Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

AFSA calls out biased reporting on Victorian planning reforms

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Peter Hunt, a Weekly Times reporter, has treated the concerns of Victoria’s pastured livestock farmers over proposed planning reforms with total contempt, calling them ‘delusional.’

This seems unsurprising given Hunt spent many years in a policy role with the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF), a body whose reputation for attacking small-scale farmers is increasing.

Pastured pig and poultry farmers have rejected factory farming and are instead growing animals outside in the fresh air. They devote their farms to growing healthy animals in ethical and ecologically-sound ways.

In an op ed in last week’s Weekly Times, Mr Hunt trotted out the drivel the Victorian Government is seeking to rectify when he called pastured livestock farms ‘intensive’.

Hunt went on to make spurious claims about the biosecurity risks of free-range poultry and pigs. However, it is sheds full of thousands of animals living with their own excrement that are the real source of a massive public health threat – those sheds are ‘food for flu’ as evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace states.

The Government’s attempt to reform the planning provisions has fallen short of the 2016 recommendations of the Animal Industries Advisory Committee (AIAC). The AIAC called for the scheme to recognise the lower risk small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms pose, and for planning controls to be commensurate with that risk.

The AIAC called for small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms to be treated like other grazing production systems.

The AIAC went through an independent public consultation. However, once handed to Agriculture Victoria, the ongoing consultation was limited to peak bodies for intensive agriculture – Australian Pork Limited (APL), Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), and the VFF, and a handful of cattle farmers. There was no representation for pastured pig and poultry farmers, and Ag Vic came back with a draft that sees all pig and poultry farms with more than 200 birds or three sows needing a permit.

The Government, the VFF, and the likes of Hunt keep repeating that all pig and poultry farms have always needed to get a permit, however, they fail to acknowledge that requirement was only recently established by a VCAT case in 2015. This was a trigger for the need to reform the planning scheme. Calling a farm with 100 pigs on 40 acres ‘intensive’ was deemed inappropriate, and the controls applied incommensurate with the risk.

Hunt’s track record of sloppy and inaccurate journalism does the public interest no favours, and his disdain for pastured pig and poultry farmers tells where his allegiances lie.

Tammi Jonas, President

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

‘The Regulation Diaries (7): Planning for Industrial Intensive Animal Agriculture’ by Tammi Jonas

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This blog post was originally posted on AFSA President Tammi Jonas' personal blog, Tammi Jonas: Food Ethics, as part of 'The Regulation Diaries' series. 

 

In October 2015, I visited Jo Stritch of Happy Valley Free Range, Livestock Farmer of the Year in 2014.

Jo had just been ordered to remove all her pigs from her farm after losing a case in VCAT trying to prove that her farm wasn’t ‘intensive’.

One of these is not intensive.

According to the Victorian Planning Provisions (VPP), intensive animal husbandry refers to ‘importing most food from outside the enclosures’. “In Happy Valley Piggery v Yarra Ranges SC, VCAT [2015] determined that ‘most food’ meant most nutrition. This had the effect of making a free-range piggery fall under the definition of Intensive animal husbandry. This classification was counterintuitive to some people as a ‘free range’ piggery was not seen as ‘intensive’.” (AIAC 2015)

In late 2015, an independent body (the Animal Industries Advisory Committee (AIAC)) was appointed by the Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford and the Minister for Planning Richard Wynne to address concerns that the planning provisions were no longer sufficiently meeting the needs and expectations of farmers nor the community.

I will here quote extensively from both the consultation paper and the final report of the Animal Industries Advisory Committee (AIAC).

The VPP Advisory Committee of 1997 that reviewed the implementation of the VPP said: It does not matter where the food is sourced from because it is the concentration of the animals which leads to the need for planning control. The current definition is an input measure – it seeks to define the use based on the source of the feed inputs. What matters in planning are the outcomes, or impacts, of a use. Shifting the definition and control of animal industries to focus on their impacts would seem to make more sense.

Victoria’s planning approval system for intensive animal husbandry is unique compared to other states in that Codes of Practice have been developed for a number of livestock industries that rely on intensive housing and production systems, to support the planning process. There are codes for the piggery, cattle feedlot and broiler industries. These are incorporated into the VPP and all planning schemes in Victoria.

Development of the codes was triggered by expansion of these industries coupled with a recognition of the need to achieve environmentally and financially viable development. The intent of the codes was to provide a detailed and stringent framework of accepted principles and where possible standards for the establishment and operation of intensive animal industries under Victorian conditions. (AIAC 2015)

In 2016, the AIAC recommended a ‘graduated approach to planning controls based on risk’, pointing out that “some intensive animal industries are of a scale that people not associated with the industry might find confronting: chicken farms of 1.2 million birds, goat dairies of 14,000 goats.  But many intensive animal industries are of a small scale catering to local or boutique markets – the planning system needs to manage the lower risk these operations pose in a manner commensurate with that risk.” (AIAC 2016)

So the AIAC recognized that the relevant permit requirements of the VPP and associated codes of practice were designed to address the risks to environment and amenity posed by large-scale industrial sheds of pigs and poultry and that free-range pig and poultry farms had been inadvertently caught up in the definition over the technicality of importing the majority of the feed. The independent committee also recognized that the risk profile of a small-scale free-range pig farm is very different to a shed full of pigs, and that the planning provisions should account for this difference in risk.

The AIAC recommendation that there be graduated controls that would treat small-scale pig and poultry farmers much like other grazing systems (subject to meeting minimum standards), would have removed the onerous and unnecessary requirement for a permit.

They also recommended to allow these low risk farms to be allowed operate in Green Wedge Zones with a permit, which is significant because the prohibition on intensive animal husbandry in Green Wedge Zones is what ultimately caused the move of Happy Valley Free Range to a different shire in order to continue farming. This was broadly acceptable to most small-scale pastured pig and poultry farmers and the eaters who want access to ethical and ecologically-sound meat.

What is also significant is that the Government is now proposing to allow intensive pig and poultry sheds into Green Wedge, Rural Living, and Rural Conservation Zones with a permit, quite contrary to the recommendations of the AIAC.

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) put in a submission to the AIAC and attended the public hearings, and felt that the committee captured our members’ concerns reasonably well, and that we had reason to be hopeful that the Government would take the recommendations and rectify the situation where pastured pig and poultry farmers had become collateral damage of the need to more closely monitor our industrial counterparts.

The Final Report was delivered to the Victorian Government in April 2016, and so we waited. And waited.

In September 2017, the draft of the graduated controls – the tool we expected would rectify pastured pig and poultry farmers’ inadvertent treatment as though we were industrial intensive livestock producers – were released for public consultation, and we were beyond disappointed.

While the independent committee (the AIAC) had demonstrably understood how unnecessary it is to apply the same controls to low-risk pastured systems as to large-scale intensive sheds, once the report disappeared behind government doors, it appeared that the Big Ag lobby (in particular Australia Pork Limited (APL), but also the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA)) have virtually written the draft provisions. I cannot shake the phrase ‘where malice is enabled by incompetence’ from my head.

Make no mistake – APL, VFF, and MLA are no friend to small-scale producers. APL have been sending their representative to VCAT hearings to testify against small-scale pastured pig farmers such as Jo Stritch. President of the VFF Livestock Group, export beef and grain farmer and feedlot owner Leonard Vallance (who is also the former chair of the Board of Victorian meat regulator PrimeSafe) is on the record saying that “Farmers’ markets are the achilles heel of the Victorian food industry,” he said. “The reputational risk to our export markets is massive…”. Head of the VFF Pig Group is 500-sow intensive pig producer John Bourke. And Head of the Egg Group is a caged-egg producer.

The VFF even submitted to the AIAC that the Public Health and Wellbeing Act should be amended to exempt agricultural producers from nuisance complaints.

In a recent newsletter, the VFF asserted that they:

do not support the planning permit exemption for some piggeries and poultry farms for a number of reasons. Often people start small and grow over time. Will the person who started with 150 hens know to get a planning permit when they have 1000 hens?

Planning is about asking the questions on land use, environment and amenity – 200 hens on a quarter acre block has a different impact on five hectares and 33 pigs is a large number of pigs even on this same area. We feel these questions need to be asked of all pig and poultry farms given these aren’t grazing animals and will always need additional feed.

This is intensive.
This is not intensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To summarise some of the key issues, the draft provisions would:

  • Treat a pastured producer with 500 birds the same as an intensive producer with 500,000 birds in sheds.
  • Treat a pastured pig producer with more than 8 sows on paddocks (around 80 pigs) the same as an intensive producer with 800 sows in sheds (possibly 8,000 pigs in total).
  • Allow an existing intensive poultry farm to open a new range for up to 150,000 chickens without any of the restrictions placed on a farmer with 500 chickens.
  • Enforce 100m buffer zones from neighbouring dwellings on pastured poultry farms with up to 450 birds and pastured pig farms with up to 8 sows – rendering small scale farming on land less than 200m wide practically impossible (to give some perspective, at least 1000 birds and 100 pigs is typical for viable small-scale systems).
  • Allow cattle feedlots with up to 1000 cattle to be established with no permit.
  • Allow intensive pig and poultry sheds in the Green Wedge, Rural Living, & Rural Conservation Zones with a permit (currently prohibited).

To be clear, where we expected the new provisions to rectify the unintended consequence of recently treating pastured pig and poultry farmers the same as intensive shed producers, the Government’s draft instead codifies this interpretation.

No longer does risk to environment or amenity appear to be a key consideration – intensive producers have successfully lobbied the Government and the result is prohibitive and expensive permit application requirements that will be the death knell of the growing movement of small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms in Victoria.

Taking only pigs as an example, here is the striking difference between what the AIAC recommended and what the Government is proposing.

AIAC Recommendation (April 2016)

Category 3 – Mid‐scale           No permit if specified standards and requirements are metIntensive supplementary feeding of cattle, sheep or goats (not a feedlot) where provided for in a code. Small sheep feedlot where provided for in a code. Small free range pig and poultry farms where provided for in a code.

SOMEHOW BECOMES

PSAI Draft (September 2017)

Permit required – Streamlined application process*No more than 8 sows + 1 boar + progeny

No pigs located in these setbacks: 100m from other dwellings

I’ll save it for our longer public submission to explain the entirely arbitrary nature of the numbers proposed by the Government that is rendered even more meaningless by failing to attach any land size specification to the number of stock.

FAQs

So why shouldn’t small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms be required to seek a permit to farm in the Farming Zone?

Because we are farming, and the Farming Zone’s purpose is to enable farming, and because other pastured livestock systems do not require a permit to farm. Even the potato farmers whose paddocks are routinely kept barren and many of whom spray glyphosate and fungicides right up to their boundaries do not require a permit, so why should we?

And what is the big deal if the Government insists that we must obtain permits despite the lack of evidence-based arguments for why we should?

Because it is an expensive and complicated process. In our shire, for example, a permit costs about $1300. Most people do not feel confident writing their own applications with all the attendant documentation and need to access multiple government agencies for information, and so hiring consultants is the norm, at many more thousands of dollars. If subject to a notice and review period, one must post notices and alert neighbours to the application, and then sit through local council meetings and be interrogated about the plan, often questioned about aspects totally irrelevant to a highly mobile, pastured livestock system (‘please explain the siting of the sheds’ – ‘there are no sheds’).

The history of the Victorian Planning Provisions reads like Dracula meets Yes Minister. If we take away the intentions – good and bad – and seek to enable farming while judging farming systems on their merits, it’s really not that difficult. Here are some useful principles:

  • The Farming Zone is to enable farming.
  • Pasture-based livestock systems are (potentially) healthiest for soils, animals, water, air, and workers.
  • A permit should be required for technologies and systems known to present higher risks to environment and amenity.
  • There must be recourse for complaints and enforcement when farmers (of any size or production model) are failing to farm responsibly.

So what do we want?

AFSA has started a petition that needs as many voices as possible. The Government needs to know that the people want access to ethically and ecologically-sound produce, and that you stand as and with small-scale producers working to grow a better, fairer food system for everyone.

We call on Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford and Minister for Planning Richard Wynne to explain why low-risk small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms are to be subjected to greater scrutiny and compliance costs than cattle feedlots.

We demand that small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms be treated under the Farming Zone like other low-risk grazing systems that rely on supplemental feed such as the majority of Victorian beef and dairy cattle.

Sign the petition NOW.

Join AFSA and add your voice to the food sovereignty movement that is working to secure access to nutritious and culturally-appropriate food grown in ethical and ecologically-sound ways, and our right to democratically determine our own food and agriculture systems.

References

Animal Industries Advisory Committee Discussion Paper (Dec 2015): https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/10080/Animal-Industries-Discussion-Paper-Revision-1.PDF

 

Animal Industries Advisory Committee Final Report (April 2016): http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/323424/PPV-Animal-Industries-Final-Report-.pdf

 

Planning for Sustainable Animal Industries (Sept 2017): https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-reform/sustainable-animal-industries

Strategic Report

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AFSA Strategic Retreat, Lorne, December 2016

The AFSA National Committee gathered in Victoria’s Lorne for almost two days of reflection on the year past, some pretty incredible food, and the rare space to think deeply about 2017. We’ve come away from the retreat renewed in our commitment to create and fight for a democratic and resilient food system - one based on agroecological principles which nourish a community of eaters connected to their food supply and the people who grow it.

For all eaters and growers, whether urban, regional or rural dweller, food which is accessible, clean, nourishing and delicious is a right not a privilege. Food which is grown with the building of the soil’s health in mind, with the rights of the workers of the land in mind, with the ethical treatment of the animal in mind, and with the well being of the farmers in mind – these are the things we must continue to fight for.

Unfair, inconsistent regulations, illogical planning laws, a lack of transparency in labelling (including ingredients, GMOs and country of origin), food deserts, lack of education around cooking whole foods in season - these issues abound. If we do not continue to push back against the heavy-handed regulatory creep and continued erosion of our democratic rights as food eating citizens, we stand to further lose a genuine farming culture and supply of food which benefits us all.

AFSA’s mandate for 2017 is to support, raise funds for, and run the Legal Defence Fund (LDF) and to continue to cultivate the nexus between farmers, producers, and eaters, by way of advocating food hubs, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and other direct models of sale.

In thinking about the relationships between small producers and eaters, AFSA would like to see the creation of more CSAs. A solidarity economy brings the risks and rewards of real food production and distribution into sharp relief, whilst popular in Japan, North America, Europe, and many other parts of the world, it is a system not well known in Australia. What can we do to change that?

It’s that old chestnut of education. AFSA will be talking more about eating seasonally, ethically, and the benefits of solidarity economies with small-scale producers. As multiple AFSA committee members are small producers who offer CSA shares within their own farming practices, we are well-placed to provide forums for advice and discussions on how they best work, how to get them up and running, and how to market them. Let’s not lose any opportunity to mentor and “grow the growers”. As a personal aside, my family farm, Colin and Sally’s released its first CSA shares on January 1 2017, and we sold all of them within 11 hours. This highlights the incredible opportunities that exist for small producers to better connect with their eating community. The need and the want are there. AFSA is a member of Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture and we will be sharing more resources over 2017 as a way in which to better educate and support this method of exchange between farmer and consumer. A system of economy which better supports the relationship of eater to producer, eater to the seasons, and the economic strength of a local community is the healthiest of food systems.

Sounds simple. Should be. Unfortunately, regulatory overreach in the planning laws, lack of access to abattoirs (for poultry in particular), and overly burdensome and expensive processes are standing in the way of many small producers from feeding their communities. A decline in confidence in the kitchen, a persistent uncomfortable reliance on supermarkets due to convenience and a price model that disrespects every aspect of the growing of the food, and a lack of awareness of just what it takes and what it costs, environmentally and ethically, for an item of produce to go from tractor to trolley, these issues need highlighting and addressing. Alternative models of purchasing will be championed heavily in 2017.

2017 will see AFSA continue to run and fundraise for the LDF. Having now ratified the LDF’s Terms of Reference at the last AGM, a Steering Committee is being established and legal expertise drawn upon, in efforts to both address current illogical planning regulations and producers’ regulatory burden and to anticipate where next we might focus our energies. After a successful crowdfunding start, which many of you may have supported directly, we have the funds to commence the LDF’s work in earnest in 2017. This will be expensive but essential work for argoecological farming systems to fight for their rightful place in the food system

So. Perhaps you have already heard, or perhaps this finds me the bearer of some pretty exciting news, but in late-February 2017 AFSA is hosting a fundraiser for the LDF at Jonai Farms, near Daylesford, with the amazing Joel Salatin, in all his cowboy-hatted, intellectual, straight-talking glory. Jonai Farm embodies many of the values AFSA is fighting for; a resilient, diverse family farm that utilises many of Polyface’s teachings about using animals for optimum soil health, respecting the ‘pigness of the pig’, with control of their supply chain in their on-farm boning room and farm gate shop, plus a thriving CSA that has already demonstrated the value of the model by supporting them through a period of low fertility in their herd. The Save the Date is here. AFSA members will get first dibs on tickets which will be released for sale in the very early new year, so if you are not a paid-up member, we invite you to join us.

Moving along the calendar year and the AFSA National Committee has committed to shaking things up at the Fair Food Convergence and AGM in October 2017. To be held in Canberra, we are hoping a number of committee members will be able to conduct a few whistlestops along the way, collecting stories from eaters and small producers, with the idea of presenting our experiences, grievances and recommendations on fair and agroecological ways forward, to members of Parliament during their sitting week. A Fair Food Convergence, converging on Parliament – brilliant. We’ll let you know more in the new year what this will look like, and a Save the Date will be up soon.

By becoming a member of AFSA, you are committing to support the volunteer national committee achieve its mandate. Whilst we do seek out services for AFSA in the pro bono space, and we most certainly are reliant on these amazing volunteers, there are a range of needs that AFSA cannot acquire without funds. Pamphlets and other collateral, website maintenance and server costs, funding committee members to travel to conferences and speak at events – all to further grow the food sovereignty movement in Australia.

A membership-based organisation can be powerful, but in order to sit on the world stage, we need to turn up. In 2016 Fair Food Farmers United (FFFU), the farmers' branch of AFSA, was officially 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. AFSA is also a proud member of both the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty and Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture. These connections put AFSA in a strong position within the global food sovereignty movement. By joining us as a member, you will be invited to have your say every year about what the issues are that we will focus on. There’s strength in numbers.

At the AFSA retreat in Lorne, there was an article and idea we kept coming back to, which was Toward thick legitimacy: Creating a web of legitimacy for agroecology - “To achieve real change in how food is produced and eaten, we need to change people’s expectations of what “normal” agriculture should look like”. Like Joel Salatin, Maywa Montenegro and Alastair Iles argue that our movement needs to change the narrative. The industrial food system has failed us, and to add insult to injury, along the way they have usurped the narrative of normalcy and justified the failures as only modernity, nothing to worry about, just keep moving “forward”.

The many allies who’ve come together to make up AFSA today haven’t bought into the lie. The industrial food system is harming people, the environment, and our barometer of normal. Rather than continually positioning ourselves as the alternative, let’s remember that a regenerative and agroecological approach to food production was the norm until recently; industrial agriculture is the new, albeit powerful beast that requires the checks and balances proportionate to the risks that it has inflicted upon all areas of the food system. It’s time to redress the narrative.

As always, I thank the AFSA committee for their intelligence, time spent away from family and businesses, and their commitment to change. Onwards!

A peek into the mind of Joel Salatin is a fitting place to finish, this should whet your appetite for late-February: “From zoning to labor to food safety to insurance, local food systems daily face a phalanx of regulatory hurdles designed and implemented to police industrial food models but which prejudicially wipe out the antidote: appropriate scaled local food systems”.

 

Sally Ruljancich

President

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

 

 

Incoming President’s Report – October 2016

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By Sally Ruljancich

I am honoured to be stepping into the role of President of the National Committee of AFSA, a position which I feel ready to assume and which I will grow into quickly and thrive in. I’ve been participating in the politics, ethics and advocacy of food sovereignty, through my studies and my farm business for many years; this positon just makes it a little more official. With AFSA’s wonderful committee, I am confident that we can continue, and build on, the momentum of 2016.

Firstly, a resounding and applauding thank you to Tammi Jonas for her leadership in the role of President over the past two years and a congratulations on her new role as Chair of the FFFU. There is no doubt that Tammi will do amazing things in this role, her years of activism and passionate public speaking ensures the voices of farmers will be heeded. Her legacy of leadership and absolute commitment to food sovereignty is tangible, and the creation of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is testament of this.

I joined the committee of AFSA in May 2016, slap bang in the middle of the LDF campaign, diving straight into strategizing the #youcantbuywhatieat potluck events and attended a number of them – they really were amazingly delicious gatherings - and the online community rallied around the cause in the public space. It was exhilarating. I, with fellow committee members, also met with parliamentary members throughout the second half of the year as AFSA continues to have its voice heard. We will be seeking meetings with legislators and policy makers in 2017.

Like most people, I wear a number of figurative hats. I’m a researcher at The University of Melbourne, working in fundraising, a position I took on after fleeing my PhD thesis and moving to a farm in South Gippsland with my husband. We established Colin and Sally’s Organic Lamb and Beef in 2013, selling our meat direct to the eater and along the way, created and grew, a community of conscientious eaters. Our beautiful children aside, it is the achievement I am most proud of. From this position, I have always championed other small producers and am often the first point of contact for advice on selling direct and connecting farmers to a wider audience. If we want the CSA and direct sales movement to grow (hint: we do), then we must publicly support each other and collaborate more often, and better.

I didn’t start life as a farmer. I wasn’t always writing from a farmhouse, gazing at sheep grazing on the hills. For many years an inner-city vegetarian, I abhorred the treatment of animals prior and during slaughter and simply did not want to participate at all in a food system that condoned it. University days were a blur of too many long shifts in a fish and chip shop, lectures and bad food from the supermarket. I wrote about food regulation in my thesis, but I didn’t yet know how to engage with the food system of my dreams. I now know what I’m fighting for. Systematic change.

The concerns raised at the Fair Food Convergence in late-October 2016 were many, but the ones which stood out as most pressing were the lack of processing infrastructure accessible to many meat farmers (particularly for poultry), the disconnect that many eaters have to the seasons and a lack of confidence and knowledge of cooking with a variety of meats cuts and produce; and how we can continue to create a ‘space’ for farmers and eaters to connect, one which works for both.

AFSA’s mandate for 2017 will be to support, fundraise for, and run the LDF and to continue to cultivate the nexus between farmers, producers, and eaters, by way of advocating food hubs, CSAs and direct models of sale, eating seasonally and using all the cuts, from cheek to eye fillet. Nationwide seasonal feasts anyone? Also, more championing in the public realm is needed of those chefs and eateries that DO walk the “paddock to plate” talk and AFSA will be vocal in our appreciation of the ones that do. AFSA will also explore models of small and community-run meat processing facilities in regional Australia and sharing the successes of the models around the country that are operational or near to being. Unlocking the access to processing and distribution infrastructure are key to more small scale producers feeding their communities. Imagine that.

Thank you to Michele Lally, Paul West, Alana Mann and Sophie Lamond who are stepping away from their positions on the AFSA committee, and to Wendy Lehman, who left the committee in June; all to continue their respective and wonderful projects within the fair food space. We all look forward to hearing about your successes; AFSA is richer for your input.

To the committee going forward, Chris Balazs (Vice-President), Jo Hall (Secretary), Ben Mac, Phil Stringer, Serenity Hill, Samantha Hawker, I genuinely look forward to the coming months of lobbying, seasonal feasting, strategizing and collegiality. A special thank you goes out to intern Courtney Young, making the lives of committee members easier, one mail chimp at a time.

It was a fateful day that morning I rolled up Jonai Farm driveway to learn how to make sausages with Tammi. I left with bacon, knowledge and a collectivist spirit reawakened. A community of knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer support, the likes of which I hadn’t previously encountered drove home my sense of purpose to create a food system that is determined by the farmer and the eater rather than corporations, is respectful of the animal, and works on and with the health of the soil. And delicious. I joined up immediately.

President’s Report – October 2016

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By Tammi Jonas

In my second and final year as President, the AFSA National Committee has worked and fought hard to especially support small-scale dairy and ethical meat producers who are at the pointy end of unfair regulations and outdated planning schemes. We’ve done so because the food sovereignty movement must actively support ethical and regenerative farming models so that eaters have somewhere to turn as we ask them to turn their backs on Big Ag and the duopoly.

A major focus for the year has been the crowdfunding campaign to establish a Legal Defence Fund to support farmers, makers, and eaters in their attempts to grow and access ethical and ecologically-sound produce in the face of unfair and inconsistent regulations and planning designed for large industrial agriculture and processing. We’ve currently raised nearly $30,000 and recently distributed the first funds to three farms in need: Elgaar Organic Dairy in Tasmania, Moo View Dairy in South Australia, and Happy Valley Free Range in Victoria. The campaign has been great for building AFSA’s membership, which has nearly tripled over the past year.

The #youcantbuywhatieat potlucks have been a huge success across the country at raising awareness of the problems of our current food safety regulations and the threat they pose to food sovereignty, and they have been some of the best meals I have personally ever eaten! We’ve feasted on wild-shot rabbit ragu, roadkill roo stew, home-killed and cured salamis, raw milk cheeses and an endless variety of pickles and ferments to support the millions of good bacteria in our guts and contest the orthodoxy of sterility that is a different but genuine risk to public health. Communities everywhere are coming together to talk about what kind of food and agriculture systems they want – it’s food sovereignty enacted!

The Legal Defence Fund is now a formal sub-committee of AFSA with its own Terms of Reference and we’ll be seeking expressions of interest soon for members of the Steering Committee – those with training or experience in food safety and planning are particularly urged to join us in our efforts to reform the system back to accommodating a more human scale.

In addition to running the campaign to build a Legal Defence Fund, we’ve also been very active in lobbying policymakers and legislators directly. AFSA made submissions to the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into the Impact of Regulation on Agriculture, and the Animal Industries Advisory Committee’s inquiry in Victoria, and attended hearings of both inquiries to further express our views on what food sovereignty could look like with some careful reform. We’ve met with the Ministers for Agriculture and Planning in Victoria as well as backbenchers and leaders from the Opposition to build awareness of the food sovereignty movement across the political spectrum.

The small-scale farmer movement continues to grow and gather, and this year’s Deep Winter saw over 200 farmers and our allies come together for two rejuvenating days of strategizing and nourishing our community in Gerringong, NSW thanks to the wonderful people of Buena Vista Farm and Milkwood.

Also in AFSA’s efforts to support more small-scale producers I’ve met with dozens of livestock farmers across the country, and a movement to (re)build small regional abattoirs is well underway – watch this space in the coming year as we continue to reclaim the means of production back from the hands of corporate greed.

At the international level, in August 2016 Fair Food Farmers United (FFFU), the farmers' branch of AFSA, was officially 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 (IPC) and Urgenci: the International Network of Community Supported Agriculture.

In March 2016 I attended the Asia Pacific Regional Conference of the FAO in Malaysia, where we continued to forge alliances with civil society organisations working for food sovereignty across our region, and had the opportunity to put forward positions on over-regulation in Australia to the Director General of the FAO. I also learned more about opportunities to work in solidarity with our comrades across the Global South as they fight the ill effects of cheap Australian exports that are destroying their own smallholders’ capacity to survive.

I have done a dozen interviews for radio and print media as well as numerous podcasts in addition to nearly 20 public speaking engagements at events as varied as the Victorian Agritourism Summit, the Horsham Landcare AGM, and Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Italy. Our outgoing Communications Officer and Sydney University academic Alana Mann has detailed the rest of our media impact in her report.

I step down from the role of President knowing I am leaving it in the very able hands of organic beef and lamb producer Sally Ruljancich, a force of nature and know-how in her own right and a bright new leader for the food sovereignty movement in Australia.

I will continue on the AFSA National Committee in the role of Chair of Fair Food Farmers United, where I look forward to continuing our strong engagement with farmers, and to building on nearly two years of work to establish the Legal Defence Fund. I also look forward to furthering AFSA’s international advocacy work with IPC, LVC, and Urgenci over the coming year.

As I hand over the helm, I’d like to offer a sincere and resounding thank you to the hard-working National Committee members of 2015-16: Chris Balazs, Alana Mann, Sally Ruljancich, Jo Hall, Phil Stringer, Ben McMenamin, Paul West, Michele Lally, Sophie Lamond, Wendy Lehman, Sam Hawker, and Gavin Williams, as well as our two fantastic interns over this past year Katarina Munksgaard and Courtney Young. And a very special note of gratitude to our dynamo volunteers who help with AFSA’s websites and comms Kate Raymond, Sharon Lee, and Larna Pittolgio, as well as the talented Greer Freshwater Burton, who designed our brilliant new logo this year. If it’s true that the future belongs to those who turn up, I’m really glad it was you guys. ;-)

 

Viva la revolución!

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