The AFSA and the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance today jointly published a media release as the Federal Government’s consultation period on its Issues Paper for the National Food Plan draws to a close on 2 September.

While the Issues Paper represents recognition by the Australian Government of the cross-cutting nature of food and farming, as well as an acknowledgement of some of the challenges ahead in terms of sustainability, the AFSA believes that on the whole the approach is based on the flawed assumption that the future will look much like the past.

The Issues Paper calls, essentially, for more of the same: more trade liberalisation, more production, more exports. The Food Sovereignty vision, by contrast, calls for a quite different set of policy frameworks: the protection of prime agricultural land and its use for domestic food production; the re-valuing of the role of farmers in Australian society, the transition to sustainable agriculture based on agro-ecological methods; and the elevation of public health to a top priority in the food system. AFSA argues that the National Food Plan must be based in the universal human right to food for all, and the re-orienting of the food and farming system towards production for human need, in accordance with ecological limits.

Download the Media Release here.