Legal Defence Fund

The time to defend the growing movement of small-scale food producers has come.

Despite growing concerns about the nutrition, safety, and ethics of the food we eat, some regulators are making it harder for Australian small-scale farmers to produce ethical, ecologically-sound, nutritious, and delicious food for their communities.

The issues include: communities who want access to raw milk from local dairies, farms doing on-farm processing facing unfair and inconsistent regulation of their facilities, and many others grappling with outdated and illogical definitions of ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive’ livestock in local planning schemes that see a farm with a few hundred chickens out on the paddocks subjected to the same requirements as one with 10,000 birds in sheds.

Show your support for the Legal Defence Fund by becoming a member of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.

Find out more about the Legal Defence Fund:

Legal Defence Fund Advisory Committee:

We are in the process of convening an LDF Advisory Committee. Please contact Madeleine Toohey at secretary@afsa.org.au if you are a registered legal practitioner or have experience in submission writing and would like to join the LDF Advisory Committee.

Legal Defence Fund Terms of Reference

Legal Defence Fund News…

AFSA is expanding: Join our National Committee or sub-committees and working groups

Join our team: AFSA National Committee We are seeking nominations from people interested in joining our National Committee. We have ...
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2021 National Committee Report

President’s Report Financial Report Membership Report Legal Defence Fund Farming on Other People’s Land (FOOPL) AFSA in the Global Food ...
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Submission to the Independent Review of the Agvet Chemicals regulatory system

In December, the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment released the draft report of an indpendent panel reviewing ...
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2020 National Committee Report

President’s Report 2020 has been a year like none other in living memory. For Australians, the year commenced with the ...
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2019 President’s Report

What a delicious year of growing and eating and winning and celebrating it’s been for AFSA! And yet while the ...
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Industrial ag’s spurious biosecurity claims revealed

AFSA and our partners recently negotiated a streamlined application process for pastured pig and poultry production... however, during the final ...
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MAJOR WIN FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AS VICTORIA ANNOUNCES PLANNING REFORMS

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is celebrating a win for small-scale pastured pig and poultry farmers – and everyone’s ...
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Response to the Proposed Draft Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry

View AFSA's entire submission here. The current review of the Model Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals – ...
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Poultry Welfare Reforms Fact Sheet

The Codes for animal welfare for poultry are being reviewed for the first time in over 15 years. The result ...
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AFSA calls out biased reporting on Victorian planning reforms

Peter Hunt, a Weekly Times reporter, has treated the concerns of Victoria’s pastured livestock farmers over proposed planning reforms with ...
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AFSA responds to the ACT Capital Food and Fibre Strategy

AFSA recently responded to the call for submissions to the ACT Capital Food and Fibre Strategy, which will “be a roadmap to delivering social, environmental and economic benefits based on secure, climate-resilient food and fibre production across in the ACT; and respond to the need to mitigate climate challenges via adaptation and diversification. It […]

A Licence to Sell Lettuce? ASFA Submission to FSANZ Proposal

For three years FSANZ has been working on a proposal to more tightly regulate the production and sale of berries, leafy vegetables, and melons after several outbreaks of listeria, e coli, and salmonella from large monocultures. AFSA has provided feedback from the beginning on the need to approach any changes with a scale-appropriate lens […]

Protecting farmers and preserving farm land: Submission on the Protections within the Victorian Planning Framework

In October 2021 the Victorian Legislative Council tasked the Environment and Planning Committee to inquire into and report on: “the adequacy of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and Victorian planning framework in relation to planning and heritage protection”. Particular terms of reference were outlined for the Committee to address and AFSA provides its submission […]

AFSA supports proposed changes to landscape rehydration infrastructure planning rules in NSW

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) supports the proposed changes to landscape rehydration infrastructure planning rules and applauds the NSW Government’s initiative to allow farmers to restore streams on their property through landscape rehydration techniques, without the need for council approval. AFSA represents small and medium scale producers and our vision is to enable regenerative […]

AFSA opposes JBS acquisition of Rivalea

The proposed acquisition raises a number of concerns for AFSA and our directly-affected members—small and medium-scale pastured pig farmers in Victoria. The concerns centre around the certainty of continued access for service kills and a lack of choice, reflective of a lack of competition, in the state for small-scale farmers accessing service kills. At a […]