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. AFSA is an independent organisation and is not aligned with any political party.
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.
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, and advocate for fair pricing for those selling to the domestic market.
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 work regularly 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 regenerative farms is increasingly in demand, and government is bound to heed changing community expectations and facilitate and encourage the growth and viability of 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 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.
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.