Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance | Community organisation

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

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25.01.2022 We've been having some great chats about REKO rings lately - a simple way for growers and eaters to connect directly on line. Diversity of distribution channels, short supply chains, and platforms that farmers and communities can create and have collective control over are key to good food systems, and REKO's a great addition. Catch up on this chat with Kylie Newberry and Blue Dog Farms' Jacki Hinchey in QLD about why REKO is flourishing there and elsewhere. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=940333120038553&ref=watch_permalink

25.01.2022 A new one for the reading list for anyone interested in the work of grassroots movements for food sovereignty: David Meek on Brazil's Landless Worker's Movement and the politics of knowledge. "The book is dedicated to all landless farmers in Brazil and marginalized producers around the world, who see agroecology and education as a path to a more food sovereign future. My greatest thanks go to all MST activists, comrades and friends who live in the agrarian reform encampments and settlements in southeastern and northern Pará, and in particular the 17th of April. My hope is that, in this book, I have managed to amplify your voices to ask the necessary but necessary questions and to help promote a broader process of social change."

22.01.2022 SAGE NSW has been doing amazing work to build a fair and sustainable food system on the NSW south coast, including establishing Stepping Stone Farm to train and mentor the next gen of farmers. They're now taking on more aspiring growers for a 12-month program, so check it out and get your app in! https://sageproject.org.au/stepping-stone-internship/

18.01.2022 Great to see this project going strong - young farmers feeding their community on donated land. Another model of how communities with connection and solidarity can do great things together. "A lot of people in the Blue Mountains and in all peri-urban areas have this dilemma, because of the way we’ve designed our communities they’re like little office cubicles. We need to be tearing our fences down and communicating with each other. The residents who donate their land are al...l people at risk of social isolation, such as older people, recently retired people and young families with small children. We have one family who are in the same boat as me, with one small child with special needs just being there for people is very healing. We have people who’ve lost their jobs because of COVID-19 who come every week to our volunteer sessions, and it’s their sanity. Or people who are writing PhDs, nurses, doctors just a whole bunch of backgrounds. It’s become this incredibly special place where people come over and over again. We’ve found it’s a way of empowering individuals." https://www.milkwood.net//farm-it-forward-connecting-you/

17.01.2022 #CSALove Community supported agriculture is just that - community - and that works in multiple directions. Fab example of CSA growers and eaters walking the talk and embodying the principles of community support

16.01.2022 One Bite podcast brings together work focused on understanding underlying issues in the Australian food system highlighted by the COVID pandemic, and how to address them. Check out this with Tammi Jonas about everything from the meaning of food sovereignty, to community supported agriculture, the impacts of COVID on small producers, legislative barriers, food systems and zoonotic disease, regenerative agriculture and radical transparency. https://anchor.fm//S01-E08-Tammi-Jonas--Australian-Food-So

15.01.2022 Growers and food enterprises - wanna talk collaboration in your sales channels and supply chains? Jump on this webinar witht the collaboration experts at OFN

14.01.2022 Beautifully told from a farmer on how they came to understand food sovereignty and why it matters (especially when a crisis like COVID-19 hits). "Food sovereignty is much more than a sense of security within an existing racist and colonialist societal framework. It is a movement, a relationship, a spiritual and cultural awakening that seeks to break that framework and establish a new one where all peoples can live in an equitable way. Food is central to this movement because... food is much more than something we eat. It is central to one’s identity, social relationships, and health. Where I stand is complex. As a farmer, I am engaged in the trading of foods for money. I might not be in it for profit, but I recognize we incur costs in producing our foods and that sales allow us to recoup those costs. Despite inadequacies in the concept of food security, I support food security efforts. I want to give some of my food to those in need because it is healthy, delicious, and beneficial. I am pleased to be a provider of such foods through my own contributions, the garden I coordinate, the weekly donations at farmers markets I collect, and the foods I sell. I also believe in food sovereignty and see it as a space for continual learning, alliance building, action and growth." https://www.weavenews.org//2020-10-16-shifting-ground-farm

13.01.2022 So important to remember as COVID continues to impact people globally, and as Australia looks towards recovery - 'recovery' needs to mean transformation. And we can help build it from the bottom up. "There is a force in society who can challenge this and build an alternative society. The migrant workers in America's food industry, the peasants of Asia and South America, the meatpackers, lorry drivers and supermarket workers who are part of a global food system are also the very people who can rebuild it from the bottom up. "

11.01.2022 Food sovereignty means a food system that is good for land, animals, and people - and that means everyone who works to produce food. With the current discussions about lack of availability of farm labour, it is necessary to recognise that parts of the Australian agricultural industry have long relied on underpaid labour in inseucre work. When we talk about supporting fair food and fixing the food system, that must include ensuring that farm work at all levels is dignified, se...cure, safe, and fairly compensated. "Farming is caring for the land, something that regenerative agriculture advocates are working on. Farming is also human, in that it employs people who, like the farmer, have to earn enough so that they can have a decent life. If farmers refuse to employ Australians and continue to rely on cheap foreigners when international travel resumes, or pressure government to allow in foreign farm workers during the pandemic, is farming really a viable industry? There’s also the push by fair food advocates to buy locally produced food. Disregarding that coming from small, family-owned farms where the family does a large share of the work, when it comes from large farms, where is the incentive to buy local over imported when it has been produced by cheap foreign workers in Australia? Then, perhaps, imported food has also been produced by cheap, exploited farm workers." https://medium.com//time-for-fair-food-movement-to-speak-u

09.01.2022 Awesome native foods farm project helping young people connect to culture. "It's been so great to grow up with elders like Aunty Julie who help us connect with this culture and this history," he said. "The history of Australia is 200 years old, but the history of Indigenous Australia is 120,000 years old, and it just speaks to the way we have cared for this land for generations.... "Through these programs we are able to do that." https://www.abc.net.au//bush-tucker-farm-in-cent/12884190

09.01.2022 Research collab with Gamilaraay Traditional Owners, local farmers and Indigenous social enterprise, Black Duck Foods, finding promising progress cultivating native grains at a general-consumption scale. "We need to interact with our country and glean food from it, so if we can find a way where we don’t separate the environmental, cultural and food or economic outputs, but we can do all three of them on the same hectare of land, that’s when you’ve got this beautiful country that you can call home, you can call your workplace, you can call your your relaxation place, because it’s special, it holds significance in all of those areas. Ultimately, it is the traditional owners who must benefit from, guide and direct research and enterprise around native foods" https://www.theguardian.com//australian-researchers-find-n

04.01.2022 Fantastic knowledge-sharing playlist for everyone interested in Australian native foods and grains, with: - Aunty Beryl, from The National Centre of Indigenous Excellence - Bernadette Duncan, from Garragal Women’s Language and Culture Network - Dr Claudia Keitel, plant scientist, The University of Sydney... - Rhonda Ashby, Walgett Wirringaa https://www.youtube.com/playlist