Category Archives: fair food movement

Fair Food emerges as a movement

Food is not a sector like any other: it is fundamental to our health and well-being as individuals; to who we are as a culture; and ultimately to our very survival as a species. Recognising the lack of vision and leadership on these profound questions, the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance was formed in 2010, consciously linking Australia to the global movement for food sovereignty, with the aim of promoting a different, values-based national conversation on the future of our food and farming systems.

Like most countries, Australia has a long tradition of backyard food growing, yet this dwindled significantly with the rise of the supermarkets and fast food in the post-war era. Now backyard food growing is returning strongly, with recent surveys suggesting over 50% of adults are involved. Many are also involved in community food production, especially community gardens and school kitchen gardens, which have expanded rapidly since the 1990s. The permaculture movement, which began in the late 1970s, has also been influential in the growth of community and backyard gardening, as well as small-scale bio-diverse agriculture. The farmers markets movement in Australia is also experiencing rapid growth, from a very low base in 1999 to over 150 today.

Peoples Food Plan, Fair Food Week, ‘Fair Food’ documentary

In its short life, AFSA has undertaken a series of strategically significant initiatives that are beginning to articulate a coherent ‘fair food movement’ in Australia, based on food sovereignty principles. These include:

  • the Peoples Food Plan, Australia’s first ‘crowd-sourced’ food policy text, which involved over 600 people participating in 40 public forums throughout the country from September to December 2012.
  • Australia’s first Fair Food Week [12] (19-25 August 2013, involving 112 events in every state and territory with an estimated 15,000 people participating
  • Australia’s first food politics documentary, ‘Fair Food’, a joint project with the Locavore Edition in Melbourne
  • The launch of Fair Food Farmers United, a farmer-to-farmer knowledge-and experience-sharing project to promote understanding of food sovereignty principles and practices amongst Australian producers
  • A campaign for a Local Food Act, drawing on the inspiration of the Ontario Local Food Act and mn Local Food Fund (Nov 2013)

Urban and Regional Food Network & Charter

Since September 2013 the Food Alliance (Deakin University) has begun the process of establishing Australia’s first Urban and Regional Food Network, bringing together 20 local governments as well as a wide and expanding cohort of researchers, food businesses, health professionals, planners, community gardeners, not-for-profit organisations, Transition groups, permaculturalists and others. This Network has collaboratively developed as a key strategic priority the development and implementation of an Urban and Regional Food Charter for Victoria, as a systemic and integrated text to drive forward legislative and policy change and shape practice across the state. This will be a model to be replicated in other Australian states and territories and will provide a substantial boost to the movement for urban agriculture and fair food in Australia.

Themes of the Fair Food Movement: [suffusion-categories child_of=184 title_li=0]

All articles about the Fair Food Movement

advocate, Backyard Gardening, Community gardening, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming

Our shrinking trust horizon

The ‘trust horizon’, and what it means for the future

A version of this article appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on 11th February 2012

“Politicians typically make a bad situation worse, as quickly as possible. The [economic and political] systems that we have established have become sclerotic and unresponsive. Hostage to vested interests. They have no ability to adapt quickly to provide for changes that happen very rapidly… So I don’t look for solutions from there….There aren’t really any mechanisms for these large bureaucratic institutions to offer anything that will help…­­­What they’re far more likely to do is suck resources to maintain the centre, like a body that’s hypothermic, cuts off circulation to the fingers and toes to preserve the temperature of the core…Unfortunately for us, we’re the fingers and toes, we have to look after ourselves, nothing is coming from the top down.”

Nicole Foss, speaking with Italian interviewers in January 2012.  

Nicole speaks of the diminishing ‘trust horizon’: how large, centralised political institutions that have evolved over the last few hundred years are losing, and will continue to lose, their legitimacy; and with it, the ability to impose norms and rules that most people will accept. “The response these institutions typically have”, says Nicole, is “surveillance, coercion and repression”. Recent police actions towards the Occupy movement in the United States would seem to confirm this assessment.

The solutions Nicole proposes to the converging financial and energy crises – and she stresses that these are not solutions to maintain “business as usual”, which is “no longer possible”  – are grassroots, “from the bottom up”. The starting point is the recognition that the large centralised systems on which we have come to depend will, over time, begin to fail to “deliver the goods and services that we have come to rely on”.

Grassroots initatives, on the other hand, will work, according to Nicole, because they are based within the ‘trust horizon’.  “Where trust still exists”, says Nicole, “systems working within it can operate really quite well. The critical thing is that they’re small, they’re not bureaucratic, they’re responsive, they make the best use of very small amounts of resources, because there’s no enormous administrative overhead…It is amazing what can be done at a very small scale.”

Hearing this, I’m reminded of the concept of ‘square foot gardening’, popularised by Mel Bartholemew, who claims that his raised bed intensive method achieves the same yields as conventional gardening, but at half the cost, a fifth of the space, a tenth of the water, five per cent of the seeds, and two per cent of the work. Such claims might appear exaggerated, but there are impressive examples of substantial food production in small spaces with less inputs. And just last week, we learned that backyard chooks are producing as much as 12 per cent of the nation’s total egg production, according to the Australian Egg Corporation.

The Square Foot Garden
The Square Foot Garden

But there’s no time to lose in building local economies and social systems: “The key point is, we have to do it right now, because we don’t have a lot of time before we start to see centralised systems failing to deliver what they have delivered in the past.”

What’s the glue underpinning the newly configured trust horizons? Relationships and community. “It’s the strongest approach”, says Nicole. “We do need to do things at an individual level, because if we are on a solid foundation ourselves, we can help others. But we must build community: relationships of trust are the foundation of society.”

“So we need to know, and work with, our neighbours”, Nicole continues. “ We need connections, family and community, so that we’re less dependent on money. In many parts of the world where people have little or no money, their societies function entirely on barter and gifts, working together, exchange of skills – this works as a model, at a small scale. It’s this kind of structure that we need to rebuild.”

Nicole Foss will be speaking at the Cavanbah Centre, this coming Saturday, 11th February, from 12 pm to 2.30 pm. Gold coin entry, light lunch for $5.

­

advocate, Local and regional food economies, Self-sufficiency

The Gift Economy

Christmas, and the gift economy

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 24th December 2011

“Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, [and] good will towards men”.

So reads the King James version of the Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 2, Verse 14. Christmas, the season of peace and goodwill: ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (Gospel according to John, Chapter 3, Verse 16).

No, this column has not suddenly transformed into something utterly different. But whatever one’s spiritual or religious inclinations, Christmas does provide the opportunity for reflection; to take a step back from what normally preoccupies us through the rest of the year. Hence the subtle change in tone and content…

For most of us in Australia, as in many other countries and cultures with Christian traditions, Christmas is a time of relaxation, to be spent in the company of family and friends. It is also a time for the exchange of gifts.

These days, arguably the most important function of gift-giving – taking an admittedly cynical perspective – is to keep the tills busy and the consumer-driven economy ticking over. But of course there is a much deeper meaning and symbolism to the exchange of gifts. Every time we do it we’re re-enacting the original story of Christmas, in which the three ‘wise men’ bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus. There is, as the verse from John shows, the ‘gift’ of Jesus himself, to humanity as a whole; and his ultimate sacrifice.

And of course there is the embodiment of the Christmas spirit, St Nicholas; a 4th century A.D. Greek bishop and orphaned son of wealthy parents, who, so legend has it, often made secret gifts to help those in dire need.

This is why Christmas is a season of ‘goodwill’ and generosity, associated with giving. Many charities make Christmas appeals, asking us to extend this spirit of generosity beyond our immediate circle of intimates, to those ‘less fortunate’ than us.

Why, we might ask, is it only at Christmas that we’re expected to embrace this spirit of generosity?

But wait: what if many of us – perhaps even most of us – actually embody this generosity in many ways in our daily lives throughout the whole year? What if there in fact exists a ‘gift economy’ which underpins the money-based exchange eceonomy, and without which the latter would cease to function?

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

What forms does this ‘gift economy’ take? What, for that matter, is a ‘gift economy?’ According to Wikipedia (the modern-day fount of much knowledge!), it’s ‘a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards’.

Think about that. This includes, for starters, all forms of volunteer activity. All donations to charities. All acts of friendship, when you share your home, your food, your labour, or your time, with your friends.  Shouting your mates a round in the pub is a manifestation of the gift economy.

But the gift economy extends further than this. It includes all parenting, and other forms of caring activities. What service could be more valuable to society as a whole than raising children, who in their turn will form the next generation of workers, performing all the essential functions to maintain and enhance our culture?  Yet as any father – and especially mother – will say, parenting involves a great deal of sacrifice. It is a permanent act of giving in every sense of the word.

Of course, as the time and money demands on all of us have intensified in recent decades, many aspects of parenting, and other caring activities, have been outsourced to the exchange economy. I remember as a young child all my grandparents living, and being cared for in, the family home by my mother, till their very last days. That would be a rarity now, I suspect.

But the gift economy goes still further, beyond the human realm. Our market economy treats nature ‘as a free gift’. Next time I’ll look at the implications of this. For now, Merry Christmas!

advocate, Corporate control of food, Cost-price squeeze, Demographic crisis, Ecological constraints, Food sovereignty, Growth paradigm, Local and regional food economies, Small-scale farming, Supermarket Duopoly

The poverty of farming in the Tweed

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The poverty of farming in the Tweed

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, on 10th December 2011

Last time I introduced Tweed mango grower Mike Yarrow, whom I met recently while in Murwillumbah as part of a team working with the Tweed Council to prepare a strategy for sustainable agriculture.

Mike would like this process to be a success, but he believes that it’s ’30 or 40 years too late’, at least in the case of him and his wife; and other farmers of their vintage (Mike is 67), which is the vast majority of farmers in the region.

Your problem as I see it”, he told us, “is that we, the farmers, have reached the end of our working lives. There are no new young farmers.

The aging of the farming population is an issue that affects the country as a whole. By far the largest category of farmers in Australia is in the 65+ age bracket. In this as in other aspects of food policy, the Federal Government has made the complacent assumption that there is really nothing to worry about, and that what objectively appears to be a demographic crisis will simply correct itself over time. Projections issued after the Australia 2020 Summit in 2008 saw the age of the average Australian farmer peaking in 2011 at just under 55 years, and then gradually declining past 2030.

mangos

Yet no convincing explanation was given as to where the next generation of Australian farmers would come from. On the contrary, all the indications are that the decades-long trend of an aging rural workforce is likely to continue. According to Mike Yarrow, the heart of the issue lies in what he calls ‘the deliberately destroyed profitability’ of farmers.

In Mike’s view, successive Federal Governments wanted ‘to keep the lid on industrial unrest by keeping the gap between a worker’s income and the cost of living apart’. He recalls that when he and his wife arrived in Australia in 1974, petrol was 7 cents a litre, and the minimum wage was $1 an hour. Both have since risen about 20-fold, in line with general cost of living increases. A box of fruit, on the other hand, was $10 in 1974 – and hasn’t gone up much.

You could take issue with Mike; dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist; say that the Government has never intended to screw farmers; that it’s simply a case of the way the markets (and supermarkets) operate. But that’s exactly his point.

By de-regulating rural industries, opening Australia to cheaper imported produce, and generally ‘letting market forces rip’, the market has done what it always does. It’s a competitive system, and it produces winners and losers. In this case, the losers happen to be the majority of Australia’s farmers, and the big winners have been Australia’s two major supermarkets, whose market share has more than doubled since the mid-1970s.

You could argue that in delivering ‘cheap food’ for shoppers, the Australian public as a whole have also ‘won’ in this process.  Yet as five farmers continue to leave the land every day, and very few are stepping into their shoes, the question remains: who is going to produce our food for the rest of this century, and beyond? Agriculture may be less than 3% of Australia’s GDP, but to understand its significance only through an economist’s eyes is unbelievably naïve and short-sighted.

At a deeper level, Mike is quite right. The market system – capitalism – has always depended on ‘cheap food’, in one form or another, to drive its major cycles of expansion. In the Industrial Revolution, it was sugar from the slave plantations of the Caribbean. Last century, it was the mountains of corn made possible by hybrid seeds, agro-chemicals and cheap oil. This century they tell us agricultural productivity will be driven by ‘environmentally-benign’ GM technologies. Meanwhile, food prices are starting to rise, and food riots are becoming more common. Food is too important to take for granted, and so are farmers. We need to be asking some hard questions.

advocate, Aquaponics, Backyard Gardening, Coffs Coast, Self-sufficiency

Backyard Aquaponics

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on 12.11.10.

Aquaponics in Coffs Harbour

Last weekend I was at the Sustainable Living Festival at the Coffs Harbour Botanical Gardens. I was there with Kirsten Larsen, Research Manager of the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL), which is run out of Melbourne University.

VEIL have produced some quality research over recent years around food-sensitive urban planning and design, and food supply scenarios assuming certain policy settings and priorities, e.g. ‘business-as-usual’ vs. local and government adaptations taking changed circumstances into account.

In its submission to the Federal Government on the proposed National Food Plan, VEIL stated that ‘substantial, unavoidable and imminent changes in our food supply systems require fundamental shifts in how we manage land and resources for food production and other critical needs’. The combination of a series of key drivers, including increasing constraints in the availability of oil and fresh water, climate instability, soil degradation, and the ongoing loss of farmers and good farmland, led VEIL to conclude that ‘our existing systems of food production and distribution [are] increasingly brittle’.

All of which means, as Kirsten pointed out last weekend, that we are entering a period of probably large volatility, in which there is no guarantee that the future will look like the past or the present.

Those listening to Kirsten certainly took this message to heart, and many were motivated, like thousands more around the country and around the world, to start taking matters into their own hands.

As I’ve written previously in this column, the coordinator of the new Coffs Harbour Community Garden at Combine Street, Steve McGrane, is a pioneer in showing what can be achieved in a small urban setting.

Steve’s latest project is aquaponics: the combination of small-scale (i.e. back-yard) aquaculture with the hydroponic growing of vegetables.  His system involves three ponds, each raised above the other, connected by halved lengths of long-lasting PVC pipe in which the vegies grow on a base on gravel, drawing their nutrients from the fish waste. Depending on the numbers of fish, plant growth can be remarkable: ‘as much as seven times faster than vegies grown in ordinary soil’, according to Steve.

Aquaponics 1

The water flow, whose purpose is also to return adequate amounts of dissolved oxygen to the fish, is regulated by a 20-watt pump, powered from a 40-watt solar panel, with four lithium batteries of 4 watts each. Running at lower rates of intensity, these can last for as long as 40 years. The entire micro-energy system cost $500 to set up.

Steve solar system

The system runs with special software that controls the maximum input and output of each battery, to prevent overheating.  The time the pump runs is determined according to the amount of sunlight: on cloudier days, the fish are less active, and so there will be less need for oxygen. On average, the pump runs for 10 mins every 20-30 minutes, leaving 15 minutes for the trays to empty.

aquaponics 2

Steve’s largest pond is 1500 litres, and over the summer he plans to stock it with up to 30 silver perch fingerlings, which will take approximately 12 months to reach an edible size of 500 grams. He’s also looking at installing a slightly larger system, in which he can raise up to 100 fish per year. About half of the total water surface area of the large pond, where the fish are raised, needs to be covered with plants such as water lillies, to return oxygen to the water.

aquaponics 3

Like conventional aquaculture, Steve’s fish depend on fish-meal, though he’s also looking at home-grown sources of protein like meal worms and comfrey. The fish may  not grow as fast, but that’s not the point. For Steve,  being sustainable means greater self-reliance:

“I’m all about not leaving your block to eat, having your food at your back door.”

advocate, Alternatives, Coffs Coast, Ecological constraints, Growth paradigm, Local and regional food economies, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming, Uncategorized

Local Food Film Festival, 2011

LOCAL FOOD FILM FESTIVAL

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 29.10.11.

Last Sunday the Coffs Coast Local Food Film Festival was launched at Bellingen’s Memorial Hall. In previous years the Festival has featured documentaries and short films from overseas, covering topics such as the collapse of global fisheries due to over-fishing, the inequities of the global coffee trade, the multi-functionality and vibrancy of community gardens, and the fundamental role that healthy soil plays in human well-being.

We continue that tradition this year, with two excellent feature documentaries. The first, Vanishing of the Bees, tells the story of the not-so-mysterious reasons for the collapse in bee populations worldwide, and the dangers this poses for food production. The second, The Economics of Happiness, argues that humanity must urgently find ways to transition away from the narrow focus on economic growth, and towards economic systems that place human and environmental well-being at their centre.

A big change this year is that, having successfully run the first-ever local food film competition, we are able to present some excellent short films made by residents of the Coffs Coast, telling local stories about the challenges and joys around growing, preparing and eating food. Entries came from Nambucca, Sawtell, Coffs Harbour and Bellingen.

The winning entry – The Bushman of Tamban – tells the story of Damien Mibornborngnamabarra Calhoun, as he provides the audience with a tour of his property outside of Eungai Creek, showing the abundance of tasty and healthy bush tucker that is seemingly everywhere he turns. Damien laments the widespread loss of knowledge about these sources of food, especially amongst indigenous people, who as a result suffer disproportionately high rates of diseases linked to poor diets.

Sharing this knowledge is very important, both to pass on this culture and keep it alive, and for food security. As Damien says, nearly all of us take our food for granted, but what will we do if the systems and shops that we have come to depend on so heavily should break down, for any reason?

Damien, and the winning film maker, Fil Baker, were at the Festival’s launch on Sunday; and Fil was happy to receive his winner’s cheque of $1000. Another surprise guest at the Festival was ‘the grandfather of Australian cuisine’, celebrity chef and owner of the newly re-launched Number One Wine Bar and Bistro at Circular Quay, Tony Bilson.

Chef Tony Bilson
Chef Tony Bilson

Tony and his wife Amanda, who were holidaying with a friend in the Bellingen area, prepared a special local snack for film goers: steamed garlic flowers with a rich avocado mayonnaise. If you can find these flowers (try the Coffs Growers Market) I thoroughly recommend this way of preparing them: it was absolutely delicious.

Tony was also there to tell the 70-strong audience about the publication of his new book, Insatiable, an ‘autobiographical review of contemporary Australian cuisine’.  Tony says that ‘a lot of people don’t understand contemporary Australian food, so what I’ve done is give it a context and a narrative’. ‘The biggest change’, he says, is that now ‘food doesn’t need geographical references, such as beef bourguignon, or chicken provençal. Now food is much more individual, and people are much more interested in texture.’

In partnership with the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, the Northern Territory Education Department and the Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Tony recently launched a 10-year horticulture, healthy eating and educational project. By creating communal and market gardens, and combining this with cooking and nutrition classes, the project aims to address health inequalities, improve community self-reliance and create jobs.

Local food, says Tony, is ‘one of the things that give food its true character’; and in his view, the movement for local food is ‘very significant’.

Coffs Coast, Community gardening, Corporate control of food, Cost-price squeeze, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, Global hunger, Growth paradigm, Local and regional food economies, National Food Plan, Self-sufficiency, Small-scale farming, Uncategorized

Interview: Nick Rose

Thanks to Juliette Anich for the opportunity to create this portrait. Being able to explain at length my motivations is a rare opportunity and much appreciated.

advocate, Corporate control of food, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Food sovereignty, Global hunger, Local and regional food economies, Small-scale farming, Supermarket Duopoly, Uncategorized

Of thuggery and utopia

16th October – World Food Sovereignty Day

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 15.10.11

16 October is World Food Day. It commemorates the day in 1945 on which the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations was established. The FAO is the pre-eminent global institution charged with working towards universal food security: its mandate is to ‘raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy’.

This year, the theme of World Food Day is ‘food prices – from crisis to stability’. Food price volatility in recent years has seen the numbers of malnourished increase significantly. Commemorative events will be held around the world, such as the ‘World Food Day Sunday Dinners’ being held across the US.

Some social movements believe that such actions are no longer sufficient, and that a rather more dramatic change in direction is needed. So they are now commemorating 16 October in a different way, by renaming it, ‘World Food Sovereignty Day’.

Two months ago, 400 (mostly young) people from 34 European countries, met for a week in Krems, Austria, to talk about what was happening to Europe, their futures, and their food systems, in the context of the increasing application of austerity programs being dictated by financial markets.

Food Sovereignty Forum in Krems, Austria, 2011
Food Sovereignty Forum in Krems, Austria, 2011

Prefiguring the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement a month later and its focus on the unfairness and inequalities of what Dick Smith calls ‘extreme capitalism’, they denounced the ‘model of industrialised agriculture controlled by a few transnational food corporations together with a small group of huge retailers’. This model, they said, had little interest in producing ‘food which is healthy, affordable and benefits people’, but was rather focused ‘on the production of raw materials such as agrofuels, animal feeds [and] commodity plantations’.

In Australia, Dick Smith has recently been talking about the ‘thuggery’ practiced by major supermarket chains, and how this silences and intimidates processors and farmers. In other countries, such as Honduras, there is thuggery of a rather more extreme version. There, following a military coup in June 2009, dozens of farmer leaders have been assassinated by private and state security forces, as they have tried to resist being evicted from their lands by companies in charge of a rapidly expanding palm oil monoculture.

Such examples suggest that the dominant global agri-food model almost seems to have zombie-like characteristics. Unsustainable from every perspective other than corporate balance sheets, it still manages to spread its talons around the world, draining life from ecosystems, forests and rural communities. Its ‘export vocation’, as scholar and food sovereignty activist Peter Rosset puts it, is effectively a ‘model of death’, and contrasts sharply with the ‘food producing vocation’ of smaller-scale farmers.

So what do the young people who attended the European Forum for Food Sovereignty at Krems propose in its stead? In the first place, they demand the democratisation of food and agricultural systems, according to the principles of fundamental human rights, cooperation and solidarity.  Secondly, they want ‘resilient food production systems’, which utilise ecological production methods, and are based on ‘a multitude of smallholder farmers, gardeners and small-scale fishers who produce local food as the backbone of the food system’.

Thirdly, they are calling for decentralised food distribution networks and ‘diversified markets based on solidarity and fair prices’, with ‘intensified relations between producers and consumers in local food webs to counter the expansion and power of supermarkets’. They want dignified and decent working conditions and wages for all food sector workers.

Next, they oppose ‘the commodification, financialisation and patenting of our commons’, including land, seeds, livestock breeds, trees, water and the atmosphere. And finally, they are calling for public policies to support such food systems and food cultures, based firmly on the universal right to food and the satisfaction of basic human needs.

Is all this hopeless utopia, or grounded realism? Increasingly, the growing global food movements are providing the answer to that question.

advocate, Democratic food systems, Fair Food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty, National Food Plan

Canadians endorse food sovereignty in public forums

A Food Plan for Industry, or a Plan for the People?

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 17.9.11

Canada’s political parties, and its food movement, have in recent years thoroughly discussed food policy formation. As Australia grapples for the first time with the idea of a National Food Plan, it’s instructive to look at the Canadian experience.

First, the political parties. In Canada’s most recent Federal election, held on 2nd May this year, all the major parties – the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrats (NDP), the Greens and Bloc Québécois – went to the electorate with a platform on food policy. The Conservatives, and to a lesser extent the Liberals, were clearly focused on export agriculture, and opening up new markets. Each of the other three parties, by contrast, spoke of the need to work towards food sovereignty, broadly conceived as the ‘right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies.’

What this translated to in practice in the Canadian context was a need to protect farm incomes, both by reviewing the impacts of trade agreements on Canadian farmers, and by building strong and diverse local food systems so that more value in the food dollar is returned directly to farmers. The NDP identified the need for specific measures to find pathways for new entrants into farming, while the Greens linked climate change and emissions reduction to agriculture.

Of all the parties, only the NDP had carried out an extensive public consultation process of 28 community forums over 18 months in all Canadian provinces. At every forum participants overwhelmingly expressed their agreement that food sovereignty, as summarised above, should form the basis on which the Canadian government approaches its international trade negotiations.

The NDP reported that Canadians wanted a ‘comprehensive food strategy’, with the core objectives of ensuring access to healthy food for all Canadians; helping Canadian farmers deliver such access; and building a sustainable agriculture for the future.

As a matter of interest, the NDP recorded a 13% swing in its favour, nearly trebled its number of seats in the Canadian parliament, and now sits as the official opposition to the Conservatives for the first time in its history.

Also in the lead up to the election, a grass-roots citizen initiative led by Food Secure Canada published its ‘Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada’ report. This was, as I mentioned last time, the outcome of very extensive public discussions over two years, including 350 kitchen-table talks in which 3,500 Canadians participated. The report was embraced by both the NDP and the Greens.

People's Food Policy Project: Resetting the Table
People’s Food Policy Project: Resetting the Table

The report pointed out its unique status as ‘the first-ever national food policy to be developed by the food movement itself – a diverse and dynamic network of organizations and individuals working to build a healthy, ecological and just food system for Canada.’ As the authors state, those involved in this movement ‘are taking actions daily that are transforming our food system from the ground up’, and the challenge is to ‘translate [these actions] into policy’.

The Policy itself draws on comprehensive recommendations and guidelines developed in ten detailed discussion papers generated by the engagement process with the public. The key recommendations are as follows:

  • ‘Ensure food is eaten as close as possible to where it is produced’ (e.g. mandatory local procurement policies for private and public organisations, and support for local food initiatives such as farmers markets)
  • Support producers in the transition to ecological production, including entry pathways for new farmers
  • ‘Enact a strong poverty elimination program with measurable targets and timelines’
  • ‘Create a nationally-funded Children and Food Strategy (e.g. school meals, school gardens, food literacy programs) to ensure that all children at all times have access to the food required for healthy lives’
  • ‘Ensure that the public, especially the most marginalised, are actively involved in decisions that affect the food system.’

You won’t find any of this in the Australian Government’s Issues Paper for a National Food Plan, which more closely resembles the food policy platform of the Canadian Conservative Party.

advocate, Food policy, Food sovereignty, National Food Plan

The National Food Plan – Take 1

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The National Food Plan – What prospects for change?

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 3.9.11

Yesterday (2nd September, 2011) the deadline passed for submissions to the Federal Government’s Issues Paper on its proposed National Food Plan. In recent days, the Government has also been holding a series of ‘invitation-only’ Roundtables during which stakeholders in our country’s food and farming systems can directly present their views on the purpose and content of the Plan.

Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Hon Senator Joe Ludwig
Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Hon Senator Joe Ludwig

Colleagues of mine, affiliated with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, have attended some of these Roundtables. What’s emerging so far is that the Government will have its hands full in meeting the expectations that the idea of a National Food Plan has generated.

The general consensus is that Australian farmers are not being paid enough for their produce. This means, going forward, that we as a country won’t have the necessary skills, nor the strategies in place for skills retention, in order to grow the food we need to feed Australia in an increasingly uncertain future.

Representatives of peak producer bodies are looking for substantive change in this Plan. They support boosting production for domestic consumption, as well as measures to address the inequities Australian producers face vis-à-vis cheaper and lower quality imports.

The Government’s answer, however, is in essence to insist that farmers must ‘increase their productivity’, be fully exposed to the rigours of ‘free trade’, and ‘become more competitive’. As if they haven’t been doing this for decades! Volumes and yields have risen four-fold since 1950, but ‘normal’ market operations means that most Australian farms are not financially viable in their own right, and are dependent on off-farm income.

 60% of all Australian farmers are expected to retire in the next decade. Who will replace them, and just as importantly, what will become of their farms? How many will be subdivided for development, or handed over for minerals extraction?

Health and nutrition analyses reveal that most Australians are not eating enough fruit and veg, and the country is facing a full-blown obesity epidemic that is collectively costing us $56 billion a year and leaving our children with a reduced quality of life and life expectancy. As many as 2 million Australians can’t regularly afford to eat healthily, and at the same time up to 40-50% of all our food ends up in landfill.

The current food system, in summary, is producing a multitude of perverse outcomes, and I haven’t yet mentioned soil degradation, groundwater depletion, fossil fuel dependency and climate change. Some would even say that It’s broken. The case for fairly profound change is overwhelming.

 Yet Minister Ludwig and his department insist that ‘our nation’s food supply is secure’. The Issues Paper is very much a product of ‘business as usual’ thinking. Which is why many of those attending the Roundtables are sceptical as to what, if anything, the National Food Plan will achieve.

There are of course different approaches. One example is the Canadian People’s Food Policy, which was produced after a two-year process with the participation of 3500 Canadians in 350 kitchen table talks, as well as ‘dozens of tele-conferences, ongoing online discussions, and three cross-Canada conferences’. The outcome was a series of ten policy discussion papers, covering topics such as Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Environment and Agriculture, Access to Food in Urban Communities, Healthy and Safe Food for All, and Food Democracy and Governance.

Contrast this with the Australian Government’s Issues Paper, the bulk of which was devoted to steps to ensure a ‘Competitive, productive and efficient food industry’. 23 of the Issue Paper’s 35 specific questions were directed to this theme, compared with just 4 diet and health, and not on environmental issues.

The Canadian document contains important lessons for Australia, and next time I will look at some of its key recommendations.

advocate, Backyard Gardening, Coffs Coast, Self-sufficiency

Native bees and food security in Korora

A native bee hive in every garden…

Nick Rose

This article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate, 6.8.11

There is in many people’s minds a link between, on the one hand, food security, and, on the other, sustainable, resilient and fair food systems: building greater levels of self-sufficiency amongst growing numbers of people. In other words, raising our individual and collective capacities to meet at least some of our own food needs, and so reducing our levels of dependence on external market actors and systems.

A few weeks ago I profiled Steve McGrane, newly appointed coordinator of the 5000m2 Coffs Harbour Community Garden in Combine Street. His vision is of a growing network of thriving, diverse and self-sustaining food gardens across Coffs Harbour’s suburbs, and he’s putting this vision into practice with his own garden in Korora.

Steve doesn’t do it all alone. He’s working closely with his neighbours, and a small army of tiny helpers, in the form of a hive of native bees.

The bees’ main job is not to produce honey. It’s to pollinate the many species in Steve’s expanding fruit and nut orchard. As Steve explains, the bees only have a range of about 500 metres, and ‘the further they have to fly, the greater the amount of energy they use, so the more food you can provide locally [for them], the better.’

Because of their small size, relative to the European honey bee, native bees have a high commercial value in pollinating fruit and vegetable species with small flowers, such as tomatoes and blueberries. And they’re actually much more efficient and productive workers than the European bee, which, says Steve, ‘pollinate only about 30% of plants’, compared to a pollination rate of around 70-80% for the native bee.

Native bee hives, Steve McGrane's garden, Korora, mid-north coast NSW
Native bee hives, Steve McGrane’s garden, Korora, mid-north coast NSW

While the native bee has not, so far as Steve is aware, suffered the colony collapse disorder that is decimating many populations of European bees, it is under threat from its larger cousin. Steve explains why:

“European bees are very messy in the way they obtain the pollen – they buzz and they just destroy the flower. Whereas when the native bee comes along, it’s very delicate, and there’s no pollen left for it, so they’re actually killing the food sources of the native bees.”

European bees can also out-compete native bees for food because they can tolerate much lower temperatures. In our region, they remain active for most of the year, whereas native bees go dormant during the colder months.

But with European bee populations in decline, native bees may well have an increasingly vital role to play in ensuring our future food security. All the more reason for backyard gardeners to take the plunge and get a hive, in Steve’s view.

And while their main job may be pollination, they do, as Aboriginal people have long known, provide small amounts of delicious ‘sugar bag’ honey. This honey, because of its comparative scarcity, can retail for as much as $100 a kilo. Steve and his neighbour Peter are prototyping a way of extracting the honey in small plastic containers. This avoids the need to split open the whole hive, which can be a very messy process.

Native Bee Hive Honey Container
Native Bee Hive Honey Container

If keeping native bees takes your fancy, the cost is a reasonable $450-$500 for a hive, and ‘it takes zilch knowledge’, says Steve. The most important thing is to have a diversity of flowering plants in close proximity, so your bees have a reliable food supply.