AFSA National Committee

Amy grew up on her family’s fourth generation sheep property in Central West NSW. As one of four girls, she took the early cues to look further afield for a life in the city. After attending boarding school in Sydney, she studied Media & Communication Studies in Wollongong then years later completed a Master of Sustainability at Sydney Uni. Professionally, work always seemed to involve food – from the glossy pages of one of Australia’s top food magazine, to the e-commerce world of a recipe box delivery service and then working in Melbourne at Yume Food – Australia’s first and only online marketplace for surplus commercial-scale food waste.

Amy is interested in learning about regenerative agriculture in the hopes to one day go full circle, roll up her sleeves and produce nutrient-dense food with a focus on regenerating ecosystems and sharing knowledge. She understands that food is the source of our health and happiness and believes that it is the most powerful medium through which we can demonstrate the kind of environment and society we wish to live and take part in.

Dan, along with his wife Leanne their 2 daughters Adele and Hayley run Bellasato Farm. He and his family farm premium Sommerlad meat chickens along with a small amount of sugar cane. They also grow a few veggies and an ever-increasing bounty of tropical fruits.

Having spent most of his life living in the city, Dan didn’t think often about where his food was coming from, that is, until the birth of his daughter. Being responsible for her life made him and his wife consider what type of lifestyle they wanted to raise their children in, one disconnected from nature, food, and farming, or one that enveloped them within these beautiful aspects of life.

Having never farmed before Dan and his wife took the leap and moved onto a farm, literally jumping in the deep end – both without any off-farm income, and completely reliant on the land to provide food and enough money to get by on. But with the goal of providing great quality food for their family and their surrounding community fueling their flame, they soldier on, learning and growing as they go.

Eliza runs ‘Borrowed Ground’ market garden with her partner Alex on Walbanja/Yuin Country on the south-east coast of New South Wales. In her past life, Eliza graduated as a primary school teacher in 2017 and has a strong passion for food education and sovereignty in Australia. After growing up on Gadigal Land, smack bang in the middle of the city, she started to notice the severe disconnect she, her friends and her family had with the food they were eating. This led to a fierce curiosity and determination to understand more about the food system and build connections with people through food. After completing a market garden internship in 2016, Eliza and Alex realised that building a small-scale market garden business was now their mission in life.

In between then and now, Eliza has worn the hat of Community Coordinator at Pocket City Farms in Sydney designing and implementing a curriculum-based food and environment education program for primary and high school students, served as a Sydney Youth Food Movement Co-Leader and managed another small-scale vegetable enterprise with Alex just outside of Sydney. After working on farms in Nova Scotia, Canada and Patagonia, Chile, Eliza and Alex returned to Australia to kick-start their business in Moruya on a 4 acre block of leased land and have been running that since 2020.

Mirella is a mother, food grower, and academic with a background in Law and Anthropology. She has 15 years experience working with communities in the Brazilian Amazon, as an academic, consultant, volunteer, friend, and ally. Mirella is an educator, or a learning facilitator as she prefers to call herself, committed to creating positive change in the way her students understand and live in the world. She mostly teaches First Nations, environmental, and global affairs, and has been casually designing and delivering courses at RMIT University (Wurundjeri Country) for 7 years.

Mirella lives on Djaara Country with her partner and son on a beautiful native bird heaven, where they currently work on the regeneration of an old orchard, and grow seasonal crops for themselves and their community. There are many plans in the pipeline to increase the use of the land using agroecology and regenerative principles.

Her main interest in becoming part of AFSA is to be further engaged in practical, on-ground, action when it comes to food sovereignty. Mirella is keen to share her skills to support the organisation’s work, especially on the First Nations and International fronts. She also aims at gathering more critical knowledge and sharing with her Brazilian comrades in the jungle, as a way of fostering their food sovereignty too.

Ruth is based in Bungendore NSW, Australia, where she works, for Southern Harvest Association (SHA), a not-for-profit organisation at the forefront of increasing the profile and availability of local food and fibre products, through farmer-consumer networking activities such as markets, aggregated produce boxes, tours, workshops, festivals and community long lunches. Ruth also has her own business focused on catering and value adding locally grown, found and foraged foods.

Ruth has been a farmer and a Registered Nurse, and seen first-hand the results of poor nutrition on health and welfare outcomes, across many social contexts. Farming her own land she experienced the ups and downs of producing food and fibre for local community, and has had a wide variety of experience working on many farms and food/farming enterprises around the country, providing diverse enterprises.

Ruth has been involved with AFSA activities since about 2017, and this has exposed her to many of the processes and mechanisms by which food sovereignty actions occur, including as the Australiasian member of the Coordination Committee of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM) for relations with the Committee on World Food Security. In 2022-23, Ruth rejoins AFSA’s National Committee as Memberships Officer, to help galvanise the food sovereignty movement even further.

Adele lives on Widjabul Wia-bal Country in Dundarimba/Lismore, in the Northern Rivers of NSW. Adele is a food historian, particularly interested in the relationship between food production and culture and teaches history at Southern Cross University. She is a founding member of the Australian Food Research Network and editor of Locale: Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies.

Adele is the consumer representative on the Lismore Produce Market committee and is a member of Wilson River Landcare. She is active with Richmond RiverKeeper, providing a voice for the river and partnerships with landowners and community groups to restore habitat, improve riverbank stability, reduce pollution and the loss of our precious soils.