Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

President’s report – March 2016

by

 

It’s been a huge start to 2016 with a lot going on in the food sovereignty movement, keeping all us farmers and eaters very busy indeed!

A common thread in our activities is governance – good governance, bad governance, and the perverse outcomes of ignorant governance. Let me explain with a few examples…

Definition of ‘intensive agriculture’ in planning schemes

In Victoria, a farm is deemed ‘intensive’ if it imports more than 50% of the nutritional requirements for its animals. So technically all pig and poultry farms, most dairies, and many farms suffering from this awful drought should have permits to run ‘intensive’ production models. (Interestingly, horses are exempt as they aren’t considered farm animals, but I digress.)

The scheme was obviously designed to capture feedlots and actual intensive pig and poultry sheds, and even perhaps so-called industrial ‘free-range’ farms where stocking densities may be as high as 10,000 birds per hectare. Great, that seems like a pretty good thing.

But wait, the scheme says that my farm, with around 110 pigs on 23 acres at any given time is also ‘intensive’ because we collect spent brewers’ grain from the local brewery and supplement it with a GMO-free grain pellet and seconds from agriculture in our region. And it says that Jo Stritch’s Happy Valley Free Range farm in the Yarra Ranges, with similar stocking densities and excellent use of green ‘waste’ from her region is intensive too. In Jo’s case, intensive agriculture is banned as she is in a Green Wedge Zone.

And so Jo is selling her farm and moving her family and all her animals to a shire that will let her raise her pigs on the open paddocks.

Jo was Livestock Farmer of the Year in 2015.

AFSA put in a submission  to the Animal Industries Advisory Committee’s Discussion Paper, and attended a hearing in Bendigo to further canvass our concerns about the deeply problematic definition of ‘intensive’, and were delighted that our evidence and arguments were well received by the Committee. We’re now awaiting the Committee’s recommendations, which we hope include a more appropriate means of assessing whether a farm is in fact ‘intensive’, as well as support for communities who are fighting everywhere to stop inappropriate development of actual intensive pig and poultry sheds with all of their attendant environmental, animal welfare, and social costs.

Impact of Regulation on Small Farms

AFSA also put in a submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the impact of regulatory burden in Australian agriculture.

In our submission, we gave evidence of many examples of overly burdensome regulation stifling innovation and the very viability of small-scale farms. One such example is the terrible impact of lack of due process for Elgaar Dairy in Tasmania, who were shut down after 20 years of traditional production of organic milk when the food safety authority decided they needed a new pasteurizer and various upgrades to what they determine are more ‘modern’ standards. Elgaar has no history of food safety issues, and have now been without a license for over a year and a half, during which they crowdfunded over $250,000 to buy a new pasteurizer and meet the new requirements. The Tasmanian authority has yet to grant them another license in spite of the upgrades and enormous amount of work done in good faith. AFSA condemns such draconian measures and unwillingness by government to support small businesses towards compliance.

Our submission also cites egregious examples from Victoria’s meat regulator PrimeSafe, the huge impact of knee-jerk changes to regulation of raw milk on small-scale dairy farms (many of whom have now gone out of business), and the complicated business of ensuring appropriate labeling of GMO and imported ingredients while not creating an extra burden for small-scale producers who sell directly to the public.

Asia Pacific Regional Conference (APRC) of the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN)

In the second week of March I had the honour of attending the 33rd APRC of the FAO in Puttrajaya, Malaysia, along with 54 other members of civil society organization (CSOs) from across the region. We started with two days of sharing issues – everything from loss of mangroves and destruction of ecosystems and viability of small-scale fishing in Indonesia and Malaysia due to large-scale aquaculture and trawling, to loss of access to the necessary infrastructure to process livestock and mill rice in Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Viet Nam, and Australia.

The FAO has major themes currently running on the importance of agroecology to a sustainable future for soils and the people who grow our food, and another on the importance of control of value chains by small-scale farmers to maintain or increase viability. There is also strong work being done to acknowledge the importance of situating work on nutrition within the broader scope of food systems. While the Asia Pacific region has halved hunger in the past 20 years, there are still 490 million hungry here, the highest proportion in the world, while there is conversely a significant rise of overweight and obesity as countries industrialise.

The Australian government’s contributions to this forum were, quite frankly, embarrassing and totally at odds with the good work being done by the FAO. The Australian delegate from the Department of Agriculture Matt Worrell told those assembled that we should ‘focus on large holdings that are better capitalised and better educated’, ‘aggregate smaller farms to achieve efficiencies’, and that ‘smallholders’ positions can be improved by free trade – by connecting them to international markets’, concluding that free trade can solve food security issues in the region. Ours was the only country in the region that I heard to be openly dismissive of smallholders – every other speaker stressed the importance of small-scale production for food security and rural prosperity.

I will write a longer report on the APRC and share it on the AFSA website soon.

Loss of abattoirs in Australia

We are facing a crisis as one after another small, regional abattoir shuts its doors in the face of increased compliance costs and inability to compete with large-scale multinational abattoirs who are buying up our infrastructure and increasingly shutting out small-scale producers as we’re perceived to be a nuisance in their large, industrial, export-focused models.

AFSA is working to gather information about the increasingly centralized control of abattoirs, and we are heartened by the work being done up in the Mary Valley in Queensland by a group of small-scale livestock farmers to investigate their options for re-establishing an abattoir after the loss of their closest in Eumundi last year. See Phil Stringer’s excellent report for more detail elsewhere in this newsletter.

In my own region in the central highlands of Victoria, a group of us are also working together to investigate the option of an on-farm mobile slaughter unit, and in Bega, NSW, smallholders already took control of their abattoir when it threatened to close in 2013, and formed a cooperative to keep it open.

Community Supported Agriculture on the rise!

There is plenty of good news amongst all of these tales of bad governance negatively impacting on food sovereignty across Australia and indeed the world… and it lays with you, the people, who are continuing to find ways to support farmers directly, whether by frequenting farmers’ markets, buying online directly from farmers, or joining the increasing number of farms who run CSAs.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is one of the pillars of food sovereignty – a solidarity economy that ensures the viability and accountability of farmers, while providing delicious, nutritious food produced in ecologically-sound and ethical ways. Have a chat with some of your farmers about whether it might work for them, and what you can do to help. Also have a look at Transition Farm’s excellent model, and read more about CSA and other great food sovereignty initiatives in the latest special Fair Food issue of Pip Magazine!

Those who control the means of production control the world. Ask yourself who you want that to be – faceless multinationals who frankly don’t care whether your family gets sick from the rubbish they sell you, or the farmer whose kids might go to school with yours? Wendell Berry famously said that ‘eating is an agricultural act’, and Michael Pollan extended the claim to point out that it is also a political act. Let’s show the politicians what we want with every bite we take – it’s up to all of us to build a fair food future!

President’s Report 2015

by

It’s been an exhilarating and challenging year as President of AFSA as I’ve worked with an amazing team of committed fair food activists to further the interests of food sovereignty in Australia.

Part of the focus for the five-year-old Alliance this year has been to improve our internal operations with clearer processes for decision making and communications, and better financial management. I am delighted to be finishing the year with a surplus and a healthy bank account, largely thanks to the fundraising made possible by the Fair Food documentary screenings, DVD sales, and generous support from the City of Melbourne. As at the end of the 2014-15 financial year, the doco had profited AFSA $6,679.

Both the Fair Food doco and anthology edited by AFSA Secretary Nick Rose have greatly helped spread the word of the good work happening across the country as producers, chefs, connectors, knowledge workers, local governments, and activists build a new, fairer food system for all.

We have hopes of crowdfunding a second documentary focusing on the plight of farm and food workers in Australia, and how these systems of exploitation prop up the duopoly and concentration of power here and globally. Watch this space. ;-)

The year has seen AFSA leading the fight for fair and consistent regulation of the food system, with participation at the Regrarians-led #EatBuyGrow rally a highlight. Speaking alongside lunatic farmer Joel Salatin on the many ways in which ‘folks, this ain’t normal’ and the need to contest the orthodoxy of industrial food was both an honour and a great opportunity to amplify the message locally.

We’ve worked to spread the word of the plight of dairy farmers in Victoria affected by the Government’s hasty decision to make it more difficult to sell raw milk, as well as the difficulties faced by livestock producers in processing and distributing their produce, especially in Victoria, where we’ve helped trigger a review of the meat regulator PrimeSafe (yet to report). I visited the Executive Director of the America Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund in Kentucky to learn how we might build such a fund here, and work is well advanced towards the establishment of a legal defence branch of AFSA.

I’ve already recounted the #epicfairfoodtour I made of the US in June, where AFSA’s food sovereignty relationships and networks were further developed with some of the most popular voices in the movement, including Joel Salatin, Temple Grandin, Dan Barber, and Michael Pollan.

Back home, I was delighted to host the inaugural Deep Winter Agrarian Gathering (conceived by fabulous farmer Fraser of Old Mill Bio Farm in NSW) in August with the able assistance of local Sarah Chignell. Two days of discussing the issues and opportunities in production, connection, regulation, and regeneration of the food system were heralded by fair food pioneer Costa Georgiadis as ‘the Woodstock of Australian agriculture’.

We recounted and plotted, feasted and posited, and frankly talked fair food ‘til the cows came home.

The high proportion of young farmers and future farmers attending was especially encouraging – just goes to show how much more appealing fair food farming is than industrial agriculture! I’m already looking forward to the next one (perhaps somewhere a tad warmer…)

In the first week of September I had the honour and privilege to attend the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) meeting in Gujarat, along with my comrade Nick Rose. You can read our separate report on the outcomes of the meeting here. In short, the meeting clarified the need for AFSA to stand up to our own government in solidarity with our comrades in the Global South, to protect them as well as our own producers from the ravages of free-trade agreements that benefit nobody except large, transnational agribusiness.

The impact of cheap imports is devastating for farmers everywhere – from fruit growers in Victoria to small-scale beef producers in Kenya.

Our involvement with the IPC has also connected us to the ongoing dialogue with the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, where we can add our voice to the global movement for agroecology and the fight against industrial livestock production, amongst the many other issues.

In spite of the continued centralized control of our food system, especially by the duopoly Coles & Woolworths, and in spite of the burdens and unfairnesses of regulation for small-scale, transparent food production, and even in spite of the ongoing exploitation of the labour of farm and food workers across Australia, I feel hopeful.

I feel hopeful because more people are choosing to buy directly from farmers and leave the duopoly out of their shopping bag. I feel hopeful because we’ve got the regulators’ attention, and reform seems possible. I feel hopeful because of the work of Four Corners to expose the treatment of farm workers and the tireless work of the NUW to support workers everywhere.

I feel hopeful because I’m a tragic optimist who takes every tiny grain of hope and plants it deeply in the rich soil of this fecund movement.

I am especially grateful for the work and support of Secretary Nick Rose, Communications Officer Alana Mann, Memberships Officer Michele Lally and our wonderful intern Katarina Munksgaard, who have contributed tirelessly all year. Thank you also to Vice President Jeff Pow, Treasurer Nadine Ponomarenko, and Louise Abson for your contributions, and finally thank you to the members who resigned earlier in the year due to challenging circumstances, Clare Richards and Michael Croft. And of course thank you to long-term volunteers and co-founders of AFSA Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell for your many years of work to build and support the movement through the website and AFSA communications with members.

So long as we all continue working together, we’ve got this. Here’s to another great year for the fair food movement!

Viva la revolucion!

AFSA Office Bearer Reports, 2015

by

2015 President’s Report

Tammi Jonas

It’s been an exhilarating and challenging year as President of AFSA as I’ve worked with an amazing team of committed fair food activists to further the interests of food sovereignty in Australia.

Part of the focus for the five-year-old Alliance this year has been to improve our internal operations with clearer processes for decision making and communications, and better financial management. I am delighted to be finishing the year with a surplus and a healthy bank account, largely thanks to the fundraising made possible by the Fair Food documentary screenings, DVD sales, and generous support from the City of Melbourne. As at the end of the 2014-15 financial year, the doco had profited AFSA $6,679.

Both the Fair Food doco and anthology edited by AFSA Secretary Nick Rose have greatly helped spread the word of the good work happening across the country as producers, chefs, connectors, knowledge workers, local governments, and activists build a new, fairer food system for all. We have hopes of crowdfunding a second documentary focusing on the plight of farm and food workers in Australia, and how these systems of exploitation prop up the duopoly and concentration of power here and globally. Watch this space.

The year has seen AFSA leading the fight for fair and consistent regulation of the food system, with participation at the Regrarians-led #EatBuyGrow rally a highlight. Speaking alongside lunatic farmer Joel Salatin on the many ways in which ‘folks, this ain’t normal’ and the need to contest the orthodoxy of industrial food was both an honour and a great opportunity to amplify the message locally.

We’ve worked to spread the word of the plight of dairy farmers in Victoria affected by the Government’s hasty decision to make it more difficult to sell raw milk, as well as the difficulties faced by livestock producers in processing and distributing their produce, especially in Victoria, where we’ve helped trigger a review of the meat regulator PrimeSafe (yet to report). I visited the Executive Director of the America Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund in Kentucky to learn how we might build such a fund here, and work is well advanced towards the establishment of a legal defence branch of AFSA.

I’ve already recounted the #epicfairfoodtour I made of the US in June, where AFSA’s food sovereignty relationships and networks were further developed with some of the most popular voices in the movement, including Joel Salatin, Temple Grandin, Dan Barber, and Michael Pollan.

Back home, I was delighted to host the inaugural Deep Winter Agrarian Gathering(conceived by fabulous farmer Fraser of Old Mill Bio Farm in NSW) in August with the able assistance of local Sarah Chignell. Two days of discussing the issues and opportunities in production, connection, regulation, and regeneration of the food system were heralded by fair food pioneer Costa Georgiadis as ‘the Woodstock of Australian agriculture’. We recounted and plotted, feasted and posited, and frankly talked fair food ‘til the cows came home. The high proportion of young farmers and future farmers was especially encouraging – just goes to show how much more appealing fair food farming is than industrial agriculture! I’m already looking forward to the next one (perhaps somewhere a tad warmer...)

In the first week of September I had the honour and privilege to attend the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) meeting in Gujarat, along with my comrade Nick Rose. You can read our separate report on the outcomes of the meeting here. In short, the meeting clarified the need for AFSA to stand up to our own government in solidarity with our comrades in the Global South, to protect them as well as our own producers from the ravages of free-trade agreements that benefit nobody except large, transnational agribusiness. The impact of cheap imports is devastating for farmers everywhere – from fruit growers in Victoria to small-scale beef producers in Kenya.

Our involvement with the IPC has also connected us to the ongoing dialogue with the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, where we can add our voice to the global movement for agroecology and the fight against industrial livestock production, amongst the many other issues.

In spite of the continued centralized control of our food system, especially by the duopoly Coles & Woolworths, and in spite of the burdens and unfairnesses of regulation for small-scale, transparent food production, and even in spite of the ongoing exploitation of the labour of farm and food workers across Australia, I feel hopeful.

I feel hopeful because more people are choosing to buy directly from farmers and leave the duopoly out of their shopping bag. I feel hopeful because we’ve got the regulators’ attention, and reform seems possible. I feel hopeful because of the work of Four Corners to expose the treatment of farm workers and the tireless work of the NUW to support workers everywhere. I feel hopeful because I’m a tragic optimist who takes every tiny grain of hope and plants it deeply in the rich soil of this fecund movement.

I am especially grateful for the work and support of Secretary Nick Rose, Communications Officer Alana Mann, Memberships Officer Michele Lally and our wonderful intern Katarina Munksgaard, who have contributed tirelessly all year.

Thank you also to Vice President Jeff Pow, Treasurer Nadine Ponomarenko, and Louise Abson for your contributions, and finally thank you to the members who resigned earlier in the year due to challenging circumstances, Clare Richards and Michael Croft. And of course thank you to long-term volunteers and co-founders of AFSA Russ Grayson and Fiona Campbell for your many years of work to build and support the movement through the website and AFSA communications with members.

So long as we all continue working together, we’ve got this. Here’s to another great year for the fair food movement!

Viva la revolucion!

Secretary & National Coordinator

Nick Rose

2015 saw AFSA celebrate its fifth anniversary. When I think back to where we were in July 2010, when the concept of a national food sovereignty alliance was first being discussed, it's amazing just how much has been achieved. As a 100% volunteer-based organisation, with a small core of committed activists, these achievements have been all the more remarkable. At times it's been far from easy, but five years in, we're here, and working hard together to build the fair food movement in Australia. Our networks and relationships are spreading and strengthening, both in Australia and internationally.

This year has seen us make enormous strides, thanks in no small part to the enormous passion, energy, commitment and leadership of AFSA President Tammi Jonas, ably supported by the National Committee, in particular Communications Officer Alana Mann and Memberships Officer Michele Lally. I stand in admiration of them all, and feel grateful that AFSA is in such strong, experienced and capable hands – this is a great legacy for both myself and all the previous Committee members and long-time volunteers that have worked for AFSA and the cause of fair food in Australia.

So much of what we have done has been as a team. This has been especially the case regarding the coordination and screenings of the Fair Food documentary. With the support of 263 people and organisations that crowd-funded $32,675 in September-October 2013, and in collaboration with the Field Institute, we produced Australia's first food politics feature-length documentary. It premiered to a sell-out audience of 200 at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne on 2nd December, 2014. From February to October 2015, over 40 public screenings have taken place in community venues around the country, in a diverse array of rural and urban settings, most recently in Mildura (Victoria), and in Lakeland and Cooktown (Far North Queensland). We estimate that the film has been now been seen by over 3000 people, and several screenings are scheduled for Fair Food Week. AFSA representatives have attended more than half of these screenings, and I personally have attended and spoken at 18. On every occasion, the documentary has met with an enthusiastic response, and has provoked sustained discussion and debate about key issues facing our food and farming system. Common themes have included the lack of abattoirs and regional processing and distribution facilities; the continuing exodus of farmers from the land in the face of ongoing consolidation and corporatisation, as well as increasing foreign ownership and control; the difficulties faced by small-scale producers and artisanal food businesses as regards food safety and related regulatory regimes; and the exercise of concentrated corporate power, above all the supermarket duopoly.

Importantly, the screenings have also provided the opportunity for local community members to share stories of grassroots initiatives and leadership, generating inspiration and hope amongst those present. The screenings have been universally positive experiences, with many groups and individuals thanking AFSA for our leadership and vision in making this resource available. We have no doubt that many positive initiatives and projects are already underway as a result of discussions following screenings, and so the documentary has already made an important contribution to the building of a fairer food system.

Another significant milestone this year was the publication of the Fair Food anthology: Australia's first volume documenting the emergence and growth of a national food sovereignty movement through personal stories of several of that movement's leading actors. I am the editor of the book, and it contains chapters by past and present AFSA Committee members, including current President Tammi Jonas, and so in several respects is also a history of AFSA itself. The book, published by Queensland University Press, was launched at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 26th August, and again at Avid Reader in Brisbane's West End on 10th September. It has been reviewed favourably in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Saturday Paper and Pip Magazine, amongst other print and online media; and during September reached No.1 in the Independent Category in the Courier Mail's listing of new books. The book is being stocked in airports around Australia, in mainstream bookstores like Dymocks, as well as in a wide range of independent bookstores. We expect it to be an important and permanent resource that will inspire existing activists and supporters to strengthen and deepen their engagement with the Fair Food movement; and that will encourage and inspire new and younger people to join the movement. As the SMH review concluded, “These heart-on-the-sleeve manifestos have something urgent and important to say.”

Fair Food Challenge
Inspired by the Real Food Challenge, an initiative launched and led by university and college students in the United States in 2008 with the goal of getting higher education institutions to pledge to source 20% of their food from 'real' (i.e. local / ethical / sustainable / fair) sources by 2020, in June 2015 AFSA began working with students leaders at RMIT (Ben McMenamin) and Melbourne University (Sophie Lamond) to develop a similar campaign here. A campaign website was built (www.fairfoodchallenge.com) and launched in July 2015, garnering the immediate support of organisations like 3000 Acres, Open Food Network, Youth Food Movement, Melbourne Farmers Markets, and many others. Relationships have been established with the coordinators of the Real Food Challengeand the aligned Meal Exchangecampaign in Canada; extensive outreach has taken place with students at many other campuses in Australia; and meetings and presentations have taken place with university sustainability officers and managers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. In June 2015 AFSA submitted a grant application to the City of Melbourne for $20,000 to resource the campaign in 2015. Next steps will include a detailed examination of the meaning of 'fair food', so that we can begin to develop criteria which can guide purchasing decisions within the higher education sector, and beyond (e.g. local government, health, schools).

Food Sovereignty pilot, Cook Shire, Far North Queensland

This visit was undertaken from 23-26 September at the invitation of the Cook Shire Council and Cape York NRM, and in collaboration with Kym Kruse of RegenAg, as well as Sustain. The significance for AFSA is that the Cook Shire Council is, as a result of this visit and ongoing discussions, committing itself to a review of local laws with the aim of preparing a food sovereignty by-law, the aim of which would be to exempt small-scale producers and local food businesses from certain labelling, inspection and licensing requirements that inhibit the expansion of the local food economy: see MR_CookShireFoodSovereignty_121015_vf. This would be along the lines of the Food Sovereignty Ordinances (16 of which have now been passed by Councils in Maine), the Wyoming Food Freedom Act (passed in January 2015) and the 2013 Californian Homemade Food Act. We see this as a highly significant development that supports the AFSA regulation campaign (see Tammi's report) and will likely set a precedent for other local councils to follow – as well as being a resource for other AFSA / FFFU members and fair food supporters to use to push for change at the local level.

IPC and Fair Food Week

As mentioned in Tammi's report, and in our separate report to members (forthcoming), I attended with her the 2015 meeting of the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty, (in Gujarat, India). An inspiring experience that made us realise we are truly standing on the shoulders of giants, and following in their footsteps, in our work to build the food sovereignty movement in Australia. I have also worked with Alana Mann in getting Fair Food Week off the ground in 2015, and it's exciting to see that as of the writing of this report, nearly 50 events have been listed from every state and the ACT, including for the first time a National Fair Food Convergence. Significantly this year we have commenced discussions with the National Union of Workers around joint work and collaboration on their major Fair Food Campaign (www.fairfoodaustralia.org), targeting Coles and Woolworths over the exploitation of farm and food system workers in Australia. Through existing relationships we secured $2000 sponsorship for FFW from the City of Melbourne, and in-kind support worth $3000 from the William Angliss Institute (WAI). In addition to the Fair Food Convergence, AFSA is jointly hosting (with WAI and Sustain: The Australian Food Network) a unique one-day workshop on 19 October, Democratising Food Systems.

Speaking and media

As detailed in the reports of Tammi and Alana, AFSA continues to build its profile in the media and in community, government and professional forums and debates. I have spoken at more than a dozen this year as well as given many radio interviews. Highlights include the Municipal Association of Victoria's Local Food Forum (Melbourne, 10/9), the Real Food Festival in Maleny (12-13/9), EATology panel discussion about a Food Plan for the ACT alongside ACT Minister for Agriculture and Regional Development, Shane Rattenbury, and AFSA/FFFU member and local producer Penny Kothe (Canberra, 30/9), and the Great Southern Sustainability Festival in Albany, WA (4/10).

Communications Officer

Alana Mann

This year 2015 has been a period of transition for AFSA and the Communications area has been no exception. Key tactical activities have included:

  • the promotion of screenings of the Fair Food documentary and the Fair Food edited collection
  • the updating of resources including the AFSA printed flier and the Fair Food Week artwork (by volunteer Sharon Lee)
  • publication of news releases and position statements on hot issues including the food safety regulation and the Trans Pacific Partnership
  • rich content on social media including key events such as the highly successful Deep Winter Agrarian Gathering.

Fair Food Week (Oct 16-25) is promising to be a success with the partnership of the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network (ACFCGN) and Permaculture Australia (PA) who are ably promoting the Week around Australia.

Work in progress

The handover of web assets from long-time volunteer Fiona Campbell has been on ongoing process that has highlighted the need for a multimedia editor/web manager. This role is currently ably filled for the Fair Food Week website by volunteer Kate Raymond but the AFSA web site is still without technical support. A new hosting arrangement for the site is in train.

The future

The next steps for the Communications Officer include the development of a comprehensive communication strategy based on outreach to target audiences, including community-based food organisations and individuals in remote areas such as Northern Australia. Research into the needs and expectations of these stakeholders is needed. The development and timely delivery of rich multimedia content for subscribers is a high priority that will be facilitated by a skilled multimedia editor.

Memberships officer

Michele Lally

What a delight it has been to work with a group of passionate fair food advocates and farmers. In my first year on the National Committee, my passions to lead in membership and communications as well as utilise some of my commercial and branding experience for the group has been both rewarding and challenging.

This year’s KPI to increase membership by 30% was like eating lemons and drinking lemonade all at the same time. While both challenging and fruitful, with a final increase in membership by 50%, delivering this KPI well above what was expected has not been by chance. Our team located around the country has worked hard and with much enthusiasm, to bring a united message of leadership by advocating directly and using social media to involve and encourage participation from new areas that have not yet been exposed to AFSA. We have all utilised the Fair Food Documentary and other events to inspire more eaters to get closer to their food sources and highlight the advocacy our group participates in. With increased activity and interest from outside of usual channels comes more interest and membership to our wonderful organisation, and thus, a strong increase in membership has been realised.

Our challenge in the membership space was our system and process. Our systems have not geared up just yet to provide a seamless and viable option to be run by busy volunteers, and the next project that will be undertaken, includes seeking a membership system that has increased automation options to provide an enjoyable and professional experience for all of our members. This will link in further with increased participation through events and communications and will then provide the framework to offer more to our members and provide a valuable resource to our committee for targeted campaigns and communications release in a timely manner.

With South Australia as my locale, I have worked hard to bring several screenings of Fair Food to our state, as well as engagement with several food groups and advocacy groups who are feeling the pinch of decreased voluntary availability. I continue to advocate and work on creating South Australia into a more resilient Fair Food state, although, we are several years behind the passion that is seen along the Eastern Seaboard, participation and interest will be the key to the coming 12 months.

I have also been involved in the Legal Defence Fund, inspirational Deep Winter Agrarian Gathering, involved with a new Poultry producers Risk Management strategy and looking further at indigenous food security as corporate centralised food distribution continues to make high quality food unavailable to some in remote areas.

It’s been both inspiring and uplifting to have the opportunity to be a part of such a dynamic and innovative team and connect with such passionate and inspiring people in our peer group. Thanks must go to Tammi, Nick and Alana who have supported me so professionally in my first year with AFSA.

AFSA forges links with US Food Sovereignty movement

by

In this inspirational President's Report AFSA President Tammi Jonas shares with us the results of her fact-finding mission to the US. In doing so she contextualises the many achievements of Fair Food advocates in Australia, and highlights the strong international ties that exist between supporters of the food sovereignty movement. We are not alone!

I’ve been home five days from my three-week Epic Fair Food Tour of America and my mind has only just stopped spinning long enough to let the pieces fall into place. The trip spanned coast-to-coast – eight states in three weeks – and included daily conversations with some of America’s leading thinkers and daily creators of alternative food systems.

 

Tammi with best-selling US food writer Michael Pollan
Tammi with best-selling US food writer Michael Pollan

I was delighted to spend time with farmers such as the irascible Joel Salatin of Polyface, the fiery and generous Mike Callicrate of Ranch Foods Direct, the irreverent and determined Greg Gunthorp of Gunthorp Farms, the earnest and warm Guido Frosini of True Grass Farms, the focused and incisive Marina of Circle B Ranch, and the fierce and friendly Julia Smith of Urban Digs Farm.

I was also privileged to break bread and talk food ethics with many of those I think of as the connectors in our food system – the butchers, providores, and chefs – such as Kate & Josh at Western Daughters butcher shop in Denver, Rachael of Brooklyn Bouillon, Jake of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, Ryan of Fleisher’s Pasture-Raised Meats, and Dan Barber of Blue Hill in New York (whose book The Third Plate is a must read).

And of course I was also fortunate to spend time and learn from others who write, speak, teach, and lobby to transform the system, including John Moody of Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund; Bob Perry of the University of Kentucky; Temple Grandin, Jahi Chappell of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Michael Pollan, and Neil Thapar of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

So after spending time with that line up, surely I’ve got all the answers now, right? No, but I do have a clearer picture of where the food sovereignty movement is up to in the States, some ideas about how best to focus our efforts together, and what seem to me some of the weaknesses and gaps in the current movement.

What remains clear is that we must support the farmers who are building an alternative food system.

And we must also support the connectors who help them get their produce to market in a way that doesn’t simply build a new system that looks exactly like the old one. But I’ll return to that dilemma in a moment.

As for the farmers building the new system like those listed above and across Australia and the rest of the world – we need these fair food farms to be ready as the old system crumbles.

The combined pressures of climate change and epidemics sweeping through intensive animal agriculture such as H5N2 avian flu and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) are growing challenges for industrial agriculture, and workers organizing to demand fair pay and conditions combined with increasing consumer pressure for greater transparency and better treatment of land, animals, and workers, are having an effect.

Promising signs include popular American fast food chain Chipotle’s animal welfare sourcing policy and recent announcement that it would no longer use GMO ingredients in its products, while McDonalds announced the closure of hundreds of its outlets amidst major drops in profits.

In less promising news, Chinese giant Shuanghui purchased America’s biggest pork producer Smithfield in 2013, narrowing control of the global meat industry even further. (For more on the meat industry, see my earlier post on my time at Slow Meat in Denver.)

And so as the Polyfaces, White Oaks, Gunthorps, Jonai, Buena Vistas, and Old Mill farms of the world toil to grow food deeply embedded in our local communities and imbued with their values of respect for people and animals and care for the land, we must support them/us, just as we must find ways to help others get onto the land to grow more food in small-scale agroecological systems.

As we say at Jonai Farms, we don’t need to scale, we need to multiply.

One of the most obvious issues the movement must grapple with is the question of scale. What’s the right size to be viable, and when is big too big? There are no easy answers to these questions, but viability must always be considered holistically – as well as being financially viable, are we maintaining viable soils, viable animals grown in healthy systems resilient to disease without constant application of antibiotics?

On size and sovereignty, I would argue that it’s a question of connectedness. Scale typically decreases the connectedness of the producer to the eater. Polyface challenged my thinking on scale as I saw that Joel has fostered the growth of new farmers in his area by taking them on as sub-contractors while mentoring them on their journey. Ultimately most move onto their own independent farms, which can be a tricky model for the Salatins as they must regularly train up new farmers to maintain their production, but Joel is committed to it. He says he never intended to grow to the size they are now, ‘it just happened’, but he’s unapologetic about it, and I could see why. What I witnessed was a healthy example of a bigger scale, employing dozens of people in a thriving regenerative system.

But if the Salatins, like the Tysons before them, opted to continue to scale and to buy up every feed operation, every hatchery, and every slaughterhouse their profits enabled them to, we’d be back to what we’re trying to end. None of today’s fair food farmers would seek to reproduce the horrendous production model of intensive poultry that Tyson introduced back in the 1930s. But vertical integration is increasingly common in this movement – Polyface, Gunthorp, and we Jonai are all working to control more of the supply chain to ensure our own viability as well as control and connectedness.

And we must be vigilant against our own cultural impulse to grow grow grow simply because we can, and because there’s demand for our product. We must know when to stop and hand over surplus demand to our comrades on the farms multiplying all around us.

If we command (and pay our workers) a fair price to start with, we need not continue to grow. We can grow less for more rather than more for less, which will grow more farmers.

So that’s production sorted.

What about the connectors? How do we ensure they do their important work to process and package primary produce and get it to market in the many instances where it still won’t be suitable or possible for the farmers to do that work themselves without re-creating the old system where the middleman takes all (or too much anyway)? And in a way where they are paid fairly as well – think of abattoir workers, food manufacturing workers, and all the other workers in the food chain. (And then think of the companies who own abattoirs, and companies like Kraft or Coles or Woolworths and what their shareholders and executives earn…)

What’s the right organizational structure for these connectors? Surely the many independent butchers I spent time with overseas and that many Australians frequent here are a good example of a fair business model, as are the small, independent grocers (who are pretty rare these days as the supermarkets drive them out), though many struggle to remain viable in a world where food’s cheapness is valued well above its fairness.

Those sorts of businesses that have direct relationships with their producers are clearly going to be better for the eaters as they serve as a kind of conduit between the two, rather than a brick wall like the current system (I’m looking at you, ColesWorths).

Shareholders, sales targets, and growth models should probably be eschewed in favour of cooperatives, not-for-profits, and mindfully remaining small and local. And connectedness, one would hope, will help the average eater understand better why they must value food more highly and pay its real cost.

The last pillars of food system reform I’d like to briefly address are regulation, policy, and the role of lobbying and advocacy.

Current regulatory frameworks were developed over time to protect the public from things it cannot see, as well as from visible unscrupulous or negligent practices. They regulate long, industrial supply chains in a world where a frozen pizza product can contain 35 different ingredients that have passed through 60 countries and carry the label ‘country of origin Ireland’, and a packet of mince can contain meat from 17 animals from an unknown number of farms. (See Swallow This for a detailed exploration of the global processed food industry.)

Regulation is in many cases inappropriate to the scale and connectedness of small production systems, and we must seek to redress this if we are to support the growth of small farms with greater control of their supply chains.

The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund in America is one body doing that, initially through a focus on litigation, but increasingly on support for compliance and lobbying for legal reform. AFSA is working with the Regrarians and others to establish something similar here to support farmers working to build regenerative and fair local food economies.

The Sustainable Economies Law Centre in Oakland, California is another example of an organization committed to supporting producers, consumers and everyone in between in developing sustainable models through independent advice as well as their regular ‘Resilient Communities Legal Café’, freely available to all. As they help their clients develop new templates for innovative models of people trying to build more resilient local economies, they make them available to others to grow this movement. I love these people.

On policy, Michael Pollan collaborated with Ricardo Salvador, Olivier de Schutter, and Mark Bittman recently on a column calling for a National Food Policy in the US. I shared AFSA’s People’s Food Plan that was the genesis of our Alliance with Michael to show what can be done when the people take the lead.

Of course North America has a flourishing movement of Food Policy Councils, but these are predominantly local movements. Nick Rose, Secretary and National Coordinator for AFSA, is currently establishing a new body in Australia called Sustain: The Australian Food Network, which aims to do similar work to support and connect local government authorities and other food systems stakeholders across the country. He will provide more detail on Sustain’s aims and progress as it develops, with the strong support of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.

I can’t write a post about major food systems reform without addressing access to not just fair food, but all food.

It’s an essential question for our society to address – how do we ensure the most basic human right of access to (safe, nutritious) food is secured for everyone, everywhere?

And when people like me say we need to pay more for food to be fair to producers and chain workers and animals, what about those who can’t even afford the food when it’s not fair to the rest?

The short answer to that is that the food movement alone cannot possibly solve structural and systemic poverty, whether here or in the US or elsewhere. We can apply loads of bandaids – I’m grateful for the work of excellent bodies like Foodbank, Secondbite, Spade & Barrow, and local food rescues everywhere. And little farms like ours can offer discounts to provide better access to our community periodically. But that won’t solve poverty – egalitarian, living wages and strong social support systems will.

AFSA Communications Officer Alana Mann has addressed the problem of hunger in a recent post where she reminded us that ‘hidden hunger is a public problem for which we are all responsible.’

In the US this problem is so entrenched it’s hard to fully grasp in Australia. I know of waiters in the US earning $US2.50/hour because their tips are expected to bring them up to the minimum wage (which may be as low as $7.50/hour). And in America this is legal. The cities of Los Angeles and Seattle have recently introduced $15/hour minimum wages – a major breakthrough in that country. As Jose Oliva of the Food Chain Workers Alliance told us at the Slow Meat symposium in Denver, the food chain sector is both the largest and the lowest paid sector of the US economy. That is a national disgrace.

The context in Australia is certainly different to that of the US, but as the Four Corners expose on the pay and conditions for itinerant farm workers here demonstrated, we are not innocent of treating workers unfairly, and the food movement must work in solidarity to remedy these wrongs.

And yet we must also acknowledge that systemic poverty is simply much bigger than the food movement. We can be part of the solution, but we cannot solve poverty here or in the US on our own, and we cannot ask farmers to bear the brunt of the cost equation to solve this serious social problem.

An important thing I learned during my time in America is that although the movement there gained momentum earlier than it did here, we are not behind.

Our smallness is a strength, and provides a capacity for more rapid meaningful change that the monolith of America can only dream of.

And the movement there seems to have already progressed to levels of co-option and greenwashing that we are just beginning to get glimmers of, and once again, our smallness will serve us well in combating those who would deceive the ever-awakening public who want a fair food system.

Three weeks of bearing witness to America’s movement gave me hope, and strengthened AFSA’s links to those really making a difference for food sovereignty, the growers, connectors, eaters, teachers, and amplifiers. Together with our comrades in the US and across the globe I believe we can stand and demand our right to collectively determine our own food and agriculture systems, because you only have to look around you to see that we are legion.

AFSA President’s Report, March 2015

by

AFSA President Tammi Jonas will be one of the producers speaking at the forum
AFSA President Tammi Jonas

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty excited about the future of fair food in Australia. And if responses to community screenings of Fair Food – the documentary – are anything to go by, a lot of people are feeling pretty optimistic!

While the big end of town tries to distract us from disease outbreaks from imported berries and onions with ‘cheap cheap’ campaigns, people are sitting up and taking notice, and choosing more local food daily. Meanwhile, fair food farmers across the country are quietly (and noisily!) going about building a new food system – one that is fair to soil & animals, workers & water, and eaters & air.

The new regulation to taint so-called ‘bath milk’ in Victoria was met by an outcry by many who don’t want the government to restrict their access to whole, unadulterated foods. The raw milk movement isn’t taking things lying down, and they turned out in droves for the #EatBuyGrow rally hosted by the Regrarians on the 19th of February, with demands to ‘get the government out of my kitchen!'

Hero of the fair food movement heretic farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface in Virginia arrived just in time to rouse the crowd with reminders of the many ways in which ‘folks, this ain’t normal’ when it comes to food regulation. Costa joined him and called for a revolution, and I reminded everyone that regulation exists to protect us from things we can’t see, not to interfere with those we can.

Following on from the energetic rally that saw a hundred plus people who care about our food systems and our collective right to determine them, a group of us met with Joel to hear more about America’s Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. The Fund means that when the food police roll up a farmer’s driveway as they did in South Australia to destroy Moo View Dairy’s raw milk provided through a herdshare model, there’s a lawyer at the other end of the phone 24 hours a day/7 days a week to support them in knowing their rights and responsibilities. Watch this space as AFSA works with the Darren Doherty & Lisa Heenan of the Regrarians to investigate establishing a similar fund for Australia.

The exhilarating day that will remain a highlight of my involvement in the fair food movement for years to come culminated with the evening #EatBuyGrow forum at Collingwood Town Hall, attended by over 450 eaters, growers, providores and activists.

Joel was the headline act with another spirited address, this one going into more depth about the importance of heretics to challenge orthodoxy. Joel recounted many of the orthodoxies of our time, such as the idea that nature is somehow broken and needs us to fix her, to make her better than she is. He said, ‘If I really thought nature was broken, I guess I’d figure I probably broke it, and better change something I was doing wrong!’

Madeleine’s Eggs
Madeleine’s Eggs

Costa regaled us with examples across Australia of great work being done in the fair food movement, and then we heard from young organic farming pioneer Madeleine of Madeleine’s Eggs, who last year crowdfunded $67,000 for an egg sorting and cleaning machine – feeding her community rather than the banks in the process.

A watershed moment was when Vicki Jones of Mountain View Organic Dairy told us her story leading right up to recent coverage of raw milk in Victoria and her farm’s involvement. She gave a moving account of a farm that transitioned years ago from conventional dairy practices to regenerative, ethical farming with less cows and healthier soils on a profitable farm. Her passion for the animals, the land, and the people she feeds was palpable, and her bravery in standing up to tell her story was rewarded with a thunderous standing ovation.

Vicki Jones at Regrarians' #EatBuyGrow Event & Rally from #RegrariansTV on Vimeo.

We finished with a panel of about 10 of us sharing stories, calling for everyone to work together to build the fair food future, and having a few laughs at the hurdles we’ve faced over the years. The room was alive with hope and promise – together we can build this new system and make the old one obsolete!

¡Viva la Revolución!

Newsletter

Become a member

Join or renew

Recent posts