From 18-20 October 2025, over 50 people including farmers, workers, First Peoples, labour organisers, researchers, and allied food system organisations gathered for the Food Sovereignty Convergence at Jonai Farms on the unceded lands of the Djaara. Coming together as a diverse group of activists, we reaffirmed that food sovereignty is not merely a concept, it is a struggle, and it lives through the daily resistance of smallholders, Indigenous Peoples, and workers against the forces of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy and imperialism.

We came together to weave a shared political vision and strengthen our collective capacity to reclaim power over food and farming. Through open dialogue made possible through the unconference format typical of Convergence, we named the core challenges facing us all right now: corporate capture of land, water, seed, and infrastructure; agribusiness monopolies; land injustice; climate change; deepening social inequalities; and the disturbing rise of fascism. By naming these challenges, we were able to have honest, productive, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about our role in resistance and the actions we need to take to radically transform the food system. Let’s take a look at the conversations and actions we committed to at Convergence.

Remembering who we are, and where our movement started

We began this year’s Convergence by grounding ourselves in the history of the global food sovereignty movement, from La Vía Campesina’s founding resistance to the WTO, to the ongoing struggle for food sovereignty in every corner of the world. We framed food sovereignty as the political alternative to the depoliticised framework of “food security,” and reaffirmed the 13 Principles of Agroecology as our compass for radical transformation, not just reforms that reinforce current systems of oppression.

Because food sovereignty is not about reforming capitalist and colonial systems to make them a bit more comfortable.

It’s about dismantling them.

It’s about putting First Peoples first, community-led governance, worker and class solidarity, and custodianship over land, water and seed.

Community-led governance

Over the next year, AFSA has committed to co-design an intersectional platform with unions, First Peoples’ organisations, and allied movements. We draw lessons from the HEAL Food Alliance in the U.S. to strengthen cross-sectoral solidarity and collective decision-making while maintaining autonomy. Together, we will push for movement representation in the Feeding Australia Strategy to ensure it serves people, not profit.

Our discussions on governance led us to reflect that what we are building is not self-governance in isolation. We must move toward models of community-led governance, grounded in First Peoples’ leadership and cultural protocols. We refuse to replicate the hierarchies of the state or market; instead, we are creating horizontal, relational structures that hold space for care, conflict, truth-telling, and shared vision.

Land: Access, use and tenure

Land is where struggle and healing meet. For First Peoples, it has never stopped being home and kin. For smallholders and other settlers, it must be a place of deep reckoning and reparations. Agroecology in so-called Australia cannot forget the truth of invasion – every farm sits on stolen land. Moving forward, succession must be decolonial: grounded in respect, reciprocity and the hard and necessary work of returning right relations. For settlers, the task is to practice custodianship–to care for Country as kin, not property.

AFSA will continue developing the Agrarian Trust project, drawing strength from global examples of collective stewardship and learning from urban and rural struggles for access and tenure. Through Agroecology Dialogues, we’ll support non-kin succession and intergenerational custodianship, a longing expressed by many small-scale farmers who want to serve their communities, not capital.

Health, knowledge, and the true cost of food

We recognise that the health of people, land, and community are inseparable. Industrial food systems profit from dietary-related illness, while agroecology nurtures wellbeing, dignity and access to nutritious food. AFSA has committed to working with teachers and health unions to develop education packages on food sovereignty and agroecology, opening up dialogues with schools and teachers’ conferences. Education is critical to raising generations who are empowered to build a better world, but we recognise that we cannot educate our way out of oppression–it is a tool to strengthen grassroots organising for the systemic transformations we need.

We aim to run Solidarity Sessions with Pesticide Action Australia, Healthy Food Systems Australia, and GeneEthics on pesticides and planetary health, and support the AMWU’s Food Fight campaign for just, local, and nutritious food in schools and workplaces.

Anti-Racism, anti-fascism, and decolonial solidarity

We affirmed that food sovereignty is, by its very nature, anti-racist, anti-fascist, and decolonial. Racism and fascism are not fringe problems. They are structural tools of capitalism that divide and disempower communities.

The AFSA national committee agreed that it will open up its Decolonial Circle to all AFSA members to deepen decolonial work and political formation to address racism and fascism. We also committed to publicly positioning AFSA’s anti-fascist, pro-migrant stance and name the risks of right-wing co-optation in food system spaces. We will work to transform community gardens, libraries, and food hubs into safe, anti-fascist “third places” where belonging and resistance can grow together.

One structural outcome of our decolonial solidarity is a name change, and the members voted unanimously to go forth from now as the Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), maintaining our acronym without the acrimony of its colonial namesake.

Workers’ Rights and recognising our shared struggles

The same systems that exploit workers exploit farmers. Food sovereignty demands class solidarity between farm labourers, smallholders, and industrial food system workers.

AFSA will draft guidance on Workers’ Rights for Small-Scale Producers, rooted in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Workers’ in Rural Areas (UNDROP), and share resources on conflict resolution and negotiation tools that reflect the realities of family and cooperative farm models. We will continue building alliances with unions like the AMWU to campaign against corporate monopolies and demand fair work entitlements to long-service leave for farmers and farm workers.

Financial sovereignty and debt resistance

Debt is one of the sharpest tools of oppression in our food system, and indeed broader society. One key thread that binds rural and urban struggles is a reliance on debt that shackles us to capitalism. ​​To break the stranglehold of debt over farmers, food system workers, and communities, AFSA will work to de-normalise debt in public discourse and promote real, debt-free economic alternatives that support food sovereignty.

Over the coming years, AFSA will lead a Debt Resistance Campaign, showing that debt-free economies already exist, and working to expand them. We aim to work with allied organisations and grassroots alternative economy networks to push for cooperative finance and insurance models, and embed alternative economics in national policy. This collective work will inform AFSA’s third book–provisionally entitled Debt-Free Democracy–to be published in 2026.

Building solidarity across movements

We closed the Convergence with the reminder that the status quo (a.k.a. hegemony) is maintained through norms, narratives, and institutions. Meanwhile counter-hegemony requires tactical experimentation, cultural transformation, and coalitional organising across movements.

To build solidarity across movements, we need art, storytelling, and accessible language that creates a clear picture of our shared struggles.

In the year ahead, we will convene cross-movement dialogues on climate, housing, labour, and debt, while building partnerships with youth and environmental movements. We will grow our network of solidarity sessions, book clubs, and popular education spaces, and collaborate with movement artists to make political formation accessible to all.

As always, Convergence closed with a full list of actions for the year ahead, and a renewed sense of energy knowing that in our movement we do not need to tackle big problems alone. Our strength is in each other–in the hands and hearts of many. Already legion, we continue to grow like mycelium in well-nourished soil, carefully tending the roots of the healthy forests of tomorrow.

Viva!