a more fair, healthy and accessible food system.

 

Jo Hall

Jo Hall was co-opted as National Secretary to the AFSA National Committeein May 2016, with a view to assisting with the Legal Defence Fund and governance processes.

Jo is a lawyer with over 10 years’ experience, currently working in public health, with previous experience in commercial real estate, planning and environment law. Jo also has significant experience working with not-for-profit organisations, including incorporation, governance and tax implications.

Jo has a strong focus on governance with significant experience as a Board Secretary and Company Secretary in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. Jo is also a Director on the Board of 3000acres; a charity aiming to bridge the gap between people who want to grow food, and local councils and other organisations who hold the keys to vacant land.

Jo is also a landowner in rural Victoria in the early stages of creating a sustainable market garden business with her partner. Jo is passionate about food sovereignty and in particular, building the Legal Defence Fund into an incredible resource for Australian farmers.

 

Samantha Hawker

Samantha is a lover of local food, natural living and resilient communities and believes that food is an entry point to something bigger. She is frustrated by food waste, over the top bureaucracy, food miles and fake food and tries to live her values every day. Sam and Frank (Green & Gleaned) use rocket stoves and hay boxes to cook their food, grow, forage and preserve most of their fruit, vegetables, funghi and meat and get a small number of things from local farmers practicing regenerative methods.

Sam has been the market manager of the Southern Harvest Farmers Market at Bungendore since they started in January 2015. “I hope to help people recognise the true value of food” and the markets are a wonderful place to help make this happen. Samantha is a committee member of Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and the newly establishing Farmers Markets Alliance of NSW.


Phil Stringer

Phil Stringer is currently managing a small mixed farm in SE Qld, running free range purebred Tamworth pigs, a small herd of cattle and growing subtropical perennial tubers along with various cut flowers and vegetables.
He's also a director of the Mary Valley Country Harvest Coop which provides  weekly deliveries to the Sunshine Coast and valuable training, workshops and farm tours to local growers, as well as being actively involved in a project to get a local mixed species abattoir in the region again.

His background is in land management, and he continues to work off farm on revegetation projects.

He joined the AFSA national committee in August this year.

 

Serenity Hill

 

Glen Jones- Communication Officer

 

Courtney Young-  Intern

Passionate about regenerative agriculture and supporting local food economies, Courtney has been interning with AFSA since the beginning of 2016. She runs Woodstock Flour with her partner Ian and founded YOUNG WILD FARMERS, a group intended to empower and inspire a new generation of agroecological farmers through events, podcasts and other media.

Nominations for 2017 AFSA Committee

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The following nominations have been received for the 2017 AFSA Committee. The AFSA AGM will be held at CERES Community Environment Park, Cnr Roberts & Stewart Sts, Brunswick East, VIC, at 2.00pm on Sunday the 23rd October.

 

President:

Sally Ruljancich

Sally Ruljancich has worked in fundraising for over 8 years at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to this position, she was a research assistant at the University of Melbourne for The Encyclopaedia of Melbourne and a postgraduate in the field of history. Her PhD thesis [incomplete but never forgotten] was on the regulation of the food supply of Melbourne, circa 1860-1920.

Sally is also one half of Colin and Sally’s Organic Lamb and Beef, a direct to consumer, grass-fed and certified organic farm-to-fork business. Together over the last three years they have built Colin and Sally’s, farming on 81 acres of their own land and leasing two other farms nearby.

Starting their business was a way to more fully engage with a community of conscientious meat eaters and has increasingly alerted Sally to the need for thoughtful advocacy around issues of the rights of small producers, food sovereignty and food hubs.

 

Vice President:

Chris Balazs

Chris is a first generation farmer. Starting with a small herd of Herefords, Chris has expanded his paddock to plate business (SageChoice) to run a sustainable business supplying ethically raised grass fed beef and lamb through a network of like-minded farmers to the local community. Passionate about ethical livestock farming and ethical meat consumption - you will find him at VFMA markets talking and advocating the need for people to understand where their food comes from and how consumers have the power to change the food paradigm for the better. Chris comes from a corporate background having worked in a large pharmaceutical company for over 18 years. Now having left the corporate life behind, Chris is primarily focused on the farming and food production. Trained and educated as a scientist, Chris is also passionate about continual education having recently completed a MBA, he brings fresh thinking to traditional farming. Years of business, management and science experience is being used to help improve and create a sustainable farming future.

 

FFFU Chair:

Tammi Jonas 

Current AFSA President Tammi Jonas is nominating for Chair of Fair Food United (FFFU) for 2017 to continue to lend her strong female farmer’s voice to the fight for food sovereignty in Australia.

Tammi considers herself an ethicurean farmer, mindful meatsmith, and agrarian intellectual. Along with her hypercompetent husband and three #orsmkids, she raises rare breed Large Black pigs, a motley crew of cattle, and Australorp chickens on the volcanic soils of central Victoria at Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths.

Former vegetarian academic Tammi does whole-carcass butchering on the farm (thanks to two successful crowdfunding campaigns to build a boning room, commercial kitchen, & curing room), and sells their ethical pork and beef predominantly through a thriving CSA (community-supported agriculture).

Jonai Farms is an ethically viable no-growth model – Tammi often says we need to multiply our farms, not scale them, to support more people working the land fairly and to revive rural communities and local food economies.

Tammi has been writing about food culture, ethics and politics since 2006 at her blog Tammi Jonas: Food Ethics, and speaks regularly on food sovereignty at public events, on radio, and in print media. She is also a founding member of Fair Food Farmers United (FFFU), the producers' branch of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA).

Jonai Farms features in Australia’s first food politics documentary Fair Food, and Tammi also has a chapter in the anthology Fair Food, published by UQ Press.

As President over the past two years Tammi has worked solidly for fair and consistent regulation of farming and food production and distribution, and is leading a process to establish a Legal Defence Fund to protect and promote the right of people to determine their own food and agriculture systems. The Legal Defence Fund campaign has more than doubled AFSA’s membership over the past year.

During Tammi’s time as President, AFSA was influential in triggering the 2015 review of PrimeSafe, the Victorian meat regulator, resulting in 24 recommendations for improvement of its regulation of the meat industry.

She has helped AFSA establish its voice and authority on a range of issues and secured frequent meetings with a number of politicians to lobby for significant reform, as well as leading the process for submissions to government inquiries, including the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the impact of regulation on agriculture, and the Victorian Government’s Animal Industries Advisory Committee, which has just released its report that includes recommendations for more scale-appropriate application of the planning scheme around extensive and intensive animal husbandry.

Tammi has also had the privilege to attend a variety of meetings of the global food sovereignty movement, including the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty meeting in Gujarat in August 2015, Urgenci: the International Network for Community-Supported Agriculture outside Beijing in November 2015, Slow Meat in Denver in June 2015, the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) in Kuala Lumpur in March 2016, and Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Turin in September 2016. She helped lead the process to gain membership of the leading voice of the global food sovereignty movement La Via Campesina (LVC) in August 2016. LVC brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world.

The extent of Tammi’s work in Australia and internationally has deepened and broadened her understanding of the issues in the food system locally and globally and she is keen to continue applying that knowledge and experience to assist farmers and eaters, AFSA, the FFFU and the global food sovereignty movement in the role of FFFU Chair.

 

Ordinary Committee Members:


Ben McMenamin

Ben McMenamin is a chef, social entrepreneur and founder of the Social Food Project. Having worked as a chef for over 10 years and gained a degree from RMIT, Ben has come to realise the power that food has to bring people together and catalyse social change.

Ben has cooked with a number of great social initiatives including the Food Know How project, Scarf Community Dinners, Give a Fork Sustainable Seafood lunch, OzHarvest and more! His work as a food educator has taken him all over Australia presenting at sustainability conferences and community festivals.

Ben's passion for food and education is matched only by his love of gardening! While at RMIT, Ben started a student project called Greening RMIT dedicated to creating more urban gardens and increasing food literacy on campus. He has hosted numerous gardening workshops and cooking demonstrations for students and staff alike.

In 2016, Ben joined the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance as the Membership Officer and Co-founded the Fair Food Challenge, to promote a more fair, healthy and accessible food system.

 

Jo Hall

Jo Hall was co-opted as National Secretary to the AFSA National Committeein May 2016, with a view to assisting with the Legal Defence Fund and governance processes.

Jo is a lawyer with over 10 years’ experience, currently working in public health, with previous experience in commercial real estate, planning and environment law. Jo also has significant experience working with not-for-profit organisations, including incorporation, governance and tax implications.

Jo has a strong focus on governance with significant experience as a Board Secretary and Company Secretary in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. Jo is also a Director on the Board of 3000acres; a charity aiming to bridge the gap between people who want to grow food, and local councils and other organisations who hold the keys to vacant land.

Jo is also a landowner in rural Victoria in the early stages of creating a sustainable market garden business with her partner. Jo is passionate about food sovereignty and in particular, building the Legal Defence Fund into an incredible resource for Australian farmers.

 

Samantha Hawker

Samantha is a lover of local food, natural living and resilient communities and believes that food is an entry point to something bigger. She is frustrated by food waste, over the top bureaucracy, food miles and fake food and tries to live her values every day. Sam and Frank (Green & Gleaned) use rocket stoves and hay boxes to cook their food, grow, forage and preserve most of their fruit, vegetables, funghi and meat and get a small number of things from local farmers practicing regenerative methods.

Sam has been the market manager of the Southern Harvest Farmers Market at Bungendore since they started in January 2015. “I hope to help people recognise the true value of food” and the markets are a wonderful place to help make this happen. Samantha is a committee member of Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and the newly establishing Farmers Markets Alliance of NSW.


Phil Stringer

Phil Stringer is currently managing a small mixed farm in SE Qld, running free range purebred Tamworth pigs, a small herd of cattle and growing subtropical perennial tubers along with various cut flowers and vegetables.
He's also a director of the Mary Valley Country Harvest Coop which provides  weekly deliveries to the Sunshine Coast and valuable training, workshops and farm tours to local growers, as well as being actively involved in a project to get a local mixed species abattoir in the region again.

His background is in land management, and he continues to work off farm on revegetation projects.

He joined the AFSA national committee in August this year.

 

 

 

 

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