The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is a farmer-led civil society organisation of people working together towards socially-just and ecologically-sound food and agriculture systems that foster the democratic participation of Indigenous Peoples, smallholders, and local communities in decision making processes.
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 Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance is a not-for-profit association, incorporated in Victoria.
AFSA provides a balanced voice to represent farmers. We connect small- and medium-scale Australian farmers for farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, work with all levels of government for scale-appropriate and consistent regulations and standards for agriculture, provide legal advice to our members around planning and food safety regulations, and promote the need for an agroecological transition led by small-scale farmers.
We are part of a robust global network of civil society organisations involved in food sovereignty and food security policy development and advocacy. We are members of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), and La Via Campesina – the global movement of peasant farmers, which gives us a regional seat at many meetings of the United Nations, including the Food & Agriculture Organisation and many of its governing bodies.
AFSA is also a member of Urgenci: the International Network for Community-Supported Agriculture, and we also work with Slow Food International and its Australian chapters. We also support the Australasian representative on the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM), which articulates to the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
Our vision is to enable regenerative and agroecological farms to thrive. Australians care now more than ever about the way their food is produced, including its social and environmental impacts. Food produced on small-scale farms is increasingly in demand, and government is bound to heed changing community expectations and facilitate and encourage the growth and viability of agroecology and regenerative agriculture, thereby protecting the environment and human and animal health.
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:
- provides legal advice for farmers and eaters so that nobody is left to fight alone;
- compiles and analyses casework to lobby for legal reform where necessary to support the growing food sovereignty movement;
- develops factsheets and templates for food producers and local councils around regulatory requirements and best-practice planning; and
- provides support when small farms are caught up in a trial by media.
If you’d like to learn more, visit these pages:
If you would like to join the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, become a member here.