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.