The AUSTRALIAN FOOD SOVEREIGNTY ALLIANCE is a farmer-led organisation made up of organisations and individuals working together towards a food system in which people can create, manage, and choose their food system.
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.
OUR PURPOSE is to cooperate to create an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system for all Australians.
The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance is a not-for-profit association, incorporated in Victoria.
In August 2016 AFSA was provisionally 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. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate-driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.
AFSA is also a proud member of both the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty and Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture.
In 2016 AFSA formally constituted the Legal Defence Fund in response to the number of small-scale producers across Australia seeking assistance in dealing with inappropriate-to-scale regulations and planning schemes.
The Legal Defence Fund aims to:
- establish a legal advice hotline for farmers and eaters so that nobody is left to fight alone;
- compile and analyse casework to lobby for legal reform where necessary to support the growing fair food movement
- develop factsheets and templates for food producers and local councils around regulatory requirements and best-practice planning;
- provide advice on public and product liability for farms and food producers who sell direct to the public; and
- provide support when small farms are caught up in a trial by media.
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If you would like to join the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance visit this page: