“The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human—at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience…The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.” …Thomas Berry, The Great Work

“The old is dying, and the new cannot yet be born. In this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” …Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them.” …Albert Einstein

I strongly believe that we are in a time of great change and transition. We are alive at a truly unique moment in human history. Our challenge is to embrace the immense opportunities to work together, collaboratively and creatively, to usher in that new world whose contours are already emerging around and through us. To not succumb to the pervasive culture of fear and the apathy and impotence it induces, but to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the ‘Great Work’ of reinventing what it means to be human and to inhabit this Earth.

My role in this Great Work is to work with communities, institutions, enterprises and organisations around Australia to co-create a vision and a practice of fair food systems. These are systems that are democratically and collaboratively developed, and that prioritise human health and well-being, and eco-system integrity. These are systems in which the economy is consciously designed to serve people and the environment, not the other way round.

About food sovereignty

Food sovereignty is a global movement led by family farmers and indigenous peoples, that now includes more than 300 million people in 80 countries around the world. Food sovereignty stands for:

• re-localisation of food systems;
• agro-ecological methods of food production that work with nature rather than against it;
• authentically fair trade rather than free trade;
• the full realization of the human right to adequate food regardless of income status or other distinguishing characteristics; and
• communities and countries having the right to decide that their land and productive resources are prioritized for local production of good food, rather than sold or leased to the highest bidder for mass industrialised monoculture production of commodities for export

Food sovereignty embodies a food and farming system based on connection, rather than one based on separation and alienation. I spent six years researching and studying food sovereignty as well as interviewing some of the leading actors in the movement worldwide, and presented the results in my PhD thesis: Optimism of the Will: Food Sovereignty as Transformative Counter-Hegemony in the 21st century, which (as at October 2019) had been downloaded over 2300 times.

Nick Rose addressing attendees to the ‘Fair Food Systems and Networks in Australia’ workshop on 9th April at the 7th World Urban Forum held in Medellin, Colombia, from 5th – 11th April, 2014, via pre-recorded video.

Affiliations and links

From June 2010 – December 2015, I was the National Coordinator of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, (AFSA), which amongst other projects coordinates Fair Food Week, first held in August 2013.

Churchill Fellowship

In June 2013 I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, to investigate innovative models of urban agriculture and local food in the US Midwest, Toronto, and in five provinces in Argentina. The particular focus concerned models of urban agriculture that supported livelihoods and income generation, and which enabled improved access to good food for low income communities. I undertook my travels from July to September 2014, and my report was published on the Churchill Trust website in early 2015.

Fair Food – the book

In May 2014 I secured a contract with the University of Queensland Press to edit Australia’s first anthology on the Fair Food movement. Fair Food: Stories from a Movement Changing the World was published in 2015, and includes chapters from nine of the country’s leading thinkers and practitioners on the emerging food and farming system in this country, with personal reflections on the events in their own lives that have led them to become engaged and committed actors in what is a rapidly growing global movement.

Sustain: The Australian Food Network

In 2015 I facilitated the transition of the Food Alliance to become Sustain: The Australian Food Network. Sustain has been hosted by William Angliss, where I teach as a lecturer in Australia’s first Bachelor of Food Studies and Master of Food Systems and Gastronomy, since mid-2015.  Its first public event was the workshop Democratising Food Systems, attended by 90 people and held at the William Angliss Restaurant in Melbourne.

Since then, Sustain has hosted two national Urban Agriculture Forums (2016 and 2018),  an inaugural Australian Community Food Hubs Conference and Speaking Tour (2016), and co-hosted the 3rd national New Economy Network Australia conference (2018). It has also secured funding to initiate two major ground-breaking collective impact food systems projects: Cardinia Food Circles and the Melbourne Food Hub.

This is part of a broad and expanding portfolio of work. It is an exciting time to be involved in such an important and dynamic emerging field.

Reclaiming the Urban Commons – the book

In 2017 I had the privilege of meeting Dr Andrea Gaynor of the University of Western Australia, who wrote the seminal book on the history of urban agriculture in Australia – Harvest of the Suburbs (2006).  I asked her if she’d planned another edition and she said no – so I suggested we collaborate on an edited anthology which we ended up titling Reclaiming the Urban Commons: The past, present and future of food growing in Australian towns and cities (2018, UWAP).

I am available for speaking engagements anywhere in Australia on the topics of:

– Food Sovereignty
– Food Security
– Food Systems theory, design and practice
– Local and regional food policies and strategies
– Local and creative food economies, including branding and marketing initiatives and models
– Urban agriculture policy, practice and models
– Emerging economic theory and practice, such as collaborative economies, community economies, gift economies, sharing economies and social / solidarity economies

I can offer my writing, editing and policy skills and expertise to institutions, organisations and businesses looking to engage with the emerging sentiment across Australia for a connected and authentic food system. I have extensive and growing networks in the local and fair food movements across Australia and internationally. You can download my CV here: Rose N CV 2019 3 page

References are available on request. Fees are negotiable. For more information please contact me: nick@sustainaustralia.org