Category Archives: Food sovereignty

advocate, Corporate control of food, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Global hunger, National Food Plan, Small-scale farming

Globalise the struggle, globalise hope! Viva La Via Campesina!

While peasants maintain their struggle, corporations’ mouths water over the ‘dining boom’

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 20th April 2013

Nick Rose

Two events this week mark sharply diverging paths for national and global food systems.

Wednesday (17 April) marked the 17th anniversary of the murder of 19 peasant family farmers in the Brazilian town of Dorado dos Carajas. Members of the million-strong Landless Workers Movement (MST), they were targeted as part of a campaign of intimidation and harassment by big landowners and agribusiness interests, for whom the MST’s demands for more equitable access to land and other resources could not be tolerated.

The global small farmers movement La Via Campesina now commemorates 17 April as the ‘International Day of Peasants’ Struggle’. Each year hundreds of peasant farmers in many different countries lose their lives attempting to resist what appears to be a relentless push for greater corporate ownership and control over land, seeds, water and markets. Thousands more lose their livelihoods and their land as they are forced off their own ancestral lands, often violently, to make way for biofuel plantations and the GM soy mega monocultures that provide feed for the factory farming of pigs and chickens.

All of this is supposedly done in the name of ‘development’, ‘progress’ and ‘efficiency’.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne on Thursday (18 April), the Australian and the Wall Street Journal launched the inaugural Global Food Forum. As reported in the Australian, ‘billionaire packaging and recycling magnate Anthony Pratt’ called for a ‘coalition of the willing’ so that Australia can ‘quadruple our exports to feed 200 million people’.

 

The ‘dining boom’ will replace the mining boom as the next driver of our economy, apparently. Eyes lit up with estimates of an ‘additional $1.7 trillion in agriculture revenues between now and 2050 if [Australia] seized the opportunity of the Asia food boom.’

 

Amongst other measures, this ‘dining boom’ is said to depend on the so-called Northern food bowl: clearing large swathes of Northern Australia and irrigating it with dozens of new dams.

 

But, as Professor Andrew Campbell of Charles Darwin University has pointed out, water is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for successful food production. Good soils are essential, and in our north the ‘soils are low in nutrients and organic matter, they can’t hold much water, they erode easily and they have low infiltration rates’. Other obstacles to the rosy future of being ‘Asia’s food bowl’ include extreme monsoonal weather events, high input costs and higher labour costs due to remote locations.

In short, the so-called Northern food bowl is likely to prove a mirage. And when you add to the picture the parlous state of many wheat farmers in south-west WA, not to mention the Murray-Darling itself, the idea that massively expanding food exports to Asia is going to be this country’s economic saviour looks decidedly like wishful thinking.

And even if it were true, who would be the main beneficiaries? A handful of very large exporting farms, and the grain traders and agri-business that dominate the global food system.

Which brings us back to Via Campesina. They’re campaigning for a food system that’s fair and sustainable, one that works for people and the land, not simply for shareholders and CEOs.

Sam Palmer, from Symara Organic Farms (near Stanthorpe, Qld), who attended the 6th Global Via Campesina conference in Jakarta, June 2013
Sam Palmer, from Symara Organic Farms (near Stanthorpe, Qld), who attended the 6th Global Via Campesina conference in Jakarta, June 2013

In June this year, Via Campesina will be holding its sixth international conference, in Jakarta. For the first time, a delegation of four Australian farmers are hoping to join the other delegates from dozens of countries around the world, to discuss the future of family farming and food systems worldwide. They’re asking for support from the Australian public to get there, to make sure the vo

ices of Australian family farmers are heard in these important discussions.

You can find out who they are, and help them get to Jakarta, by going to http://www.pozible.com/project/20941.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Farmers Markets, Food sovereignty, Local and regional food economies, New market mechanisms, Resilience, Small-scale farming

Local food production means resilience

Expanding trust horizons in Karangi

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 6th April, 2013

In February last year , Canada-based blogger Nicole Foss (www.automaticearth.com) spoke at the Cavanbagh Centre in Coffs Harbour, as part of her speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand. Nicole is now back in Australia for another speaking tour, though she won’t be visiting Coffs on this occasion.

In Coffs as elsewhere, Nicole offered her perspective on what she terms the unfolding ‘deflationary depression’, caused by the build-up of unsustainable debt levels throughout the global economy, combined with the anticipated impacts of dwindling supplies of cheap energy. Events in many countries in southern Europe would seem to offer early confirmation of her analysis.

Nicole Foss, aka Stoneleigh
Nicole Foss, aka Stoneleigh

Nicole also talked about the shrinking  ‘trust horizon’ that she believes will accompany a prolonged economic contraction. She argues that ‘relationships of trust are the glue that holds societies together’; and while in good times trust expands and the sense of ‘us vs them’ recedes, the opposite is true when hard times fall.

Putting this in a wider historical context, Dr Ben Habib of La Trobe University notes how the Chinese people coped with around 140 years of upheaval, revolution and war from the 1830s to the 1970s by ‘drawing on a cultural practice called guanxi (pronounced “gwan-shee”) which is about maintaining networks of ongoing personal relationships based on mutual benefit through reciprocal ties and obligations.” It was guanxi, according to Dr Habib, that enabled ‘greater social stability at the local level in China than would otherwise have existed during this turbulent period.’

Enter Sam Mihelffy, who migrated to the Coffs Coast with her husband Aaron and young family from Noosa five years ago. They bought a 34-acre property in Karangi, with established stands of citrus, pecans, macadamia, avocado and custard apples. They added some blueberries, apple trees, a vegie garden and most recently dragon fruit; and for the first time in their lives became farmers.

At the start, they weren’t ready for taking on this sort of life project. “It was mind-blowing”, says Sam. “We definitely moved in there with our hearts and not our heads, we didn’t really take on the concept of growing on such a large scale. It’s been a massive learning curve, and we’ve only really scratched the surface. But it’s something you evolve with, it’s really exciting.”

They diversified the farm by fencing it into three paddocks and adding a flock of 30 sheep, three alpacas, six ducks, a shetland pony and a pet pig. So was born the concept of ‘Me-Healthy Farm’ (a play on their name, Mihelffy), a ‘whole farm’ experience. Sam and Aaron opened the farm on Sundays for friends and the public to visit, buy fresh local produce at the farm shop (both from their own farm and nearby properties), and relax with a cup of coffee and some homemade cake, while kids could run around and feed the animals.

Sam Mihelffy at her Coffs Coast Growers Market stall
Sam Mihelffy at her Coffs Coast Growers Market stall

Providing that direct connection with farm animals was a big part of Sam’s motivation. “A lot of kids, even in Coffs Harbour, don’t have that experience, not even with the sheep”, says Sam. “A baby lamb being fed, they have no concept of that, so it’s really that we could show kids, hey look, this is what it’s like to live on a farm, come and have that experience for the day.”

And the concept proved very popular. “The fact that the kids could roam free was a great pull for parents”, Sam says.  “They got excited about the fact that they could chill out, the kids could feed the animals – there were so many different aspects. And get some fresh produce. It was a real experience – and we don’t have that happening any more [in modern society].”

Sadly though Sam and Aaron have had to pause it for the time being, because the amount of work involved in having their farm open every Sunday with a farm shop, was proving to be too much with a young family. But it’s time could come again – and given the need to strengthen our trust horizons – it might be sooner than later.

In Sam’s words, “This is where we should all be going. It’s really what we want to do. It wasn’t just about us – it was about our local community, [about] all the local products of the area. This is what we need to do, get back into that trading idea, someone specialises in garlic, someone specialises in ginger, someone’s doing beef, someone’s doing honey. If anything ever happens, we need to create that community where we can support each other.”

advocate, Food policy, Food sovereignty, National Sustainable Food Summit

The 3rd National Sustainable Food Summit

An agenda for transformation – or business as usual?

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 23rd March, 2013.

Transformation was the goal, of the organisers at least, of the 3rd National Sustainable Food Summit, just concluded in Melbourne. The summit organisers and promoters describe it as a ‘seminal event’ that ‘attracts delegates [from across] the food supply chain…It is the largest and most diverse gathering of practitioners interested in the sustainability of our food system.’

I attended because I had been invited to present on the work I’ve been involved in around the People’s Food Plan over the last 12 months, with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance. I also spoke briefly on the second day of the conference about the need to take urgent action to protect and preserve Australia’s dwindling supply of prime agricultural land – a report last year found that we have lost 89 million hectares over the past 26 years to four main drivers: mining, suburban sprawl, forestry and national parks.

Homage to the Seed, Artist Sophie Munns, from the Cover of the People's Food Plan Working Paper, February 2013
Homage to the Seed, Artist Sophie Munns, from the Cover of the People’s Food Plan Working Paper, February 2013

 

There is little doubting the need for major changes in Australia’s food system – and indeed the global food system. What I challenged participants to think about was what sort of transformation they wanted, because the word actually has two meanings. The first is a ‘dramatic change in form or appearance’, which would indicate cosmetic changes – ‘window dressing’, or ‘greenwashing’, rather than substantive changes.

The second meaning of transformation is metamorphosis, an altogether different process. Think of the utterly profound process of change that a caterpillar undergoes in order to become the butterfly, and you’ll have an idea of what’s involved.

What immediately struck me about the Summit was the sheer lack of people actually attending. I went to the inaugural Summit in Melbourne in 2011, at which well over 200 people attended. Two years later, the numbers were down to 120, and by the last session or two they had dwindled down to less than 50.

There was certainly a diversity of speakers and a breadth of topics covered. We heard from organic and sustainable farmers such as Liz Clay of the Gippsland Climate Change Network, Jenny O’Sullivan of ‘Linking Environment, Agriculture and People’, and Ian Perkins, organic cattle farmer from Toowomba. These farmers spoke with passion and vision about the need to regenerate the soil, to care for their land and to understand and value the connectivities between land, farmers, animals and local communities.

They and several other speakers identified farmer viability and profitability as one of the most critical issues this country is facing.

Then we heard from Professor Andrew Campbell, Director of the Research School for the Environment and Livelihoods at the Charles Darwin University in Darwin. He exploded the myth that Australia can ever make a really big contribution to ‘feeding the world’ or being ‘the food bowl of Asia’.

Mixed in amongst these voices who were pointing to the need for truly transformative thinking, we had a couple of ‘info-mercials’ from the corporate social responsibility officers ot the major supermarkets, endorsed by a representative from the World Wildlife Fund.

For a number of people I know, this Summit’s credibility as a potential force for visionary leadership on the path to genuine sustainability was deeply undermined last year in Sydney, when WWF explained its partnership with Coca Cola. This company has recently provoked outrage across Australia after suing the Northern Territory government to force it to abandon its highly successful and popular container recycling scheme, on the grounds that it would reduce sales. An environmental organisation is lending its credibility to – and receiving millions of dollars from – a multinational corporation that many believe puts its profit interests ahead of ecosystem integrity.

And therein lies the disconnect evident at the Summit and indeed in discussions about ‘sustainability’ in general. I can perhaps best illustrate this with a metaphor I shared with conference delegates on the second day, courtesy of cell biologist Dr Bruce Lipton, author of a wonderful book, Spontaneous Evolution.

He says that humanity has reached maximal growth in our caterpillar stage of evolution. We can’t physically grow any further. Rather, our choice now is to make a qualitative leap to a new and much more co-operative level of personal and societal development. We can either dedicate ourselves to making that leap, or we can put our energies into a self-destructive and self-defeating exercise of maintaining business as usual.

It’s up to us.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Collaborative cultures and networks, Food sovereignty

The Networked World – The Connected Food System

The networked world is here

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 9th February, 2013

The National Broadband Network has arrived in Coffs Harbour, and soon all of us will have access to super-high speed internet services. Amongst other changes, the NBN is expected to significantly expand the scope for home-based working and tele-commuting, via high-definition and reliable video-conferencing.

The NBN is a further major step in the construction of an increasingly networked world. According to Harvard University’s Cyber Law Centre, ‘ever-evolving and increasingly powerful information and communication technologies have fundamentally changed the nature of global relationships, sources of competitive advantage and opportunities for economic development’ (www.cyber.law.harvard.edu). Humanity is on its way to becoming ‘an increasingly interconnected network of individuals, firms, schools and governments communicating and interacting with each other through a variety of channels’.

While the implications of a globally interconnected humanity are, to put it mildly, mind-boggling and (as yet) barely understood, the value of effective business and community networks are well known. Richard Pirog, a leading thinker and practitioner in the field of local and regional food systems development in Iowa and Michigan in the US, identifies four key roles that food business networks play:

–          Information and knowledge hubs

–          Catalysts for co-operation – building trust and capacity across organisations

–          Magnets – leveraging funding to do the work

–          Scouts – be at the cutting edge of new ideas and innovation

Successful networks don’t just emerge out of the ether. They are consciously designed, created and nurtured by the individuals who comprise them. Pirog uses the acronym TEAMS to capture the components of successful networks as:

–          T: trust and transparency, shared goals, servant leadership

–          E: enjoy work, participate and collaborate, get and give

–          A: achieve goals

–          M: master content, continuous learning

–          S: structure the network, agree on ways to work together, give a clear indication of value to participants, and provide consistent communication

The tradional, long-standing and successful model of business networking in Australia are the Chambers of Commerce. They have done an outstanding job over many decades in providing services to their members, and facilitating relationships.

Coffs Harbour and Bellingen are however about to host a new business network. The Wholistic Business Network (WBN) is, according to its co-founder Frances Amaroux, ‘an international network of highly-inspired people involved in creating a world to which people want to belong’.

The WBN was created  in Sydney  12 years ago, and has since spread to Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, Byron Bay, Perth, Auckland and Ubud, in Bali. Frances told me that she wanted to create a mid-north coast chapter after moving back to Bellingen following several years’ away; and noticing that, while there were many individuals and businesses working in the ‘cultural creative’ spheres (arts, environment, complementary medicine and therapies, etc.), ‘there was no umbrella organisation that brought all these people and businesses together.’

The aim of the WBN is to ‘bring together people doing innovative and leading edge research and practice’, with the longer-term vision of ‘creating vibrant healthy businesses and communities’, in order to ‘make a happier, healthier and more conscious world’. Their four focal areas are creating connections, researching and supporting sustainable lifestyles, informing and raising awareness about health and sustainability, and ‘building an international community of like-minded peoples’.

The WBN functions through holding monthly business networking events, which in our region will alternate between Coffs Harbour and Bellingen, with invited speakers. While these meetings have a business focus, non-business people are very welcome. I am very pleased to be the speaker for the inaugural event in Coffs Harbour this coming Wednesday, on the topic of networks as the ‘wave of the future’.

The first mid-north coast WBN will take place on Wednesday 13 February, at the Coffs Harbour Professional Centre, Level 1, 9 Park Avenue, at 7.00 p.m. Cost is $20, for more information contact Frances Amaroux on 0414 810 148 or Vanessa Lewis on 0414 448 884.

advocate, Collaborative cultures and networks, Corporate control of food, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Local and regional food economies, National Food Plan, Resilience, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming, Supermarket Duopoly, Urban agriculture

An Australia Day resolution

An Australia Day resolution

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 24th January, 2013

The traditional and conventional thing is to make resolutions on New Year’s Day, or shortly thereafter.

That makes perfect sense. Start the year off on a positive note, turn over a new leaf, and all that.

But resolutions can be made at any time. So why not make an Australia Day resolution? Something that each of us decides that we can do to help make this country a better place to live in, and leave it a better place for our kids.

My resolution is to keep working, in the ways that I can, for a fairer and more sustainable food and farming system for our region, and our country. So that our soils are regenerated, rather than degraded. So that our water tables are replenished, rather than depleted and polluted. So that our cities are full of food growing and producing areas, in schools, in childcare and aged care centres, in streets, parks, vacant lots and rooftops. In backyards, frontyards, and community gardens. So that everyone, no matter who they are or how much money they have in their pocket or bank account, can enjoy healthy, nourishing food, every day.

So that our farmers get a fairer deal, and are not up to their necks in debt. So that five Australian farmers don’t continue to leave the land every day. And so that our children will want to embrace farming and food production, and caring for the land, as a fufilling and dignified life choice.

Because what we have forgotten, in our modern, information age and consumer economy, is that any civilization, anywhere, is ultimately founded on agriculture. If we don’t get the food production right, if we don’t look after the land, the water and the men and women who do the work of producing the food, then we may as well forget about all the rest.

I think these resolutions chime with the sentiments of a great many Australians. In fact, I know they do, because last September, in my role as national co-ordinator of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, I was approached by the Australia Institute to include some questions in their regular national attitudes and behaviours survey.

These surveys go out to around 1,400 Australians, being a representative cross-section of men and women, city and country dwellers, different political affiliations, age groupings and so on.

We asked three questions in the October 2012 survey. The first was, ‘What top two measures should Australia adopt to ensure that sufficient quantitites of fresh, healthy and affordable foods are available to all?’, 86% nominated ‘Support local farmers to produce more’, and 63% nominated ‘Protect our best farmland from different uses, e.g. mining / housing’. 25% said ‘support people to grow more of their own food’, and a mere 5% nominated ‘import more of our basic food requirements’ as one of their top two choices.

The second question was, ‘How important is it to you that Australian family farmers and small-to-medium sized food businesses are economically viable?’. 62% said ‘very important’, and 30% said ‘quite important’. 2.3% said ‘not very important’ and a tiny 0.4% said ‘not important at all.’

Finally, when asked ‘What do you think should be the main two goals of Australia’s food system?’, a whopping 85% nominated ‘Promote and support regional / local food production and access to locally produced food’. 43.5% nominated ‘Achieve a globally competitive food industry and new export markets’, and 35.6% said ‘Ensure ecosystem integrity’.

Should any government or political party choose to take notice, these figures speak to a massive national consensus in favour of policies and public investment in regional and local food economies, and for support for our local farmers and food producers. Such policies enjoy twice the level of support of the goal of building ‘a globally competitive food industry and new export markets’.

Can you guess which is the primary objective of the Federal Government’s National Food Plan, due out shortly?

advocate, Coffs Coast, Community gardening, Fruit growing, Land sharing, Permablitzes, Resilience, Self-sufficiency

Community-run edible streetscapes

Community Spirit alive and well in Sawtell

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 24th November, 2012

A quiet revolution is underway in Coffs Harbour and its nearby towns.

Supported by small grants from Coffs Council, first under the Local Food Futures Project and now via the ‘Our Living Coast’ Regional Sustainability Program, several primary schools and child care centres have established productive gardens for their children over the past year.

These intiatives build on longer-established school veggie gardens, such as those at Toormina Primary School and Casuarina Steiner School.

And now school veggie gardens are becoming edible streetscapes, with the planting of around 30 ctirus trees in two locations in Sawtell. First, on Friday 16th November, kindergarted and class 5 students from Sawtell Public School planted trees on the school’s boundary. Then, on Sunday 18th November, over 30 local residents of all ages worked for an hour and a half to plant lemonades, oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, cumquats, grapefruits and blood oranges on the road verge off 18th Avenue, adjacent to the Richardson’s Park sporting oval. Thus was born the very first ‘Sawtell Community Citrus Grove’.

The Sawtell Citrus Orchard team!
The Sawtell Citrus Orchard team!

Both these initiatives were spearheaded by the Sawtell Healthy Homes community group, with the organising energy provided by Peter and Erika van Schellebeck. Advice on species selection and soil preparation came from Juliet Thomas, of the Coffs Harbour Regional Community Garden. Over the past year Juliet has worked with the school principal, Michael Cheers, as well as staff, students and parents, to set up a beautiful fruit and veggie garden inside the school.

 

 

Erika highlighted the social and community-building aspects of the citrus tree plantings. “The project has been a great opportunity for us to get to know our neighbours, and I hope that the grove will become a community space where neighbours meet and walkers and cyclists stop for a rest and some shade”, said Erika. “This pathway is very popular, and so we designed a pathway through the grove to encourage people to move through it and enjoy the space. We also designed a small circular space in the middle that hopefully will one day have a seat and table to encourage neighbours to meet up in the space – maybe for Friday night drinks.”

 

Sawtell Public School kids planting citrus trees
Sawtell Public School kids planting citrus trees

Planting and caring for fruit trees also brings clear health and educational benefits for children. “I hope that the nature strip planting at the school will build on all the work the school is already doing to educate the students about healthy eating, and growing fresh fruit and vegies”, said Erika. This is part of raising levels of food literacy amongst children – an understanding where food comes from, how it’s grown (and raised), what healthy eating involves, and the importance of composting food scraps, so that soil fertility can be maintained and enhanced.

Erika hopes that these initiatives in Sawtell will help inspire other groups of residents in other parts of Coffs Harbour and its surrounds to also get behind the push to make this region ‘edible’ – and for the Council to support them with small grants and making the paperwork easy.

“The grove already looks great – it has turned an unloved and unused piece of swampy land into a space for the whole community to enjoy, and, in a few years, to enjoy a wide variety of free citrus. I hope that the grove and school nature strip planting will encourage Council to consider the merits of growing food in public spaces.”

This work in Sawtell builds on the Bellingen Edible Streetsacpes project begun in 2011, as a collaboration of Northbank Rd Community Garden, the Bellingen Chamber of Commerce, Transition Bellingen, and with funding from the Local Food Futures Project. Bellingen Council has also embraced the spirit, with a raised veggie garden at the entrance to Council Chambers.

Further afield, the trail has been well and truly blazed by Yorkshire café owner Pam Warhurst and her army of volunteers in the market town of Todmorden, with the Incredible Edible Todmorden project.  In Pam’s words, “I wondered if it was possible to take a town like Todmorden and focus on local food to re-engage people with the planet we live on, create the sort of shifts in behaviour we need to live within the resources we have, stop us thinking like disempowered victims and to start taking responsibility for our own futures.”

Amazing things have been achieved in Todmorden, and they’re just getting started. Makes you wonder what’s possible for Coffs Harbour, with our climate, water and soils.

For more info on Incredible Edible Todmorden, search for Pam Warhurst’s TED talk on www.ted.com.

advocate, Alternatives, Co-operatives, Democratic food systems, Growth paradigm

Prospects for co-ops in Australia

The Co-operative Revolution – can it happen in Australia?

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 24th November, 2012

The National Co-operatives conference, held in Port Macquarie at the end of October, had two goals: to celebrate the successes of co-operatives in Australia, and internationally; and to identify opportunities for the sector to strengthen and expand.

A centrepiece of the conference was the release of new research mapping the extent of the co-operative sector in Australia by the Australia Institute. This research revealed that while most Australians (79%) are members of at least one co-operative or mutual financial institution – are you a member of the NRMA, for example? –  a small minority (16%) were aware of that fact. The report’s authors suggested that this low level of awareness of co-operatives – amongst both their own members, and the public generally – could be due to the fact that, unlike corporations, co-operatives spend relatively little on advertising and promoting themselves.

The take-out message was one of opportunity for the sector. Because co-operatives don’t have large advertising budgets, they deliver good value for money to their members; the report stated that an average mortgage with a building society or credit union, for example, costs around $75,000 less over the life of the loan than if it was taken out with a commercial bank. The challenge, it seems, lies mainly in better communicating the benefits of belonging to a co-operative.

From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference
From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference

Yet more is at stake than just brushing up marketing strategies. In my previous column I described the extraordinary revival of the co-operative movement in the UK, and how this had been built on a long process of internal reflection and a return to the basic core values of the movement.

This process of critical self-reflection is desperately needed in the co-operative movement in Australia. In his 2006 book, The Democracy Principle,  co-operative historian Gary Lewis (who was not present at Port Macquarie, unfortunately), delivered a scathing assessment of the many and continual failures of agricultural co-operatives to build a strong, cohesive, visionary and above all principled co-operative movement in this country.

While Lewis identified a strong confluence of external factors – geographical distance, parochialism and states rights, epochal shifts in global trade, ideological opponents, and a lack of supportive political leadership at the federal level, amongst others – it was the factors internal to individual co-operatives, and the movement as a whole, that have probably done most to stifle its potential. These internal factors include:

  • A marked preference for competition over co-operation – a failure of co-operatives to co-operate with each other
  • A first allegiance to commercial industries, and industry associations, rather than to the co-operative movement
  • A failure to invest in co-operative research and development, and co-operative extension services
  • A failure to invest in co-operative education, and thus a failure to capture the imagination of younger generations
  • A failure to invest in building umbrella institutions, and effective policy advocacy at the federal government level
  • The inability to establish a co-operative bank to finance co-operative ventures – a sine qua non of a vibrant ‘self-help’ movement

Cumulatively and collectively, these failures reflected ‘a triumph of the pragmatists over the idealists’, as well as the pursuit of ‘market share, competitiveness and growth for growth’s sake’, thus resulting in a ‘degrading of co-operative consciousness’ and ultimately a ‘short-sighted and stingy movement’.

In Port Macquarie, the process of critical reflection was beginning, albeit slowly. There was clear recognition of the need for a national council to advocate for the sector’s needs, and a commitment to bring this into existence was the conference’s most concrete outcome.

Achieving such an outcome will be testament to the extent to which the sector can truly ‘co-operate’. But the most exciting proposals came out of the the Youth Summit , where 30 delegates spent 2.5 hours engaged in asset mapping, brainstorming and dotmocracy to agree on a series of strategic initiatives to raise awareness of co-operatives amongst young people, and begin building a co-operative consciousness and sense of a movement. The brainstormed initiatives include a national road-trip, a youth festival, and getting co-operatives on the curricula of university business courses.

Co-operatives have a strong story to tell: Norco’s recent announcement of its $5.7 million profit for 2012, in difficult market conditions, is just one success among many. But the potential of the movement to be a powerful force for decent employment and strong economic development, in turbulent economic times, is yet to be realised in this country.

advocate, Democratic food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty

The People’s Food Plan, first appearance

The People’s Food Plan

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 15th September, 2012

I’ve mentioned a number of times previously that the Federal Government is currently working on Australia’s first-ever National Food Plan. The green paper is out for consultation until 30 September, and the white paper is expected to be released in the first few months of 2013.

I’ve also mentioned that the Government’s agenda on food and agriculture, as revealed in the green paper and elsewhere, has provoked a lot of disquiet amongst members of what we might term ‘the fair food movement’ in Australia. This would include non-corporate family farmers, small-to-medium sized food processors and manufacturers, independent and local food retailers and grocers, farmers’ markets, community gardeners and other local food groups, and the many millions of Australians who grow or raise some of their own food.

Yes, there are millions of Australians who grow or raise some of their own food. And it’s a growing trend – pun intended. A national survey carried out for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) – of which I am the national coordinator – by the Australia Institute in July this year, found that more than half (53 %) of the adult population was growing or rearing some of their own food. Two-thirds of those had started doing so in the last five years, and a fifth in the last 12 months.

This trend towards some measure of food self-provisioning cuts across age and gender barriers, as well as the rural-urban and party political divides. It’s truly a national phenomenon. There are any number of reasons to explain why it’s occurring – from a concern about taste, quality and health, to the sheer joys and many benefits of gardening – but we’d also have to include a rising awareness that all is not well with the globalised food system, which the government so heavily promotes.

People's Food Plan Cover
People’s Food Plan Cover

But domestic food growing – and the fair food movement more generally – gets absolutely no recognition whatsoever in the green paper for a National Food Plan.

That’s why the AFSA has decided that there is a need, and an opportunity, for a more inclusive, and broad-ranging, conversation about our national food system. In launching this week our process for a People’s Food Plan, we’ve been inspired by the dedicated work of hundreds of Canadians who, for more than two years, held 350 kitchen table talks around that country, to produce a People’s Food Policy for Canada. Released during the Canadian federal election of 2011, this document had a major impact, being endorsed by the two principal opposition parties.

Food Sovereignty - Nyeleni Declaration
Food Sovereignty – Nyeleni Declaration

The first of around three dozen public meetings around the country scheduled to be held during September and October was held earlier this week in Bondi. Thirty people spent two hours discussing their concerns about the food system in Australia, and put forward their ideas and proposals for priority policy action. These included ‘education and policy to promote local food’, ‘restrictions on harmful foods like soft drinks’, ‘prevent contamination of farmland by GMOs’, ‘prioritise food production over coal-seam gas’, ‘challenge the power of companies like Monsanto’, and ‘no sponsorship of schools and sporting programs by Coles and Woolworths’.

The AFSA has produced a draft discussion paper for a ‘values, principles and best practice’ document, which will be available online next week. All the ideas we are hearing will feed into a revised document, which we aim to launch before the end of the year.

In his foreword to our discussion paper, SBS garden guru Costa Giorgiadis writes:

“Now is the time to repurpose and refocus as a community. Now is the time to build an economy where growth is valued in annual soil depth and fertility that in turn promotes a health industry, not based on sickness but on living food. Let’s cover the fences and boundaries of a divided world with edible vines and plants that produce new visions and innovations worthy of the potential we have around us. Creativity to drive a world fuelled on regenerative and renewable sources requires new industries, new thinking and less baggage from a world paradigm whose time is passed.

Change requires courage and strength. Changes requires fuel, and food is the fuel of our future. The People’s Food Plan is the fuel of the future. Food Freedom begins in the soil that feeds seed freedom.

Now is the time to plant and nuture the seeds of change. I am excited.”

Public forums and / or kitchen table talks are planned for the Coffs Harbour region. If you are interested in participating, please email nick@foodsovereigntyalliance.org

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advocate, Co-operatives, Fair Food systems, Food Hubs, Local and regional food economies, New market mechanisms

Food Hubs – essential infrastructure for a Fair Food System

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Food Hubs

A version of this article appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 21.4.12.

Last time I wrote about the efforts underway in Girgarre to turn a new page in the history of the Australian co-operative movement, by launching a ‘Food Hub’ manufacturing centre that is co-operatively owned and run by workers, growers and the broader community.

I’m happy to report that while Heinz has now sold its Girgarre site to another buyer, the Goulburn Valley Food Action Committee has found an alternative greenfield site in Kyabram, and are planning to launch the first of their new products, designed by Peter Russell-Clark, by the middle of May. The results of their feasibility study have now come in, and they show, according to Chairperson Les Cameron, that ‘demand for Australian product is greater than ever before…the Heinz approach of creating a product, marketing it and then trying to sell it through the major supermarkets is no longer the way to go. [The study] is showing a number of significant, medium-size companies are looking for Australian product; and sub groups who will not buy anything else.’

So far, so good. I’m following these developments with great interest. When their products are available in Coffs Harbour, I’ll be sure to let you know!

But back to the question: what is a Food Hub? In essence, it’s a conscious attempt to scale up local and regional food economies. If there’s been a single persistent and fairly persuasive criticism of the local food movement over the years, it’s this: that while its aims and principles might be great, and while farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture might work quite well for smaller producers, local food as a whole actually fails to deliver the goods in terms of offering reliable markets with sufficient throughput and volumes for commercial-scale farmers.

That function, so this reasoning goes, can only be filled by central wholesale markets; or, in this country, by supermarket distribution centres.

The Food Hub is an attempt to tackle this criticism head-on.  Originating in the United States in the 1990s, Food Hubs have expanded across that country, with more than 100 in operation, and many experiencing strong growth and expansion. Their primary functions are typically the aggregation, marketing and distribution of local fresh and processed produce. In some ways they resemble a wholesaler, but with the key difference that their mandate is to source as much local produce as possible, and channel it into local businesses, institutions and households. In the process they create more demand for local food, help build the capacity of local producers, and get much better returns for farmers than they receive in the central market system.

All the things a Local Food Hub can do
All the things a Local Food Hub can do

Government purchasing power seems to have played a big role in fostering the growth of Food Hubs, with 40% counting among their clients public institutions such as schools and hospitals.

According to a recent survey of Food Hubs by the US Department of Agriculture, some of the longer-running hubs have become significant local businesses. One has 100 suppliers, including many small and mid-sized producers, and offers over 7,000 products. This Hub owns a 30,000 sq.ft. warehouse and 11 trucks, with 34 full-time employees and over US$6 million in sales in 2010.

But Food Hubs can do much more than aggregation, marketing and distribution. As in the Goulburn Valley, they can combine manufacturing and processing with innovative product development and multiple traineeships. The Local Food Hub in Charlottesville has a five-acre demonstration farm, where they run training days for local growers and offer apprenticeships and internships for the next generation of farmers. 20% of the food grown on this farm is donated to local food banks and anti-hunger organisations.

And so on. Because there’s no single business model, and because these hubs are locally-owned and controlled, responding to local needs and priorities, the forms they take will vary widely. That they are emerging and expanding at this point in time, when the existing food system is plagued by so many profound dysfunctionalities, is a cause for great optimism.

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Food for Thought – Growing, Sharing + Eating Local Food

And another great read from Suzette Jackson – fond memories for me of Australia’s first Fair Food Week!

Food for Thought – Growing, Sharing + Eating Local Food.