Farmers Markets are an Essential Service – Keep them open!

March 26, 2020 by Tammi Jonas

MEDIA RELEASE: 26 March 2020

Farmers’ Markets are an Essential Service – Keep them open!

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is working to assert and secure everyone's right to access nutritious food grown and distributed in ethical and ecologically-sound ways.

Farmers' markets are excellent sources of this food grown by Australia's small-scale farmers, and play a critical role in ensuring food security for Australians, while also ensuring the ongoing viability of small-scale farmers and food producers.

AFSA has received information from farmers and eaters around the country of the threat of closures of their local markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, while supermarkets, butcher shops, and bakers have permission to trade with safety protocols in place – as they should.

We assert that all farmers' markets should be allowed to remain open as an essential service, just as other venues that sell food for household consumption, with all precautions taken for community safety. Farmers’ markets are, by virtue of being outdoors, inherently lower risk for disease transmission than their indoor retail food market counterparts.

Markets around the country are continuing to trade responsibly, by only allowing produce stalls to remain open (no non-essential consumer items), with strict rules around social distancing, including no more than one shopper at each stall, no handling of produce, and provision of hand sanitising facilities.

We are calling on all levels of government to protect our farmers, and the community's right to access safe, nutritious, ethical, and ecologically-sound produce through this unprecedented crisis.

If you are a farmer or eater in need of support to advocate your right to hold or attend a local farmers’ market, with strict safety guidelines in place, please contact us on admin@afsa.org.au.

Contact: Tammi Jonas, President

0422 429 362

president@afsa.org.au

Farm Day Out: A music fest for lovers of good, fair food!

January 31, 2019 by Food Sovereignty

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is hosting the inaugural Farm Day
Out at Jonai Farms in Eganstown, Victoria on 17 March 2019.

It’s a day on the farm meets music festival, where one can meet local farmers, catch
a dance-inducing line-up of live music, and sink your teeth into some delicious local,
ethical & ecologically-sound food, while kicking back in the rolling hills outside
Daylesford.

Best of all, the event is a fundraiser in support of farmers and their allies working
towards sustainable and regenerative food systems. At a time when Australia is
suffering drought and our rivers are dying from the worst excesses of industrial
export-oriented agriculture up north, many are looking to new/old, better ways of
farming.

The morning kicks off with a tour of Jonai Farms, where local farming legends
Tammi and Stuart Jonas will guide visitors through their diverse, small-scale,
agroecological farming system, and the on-farm boning room and commercial
kitchen where they produce fresh cuts, smallgoods, charcuterie, and salumi.
Back at the beautiful Jonai event space – the grandly named ‘Belvedere’ – punters
will be treated to a lilting line-up of folk, country and indie acts throughout the
afternoon. Local stars Freya Josephine Hollick (fresh off the back of recording a new
album with Buick 6 at Rancho De La Luna studios in California), Sean McMahon,
and Sal Kimber and the Rollin’ Wheel, will be hitting the stage with full bands on
show for big, deep tunes.

You’ll be able to fill up on locally-produced eats and treats from some of Victoria’s
favourite food trucks, including hyperlocal Danny’s Farm and ever-popular Lil’ Nom
Noms, and enjoy the likes of Captain’s Creek organic cider and wine and Holgate
beer from just down the road. In keeping with AFSA’s mission of fair food, Farm Day
Out organisers are ensuring that all food is sourced ethically from farmers we know
and love. (You can also bring your own picnic lunch - no BYO alcohol).

Farm Day Out will also see the launch of AFSA’s revolutionary new book Farming
Democracy: Radically transforming the food system from the ground up. The book
shares the stories of eight small-scale regenerative farmers from across Australia,
from veg growers and pastured livestock farmers to organic grain farmers. It delves
into just how they grow, process, and sell their food, and what it takes for them to
farm the way they do - giving practical, on-the-ground insight into what is happening
around the country to build a fairer food system, and opening the books to share
what it costs (and makes) them to grow food fairly.

All funds raised by the event will support AFSA’s work in advocating for a fair,
nourishing, and ecologically-sound food system – supporting more farms, not bigger
farms, and working to drought proof Australia with agroecology!

About the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance
The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is working towards a fair, diverse
and democratic food system for the benefit of all Australians. We are a civic
organisation of Australian farmers, communities, organisations, and individuals
committed to upholding the rights of peoples to food sovereignty.

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 degree to which peoples experience food sovereignty has a direct bearing on
their food security. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical,
social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The greater
peoples’ food sovereignty, the greater the level of control they have over their food
choices and the sources of their food.

When: Sunday 17 March, 10:00am – 6:30pm
Where: Jonai Farms, Eganstown VIC 3461
More info and tickets: https://www.facebook.com/events/381367049352162/

FOR INTERVIEW:
• Tammi Jonas, President M: 0422 429 362
INFORMATION:
• afsa.org.au
• admin@afsa.org.au

Slow Meat 2018

August 13, 2018 by Food Sovereignty

AFSA & Slow Food Central Highlands Proudly Presents Slow Meat 2018

Slow Meat is a symposium that aims to educate the public and industry about the ecological and social costs associated with intensively-produced meat and highlight the regenerative and ethical alternatives.

If you'd like to learn more about Slow Meat and all the outstanding panels, feasts, and roundtables that it will entail, please read below.

Already familiar with the event? Jump right into these quick facts:

When: September 23-25
Where: Daylesford, VIC
Tickets: Available for purchase on Eventbrite
Discounts: 10% discounts available for AFSA members, and an additional 10% available to farmer members (20% discount total!)
Email admin@afsa.org.au for your discount code

Second Annual Slow Meat Calls to Eat "Less, Better Meat"

How do we get people to ‘eat better meat, less? For the second year running, Slow Meat Australia will bring together farmers, butchers, chefs, and allies to try to answer this question.

The aim of the Slow Meat Australia Symposium is to enable the critical discussions needed to enable a shift away from the unsustainable and unethical practices of intensive industrial livestock production. Slow Meat Australia aims to educate the public and industry about the ecological and social costs associated with intensively-produced meat and highlight the regenerative and ethical alternatives. Over time, advocates for Slow Meat want to see an industry move towards the highest welfare, pastured farming systems that nourish land, animals and people.

Australia’s annual Slow Meat Symposium is a collaboration between the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and Slow Food Central Highlands held over three days that includes plenaries and debates around how to progress the slow meat and food sovereignty agendas in Australia and globally. Held in Daylesford on 23 - 25 September 2018, the event will include farm visits, butchery demonstrations and feasts. The event is open to farmers, abattoir operators, butchers, chefs, restaurateurs, academics, and anyone else who is interested in how animals are raised for meat.

Slow Meat Australia is fortunate this year to be bringing American butcher, educator, and James Beard Award-winning author Adam Danforth to Daylesford, who will present well-considered views and deeply informative masterclasses on whole-animal butchery, and the science of flavour to demonstrate slow meat in action.

Danforth will be joined by two passionate proponents for Slow Meat: Michael Hicks of Extraordinary Pork and ethical meat purveyor Laura Dalrymple of Feather & Bone, who will offer provocations on producing, processing, and selling slow meat.

Award-winning food writer and author of My Year Without Meat Richard Cornish will MC Monday's symposium, and local regenerative livestock farmer and butcher Tammi Jonas of Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths, president of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, will present an update on the state of the Slow Meat movement in Australia and globally.

Excitingly, this year’s event also boasts six local female chefs who will pair up with local producers to offer food samples and stories of the effects of breed, feed, age,ageing, and cooking on the deliciousness of slow meat.

On Sunday before the Symposium, the public is invited to join a day of informative farm visits, including pastured pig farmers Brooklands Free Range Farms and duck farmers Vue du Volcan. A feast will be had at family-owned winery Captains Creek in Blampied of local delicacies, organic wines, and ciders from apples grown on the farm.

SBS’ Gourmet Farmer Matthew Evans of Fat Pig Farm will revisit the vision for slow meat in Australia, and our Slow Meat Manifesto developed collectively over the Symposium. A celebratory dinner will be the finale to Slow Meat Australia, and per the Slow Meat mantra, will present a menu that encourages participants to 'eat better meat, less'.

Day three of the Symposium features a not-to-be-missed half-day masterclass with the incredibly knowledgeable and skilled Adam Danforth, award-winning author of Butchering Beef, and Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, Pork.

“What conditions during the life of the animal impact the quality of the meat?” asks Danforth, “These questions (and many more) are answered as a whole carcass is systematically broken down, with individual muscles isolated and described for function, flavour, tenderness, and potential for incredible food memories.”

In this unique format of experiential education, stigmas in meat will be challenged through the use of older animals such as cull dairy cows. The workshop will conclude with several rounds of blind tasting contrasting muscles, reinforcing the core workshop concepts of prioritising flavour over tenderness and the direct correlation between an animal’s welfare and the nutrition and emotional potential in its meat.

Young chef and Jonai sous butcher Morris Willcock of Paddock to Pie will provide lunch on day three.

For the final afternoon, there will be a small-scale abattoir roundtable to bring existing abattoir owners together with the growing movement of farmers, butchers, and allies working to build new abattoirs. Together we will develop a strategy to halt the loss of regional abattoirs across Australia and see new ones thrive to support the growing movement of slow meat farmers and those who choose their ethically- and ecologically-raised produce.

This event is for all enablers, enactors, and allies of the Slow Meat philosophy to discuss and debate all things around the ethical and ecologically-sound production and consumption of meat.

In AFSA president & farmer & butcher Tammi Jonas’ words, ‘the food sovereignty movement broadly and slow meat more particularly is unstoppable because it is an ecological movement – everybody benefits from improving care for land, animals, and people. As we say at Jonai, you are what you eat, so eat ethically!’

Want to Learn More? Connect with us!

Slow Meat Australia Facebook page

Slow Meat Symposium 2018 Facebook event page

Purchase Tickets on Eventbrite

About AFSA

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance is a farmer-led collaboration of organisations and individuals working towards a food system in which everyone has the opportunity to access, create, and manage their food supply from paddock to plate. 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 Alliance’s purpose is to cooperate to create an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system for all Australians.

About Slow Food Central Highlands

Slow Food Central Highlands is part of the global Slow Food network – a grassroots organisation in 160 countries linking the pleasure of good food with a commitment to local communities and the environment. Slow Food seeks to preserve local food traditions and reignite people’s interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and the impact of their food choices.

MAJOR WIN FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AS VICTORIA ANNOUNCES PLANNING REFORMS

June 27, 2018 by Tammi Jonas

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is celebrating a win for small-scale pastured pig and poultry farmers – and everyone’s access to food grown in ethical and ecologically sound ways – with the Victorian Government’s announcement of the long-awaited reforms to the planning scheme.

The reforms acknowledge the very low risk these systems pose to environment and amenity, and introduce a streamlined permit application process for low density mobile outdoor pig and chicken farms, with no requirement for referrals to other agencies nor a notice and review period.

‘While we still maintain that small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms should not have been required to obtain a permit to farm in the Farming Zone, just as their grazing counterparts are not required to, we have accepted this compromise as a way forward to give local councils and communities confidence that our intentions to raise animals responsibly and respectfully are matched by our farming practices,’ said AFSA President Tammi Jonas.

Up until 2015 small-scale pastured pig and poultry farms were advised by councils across the state that they did not require permits as they were generally considered to be ‘extensive’ or grazing systems. However, a VCAT ruling in 2015 deemed free-range pig farm Happy Valley as ‘intensive’ due to importing the majority of the pigs’ feed.

The decision triggered a process that has taken three years to address what farmers, councils, and the state government all agreed was an unintended consequence of an imprecise definition.

AFSA mobilized its members and partnered with other organisations across the state such as Slow Food Melbourne, Open Food Network, and the Victorian Farmers Markets Association, which led to an unprecedented 270 submissions made to Agriculture Victoria late last year calling for scale-appropriate, risk-based planning provisions.

‘We are delighted at this outcome after years of working with the Victorian Government, and optimistic that small-scale regenerative farmers have a seat at the table now that we have collectivized our voices in an organization that the Government recognizes as the voice of small-scale farmers,’ said AFSA President Tammi Jonas.

‘Whilst the new scheme is not perfect, it blends solid scientific principles with a pragmatic approach for planners to ensure that our sector can continue to expand rapidly while protecting environment and amenity. The Government and its departments are to be congratulated for recognising the emergence of our sector and asking for our help to formulate this new policy,’ said Bruce Burton of Milking Yard Farm.

"Regrarians Ltd applauds the Victoria State Government's process since it released its draft reforms in September 2017. Working with partner organisations such as AFSA, VFMA along with many of our clients affected by these reforms, we have been encouraged by the professional collaboration of these stakeholders to work with the government such that the regenerative agriculture industry's interest and best practice have been included. We look forward to continuing the collaboration so that further development of the reforms serves the interests of a regenerative future for Victoria's agriculture," said Darren Doherty of Regrarians Ltd.

AFSA hopes this is the first of many amendments to legislation that is hampering the growth of regenerative agriculture across Australia, from scale-inappropriate planning schemes to food safety regulation.

‘We want to see regenerative farming become the new normal, with care for soil, water, animals, farm workers, and eaters at the core of our farming practices, but for this to happen, we need governments to shift their policy focus from supporting industrial agriculture to enabling regenerative farming.’

‘We’re encouraged by Minister for Agriculture Jaala Pulford’s announcement last month of the Artisanal Agriculture program, with $2 million earmarked to support our members in their efforts to grow food in ethical and ecologically-sound ways,’ said Jonas.

One significant concern that remains is the failure to include other species of poultry (such as ducks, geese, turkeys, quail and squab) in the streamlined process. However, ‘AFSA has been assured by the Minister that the work to include other species of poultry in the streamlined process will be undertaken as a matter of priority,’ said Jonas.

Contact: Tammi Jonas, President

m: 0422 429 362

AFSA – response to the Turnbull government’s rejection of the The Uluru Statement from the Heart

November 28, 2017 by Katie Johnston

AFSA's national committee members were saddened to hear of the rejection of The Uluru Statement from the Heart, and as such, have released the following response. We believe the rejection of the report's findings is a step backwards for reconciliation with the Traditional Owners of this country. As Bruce Pascoe recently reminded us at the Food Sovereignty Convergence, conciliation will take time - people will get hurt, and it will be hard...but it is necessary. We reckon this would have been a pretty good start.

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) urges the Prime Minister to reconsider his response to the findings of the Final Report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Peoples.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart proposed the inclusion of Australia’s Traditional Owners’ voices via an Indigenous advisory body in parliament.

This body proposes to offer non-binding advice on relevant matters.

The outright rejection of this modest proposal is a step backwards for reconciliation, and disrespects both the people, and the process, which entailed a long period of consultation and collaboration among a broad cross-section of Indigenous Australian communities.

Top down approaches have failed to reverse the disadvantage of Indigenous Australians. National representation and self-determination are essential steps in moving beyond the gross injustices of the past.

As stewards of the land, our farmer members are endeavouring to work with the original owners of this country to create a more socially equitable and ecologically sustainable nation, and a truly food sovereign future.

Through AFSA’s ongoing engagement with the international organisation, La Via Campesina, we stand in strong solidarity with the global movement for recognition and inclusion of indigenous and First Nation Peoples everywhere, without whom there can be no true food sovereignty.

We support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognising “the urgent need to respect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples affirmed in treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements with States”.

AFSA wishes to remind the parliament of the encouragement in the Declaration that “States comply with and effectively implement all their obligations as they apply to indigenous peoples under international instruments, in particular those related to human rights, in consultation and cooperation with the peoples concerned”.

We therefore implore the parliament to revisit its decision, and to begin implementation of the recommendations of this historic report and statement.