Speaker 1: Neck Rose. Welcome to the podcast. Great to be with you.
Speaker 2: Once the bloody technology allowed me to log into my
Speaker 2: own account.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we are here.
Speaker 2: I mean we are going to talk about all things food,
Speaker 2: and you are heavily involved in food systems, so I
Speaker 2: thought an interesting point to start would be just tell
Speaker 2: you our listeners about your PhD, what you studied in
Speaker 2: and in what you do now, and just give us
Speaker 2: the five foot overview of the neck Rose train.
Speaker 3: Great. Thanks, thanks very much. And yeah, my journey, my
Speaker 3: journey into food is a little bit different, I guess
Speaker 3: to a lot of others. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people come into working in food systems having worked in
Speaker 3: hospital working training in dietetics or public health nutrition. But
Speaker 3: those kinds of backgrounds and entry points. For me, it
Speaker 3: was a little bit different. My first career actually was
Speaker 3: in law. I was a corporate lawyer briefly, and then
Speaker 3: a big turning point came in making the decision to
Speaker 3: go and live in Guatemala and Central America. I had
Speaker 3: been living in the UK for many years. After jettisoning
Speaker 3: my corporate law degree, my career went and lived in
Speaker 3: the UK for many years the nineteen nineties and then
Speaker 3: made the decision to go and live in Guatemala at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year two thousand and that was
Speaker 3: motivated not by food but by human rights. And I
Speaker 3: guess that's kind of like my entry point into this
Speaker 3: is really from a principal position that access to good
Speaker 3: food for all people at all times is really and
Speaker 3: should be seen as a basic human rights, something that
Speaker 3: all of us should be entitled to simply by virtual
Speaker 3: of the fact that you know, we're humans and we're
Speaker 3: alive on a planet that is full of abundance and nourishment.
Speaker 1: So why Guatemala.
Speaker 3: The time in Guatemala. The time in Guatemala was very formative. Paul, Yeah,
Speaker 3: my partner at the time and I had in London.
Speaker 3: We'd been meeting with the coordinator of a Spanish NGO
Speaker 3: called Las regard as their pass in the Nacionales or
Speaker 3: Peace Brigades International. They were set up in the mid
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties as wanting to put the idea of human
Speaker 3: rights into practice in a very physical and material way,
Speaker 3: that is to say, mobilizing volunteers you know, from Europe,
Speaker 3: from Britain, North America, you know, Australia, the global North
Speaker 3: essentially to go and live and work in countries in
Speaker 3: the global South that we're in situations of conflict, of
Speaker 3: internal armed conflict or civil war, and the theory the
Speaker 3: idea that by going and living and working in those
Speaker 3: situations you could be making a very significant difference by
Speaker 3: somebody who was say indigenous rights activists or women's rights group,
Speaker 3: somebody like that, who, because of the work they were
Speaker 3: doing in the context of the country at that time,
Speaker 3: put them in tremendous danger. And often those people would
Speaker 3: be experiencing harassment, threats, you know, disappearance, all kinds of
Speaker 3: you know, risks and dangers you know that they were
Speaker 3: exposing themselves to. And the idea of Peace Brigades is
Speaker 3: that someone like myself as an Australian would go and
Speaker 3: live and work alongside that person and I would be
Speaker 3: a witness an observer, and my physical presence would be
Speaker 3: at a terrant to the bad guys from actually following
Speaker 3: through on their threats. Interesting, So that's what they did. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's really very interesting organization and a very as I say,
Speaker 3: very direct and tangible way of putting the idea of
Speaker 3: human rights into reality on the ground. So we went
Speaker 3: to Guatemala to learn Spanish and then wanted to go
Speaker 3: to Columbia because there was a project that peaceologates had
Speaker 3: at Columbia, which at that time was still in civil war.
Speaker 3: But turned out that in Guatemala there was a need
Speaker 3: for that work as well. I knew very little about
Speaker 3: the country before going there. Got a massive life education,
Speaker 3: historical political education going there because the language school I
Speaker 3: went to didn't want to teach students just simply about
Speaker 3: the Spanish language, but also about the reality of the
Speaker 3: country and the history of the country. And you know
Speaker 3: why there was features such as you know, in trench
Speaker 3: poverty and increased you know, migration upwards to Mexico and
Speaker 3: in the United States, and all these you know, these
Speaker 3: big things. Why were they? Why were they taking place?
Speaker 3: So I didn't just get an education in Spanish language,
Speaker 3: I got an education in the whole history of Central
Speaker 3: America and Guatemala in particular. And at that time, in
Speaker 3: the year two thousand, Guatemala had recently exited its thirty
Speaker 3: six years of internal conflict, and the first part of
Speaker 3: the piece accords that were being implemented were exhumations of
Speaker 3: all the mass graves. Because the Guatemalan military in the
Speaker 3: years nineteen seventy eight to eighty two eighty three actually
Speaker 3: implemented a brutal counterinsurgency strategy called scorch Earth tedda.
Speaker 4: Adrasada I remember, which led to the I spent a
Speaker 4: better time in Guatemala, I think, Yeah, there was nineties,
Speaker 4: and I remember reading about the history of that was
Speaker 4: quite horandous.
Speaker 3: Right, terrible, absolutely appalling, And so all these mass graves
Speaker 3: were around the country, and so the first part of
Speaker 3: the piece of cords was to exhume those mass graves
Speaker 3: in the first instance, so that survivers could actually you know,
Speaker 3: move forward with their greeting process and move to some
Speaker 3: sense of closure because they'd be able to provide their
Speaker 3: loved ones with a dignified burial. But you know, for
Speaker 3: the ex military, the last thing they wanted was those
Speaker 3: bones being dug up, because they were all evidence of
Speaker 3: their crimes against humanity and genocide, as it was later
Speaker 3: ruled to be. So yeah, so we actually went to Columbia.
Speaker 3: We ended up staying Guatemala and doing you know that
Speaker 3: work for a year, and then we ended up working
Speaker 3: with human rights organizations in Guatemala, Chiapas and Southern Mexico
Speaker 3: and Hondurists and doing several years of human rights capacity
Speaker 3: building workshops, and that again was a privilege for me
Speaker 3: to meet some very brave leaders of these grassroots, indigenous
Speaker 3: and peasant organizations. And I went back to study then
Speaker 3: in Guatemala, did a master's in International Community Development and
Speaker 3: then came back to Australia with my young family at
Speaker 3: the end of two thousand and six. And that's why
Speaker 3: I decided to do the PhD on food sovereignty as
Speaker 3: a global small farmer indigenous people's movement that was about
Speaker 3: trying to reorient the global agricultural and food system from
Speaker 3: one that was really about maximizing corporate profits to one
Speaker 3: that was about you know, flourishing people and ecosystems. And
Speaker 3: that's been that's been my journey ever since, I guess,
Speaker 3: so those very formative years in Guatemala. The book, actually
Speaker 3: it was a book that really was central in this
Speaker 3: story for me, was called Bitter Fruit, The Untold Story
Speaker 3: of the CIA Coup in Guatemala, which was looking at
Speaker 3: the history back in the early nineteen fifties when Guatemala
Speaker 3: had its brief democratic spring as it was called, and
Speaker 3: the government at that time, Guatemala was actually trying to
Speaker 3: achieve a land reform process to modernize the country in
Speaker 3: the way that Japan and Korea had done by breaking
Speaker 3: up big feudal landholdings and redistributing that land to the
Speaker 3: poor indigenous majority to give them an opportunity at a
Speaker 3: decent life and to be food secure. But in doing
Speaker 3: that in Guatemala, it came smack into the power of
Speaker 3: the United Corporation, the Banana Company. That's why they speak
Speaker 3: about banana republics, because this corporation in Honduras and Guatemala
Speaker 3: in the first decades of the twentieth century, had tremendous
Speaker 3: control over the economy and the politics of those countries.
Speaker 3: So unfortunately for the people of Guatemala, you know, the
Speaker 3: idea that it could modernize and embark on a land
Speaker 3: reform program was deemed unacceptable to the interests of the corporation.
Speaker 3: They had links with the Eisenhower White House. They you know,
Speaker 3: they said, you know, there's a terrible threat to the
Speaker 3: national security of the United States going on. The Communists
Speaker 3: have taken power in Guatemala. If we don't do anything,
Speaker 3: you know, the Soviet Union will be sticking missiles down
Speaker 3: there and threatening our national security. Therefore, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a regime change operation. They carried out a Kude tar
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty four, and a few years later, you know,
Speaker 3: the country plunged into thirty six years of war, which
Speaker 3: you know, the trauma is continuing and will continue for decades.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no functioning legal system. You know, the
Speaker 3: rates of violence against women are off the charts. You know,
Speaker 3: waves of migrants, you know, pouring northwards to Mexico and
Speaker 3: the United States. You know, gangs are controlling large parts
Speaker 3: of the city. So it's it was, Yeah, I guess
Speaker 3: for me, it made me so angry that a country
Speaker 3: was simply trying to have a chance at its own
Speaker 3: sovereignty and independence and actually rule itself for the benefit
Speaker 3: of its people. And it was like a candle that
Speaker 3: was snuffed out at that moment because you know, the
Speaker 3: powers that be and in the global Empire decided it
Speaker 3: was you know, impermissible that they could be allowed to
Speaker 3: do that. And yeah, the violence and the suffering that
Speaker 3: was unleashed as a result is heartbreaking, And I guess, yeah,
Speaker 3: for me, that's what I've kind of brought into my
Speaker 3: work around food and agricultural systems that you know, we
Speaker 3: have every opportunity in this world for everyone to you know,
Speaker 3: to live well and to eat well, but where you know,
Speaker 3: we're not being able to fulfill that potential because the
Speaker 3: you know, the systems and the major decisions are really
Speaker 3: being taken, you know, to benefit, in the case of
Speaker 3: the food system, a small number of very powerful corporate
Speaker 3: interests who've got no real concern about our health and
Speaker 3: well being. I mean, if we turn then to Australia
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five, and I know you've talked about this,
Speaker 3: the food that we're being fed, the food that's being
Speaker 3: promoted and discounted and marketed to our children, is you know,
Speaker 3: is making it's slowly you know, killing us really and
Speaker 3: diminishing our quality of life. And it's all simply to
Speaker 3: fill the coffers of these powerful corporations.
Speaker 2: I read a start neck the other week, and I
Speaker 2: need to dig into it just to to find out
Speaker 2: the validity of it. But it was it was from
Speaker 2: doctor Chris van Housen. I think that one of the
Speaker 2: guys in there who writes all about ultra processed food.
Speaker 2: He said that seventy five percent of calories consumed in
Speaker 2: the world are created by six corporations. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: anybody who hears that you just could not help but
Speaker 2: to be alone that that six companies are actually responsible
Speaker 2: for the creation of seventy five percent of calories that.
Speaker 1: We all eat.
Speaker 2: And you know these companies that they're they're the major
Speaker 2: thing is to drive and returns to shareholders, right, so
Speaker 2: they are always going to put profit above everything else,
Speaker 2: and they're just but interesting. It's very interesting to hear
Speaker 2: the whole history around the Banana Republic. I wasn't familiar
Speaker 2: that was the term, that was where the term actually
Speaker 2: came from.
Speaker 1: And not surprising that the corporation.
Speaker 2: Would there use the idea of communism to get the
Speaker 2: United States and the CIA on board. And look at
Speaker 2: anybody who's traveled in Central South America just knows and
Speaker 2: has read about the history knows that the CIA have
Speaker 2: done all sorts of horrendous things throughout that region. And
Speaker 2: and you know, now you have a look at the
Speaker 2: ramifications and it's just it's it's it's crazy. But anyway,
Speaker 2: that's a whole other podcast actually, just which just reminds
Speaker 2: me anybody who's interested in this subject. Should actually read
Speaker 2: a book I don't know if you've ever heard of it,
Speaker 2: Confessions of an Economic hit Man.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And it is a ridiculous eye opener, isn't it About
Speaker 2: what goes.
Speaker 1: On behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: With these big are well with with interests, international interests,
Speaker 2: and how basically money is used to control other nations.
Speaker 2: And anyway, I highly recommend that people go and read
Speaker 2: that book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic book. John John Perkins. I mean
Speaker 3: it's a real sort of whistleblowers tal. He was inside
Speaker 3: the beility of the base and it's it's from his
Speaker 3: personal experience. Actually, he described himself as an economic hit
Speaker 3: man and if if the financial and economic leaders didn't
Speaker 3: get the trick done, then they would call the jackals,
Speaker 3: as he put it, the jackals would come in after
Speaker 3: the economic hitman tried to do the job. But we
Speaker 3: can get it done, and the jackals, of course being
Speaker 3: the CIA and the you know, the local you know,
Speaker 3: paramilitary outlets.
Speaker 2: And it's quite interesting now, and look we will get
Speaker 2: back onto the topic.
Speaker 1: But it does bring up that interesting point.
Speaker 2: I mean, this whole I think the Chinese Belt Road
Speaker 2: Initiative is doing similar things from a point of view
Speaker 2: of lending big amounts of money to underdeveloped nations who
Speaker 2: will probably end up defaulting on that, or they'll own
Speaker 2: their ports and all of this sort of thing. It's
Speaker 2: a kind of similar ish playbook that the Americans were
Speaker 2: doing thirty forty years ago.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we digress. Let's get back and talk about food.
Speaker 2: So you came to Australia and study during night, talk
Speaker 2: to our listeners about just give them a sense of
Speaker 2: how the food system actually works, because I've become increasingly
Speaker 2: concerned about a small handful of retailers here in Australia
Speaker 2: selling most of our foods, and you know, two of them,
Speaker 2: Woolworths and Cole's. So for our overseas listeners, excuse, but
Speaker 2: there's two major supermarkets here that sell most of the food,
Speaker 2: and then there's a few other chains that are smaller
Speaker 2: than that, and a lot of smaller grocery stores and
Speaker 2: butchers and bakers are actually being crowded out. So just
Speaker 2: talk about what are some of the issues, the systemic
Speaker 2: issues with that sort of a system, and also use
Speaker 2: that to give our listeners a bit of an overview
Speaker 2: of the overall food network. Because I don't think a
Speaker 2: lot of people think about where the food comes from,
Speaker 2: what the politics is, all of this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely right, So I think, yeah, the subject that
Speaker 3: you raise in that introduction is a good place to start,
Speaker 3: because I don't think we can have a serious conversation
Speaker 3: about the Australian food and agricultural system if we don't
Speaker 3: talk about the supermarkets. They are far and away the
Speaker 3: most powerful actors in the system, and in Australia we
Speaker 3: say that we have a duopoly. So that's you know,
Speaker 3: two corporations you've mentioned them, Coles and Woolworths that between
Speaker 3: them hold somewhere around sixty seven to seventy percent of
Speaker 3: the total grocery market in this country. That's up from
Speaker 3: around thirty five to forty fifty years ago. So they
Speaker 3: are the dominant actors and they at the prices. They
Speaker 3: set the prices for our farmers, and they also of
Speaker 3: course set the prices for the consumers. And with the farmers,
Speaker 3: I've spoken to vegetable producers in different places around Melbourne
Speaker 3: over the last ten years fifteen years I've been doing
Speaker 3: this work, and some of them say that they are
Speaker 3: getting the same prices that they got back in the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, like the price they're getting for their product
Speaker 3: has not moved yet. The costs of doing business, you know,
Speaker 3: the wages, the energy, the inputs, the water, the land,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, has obviously gone up dramatically. And
Speaker 3: CSIRO and was this was at the end of the
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties. I don't know that they've updated these figures,
Speaker 3: but they were looking at the overall of Australian agriculture
Speaker 3: at the end of the nineteen nineties and the figure
Speaker 3: that always just has always stayed with me is that
Speaker 3: Australian farmers at the end of the nineteen nineties needed
Speaker 3: to produce four times the volume to earn in real terms,
Speaker 3: just over half of what they had done fifty years
Speaker 3: earlier in the nineteen fifties. You are kid, Yeah, So
Speaker 3: just think about that in terms of like an insane
Speaker 3: treadmill of production where you're just running faster and faster
Speaker 3: in terms of production and going backwards, like you're losing money.
Speaker 3: So how that is you know, fair, How it's sustainable,
Speaker 3: how it's ethical, how it's the foundation of a decent
Speaker 3: agricultural and food system in this country is you know,
Speaker 3: just beggars belief. But that's and yet and yet farmers
Speaker 3: you know, are still are still operating under those kinds
Speaker 3: of terms. So that's that's I think a good place,
Speaker 3: a good place to start. And then if we look
Speaker 3: at consumers, you know, we've we've all heard talk in
Speaker 3: this country and I think it's true around the world
Speaker 3: as well about the cost of living crisis, the inflation
Speaker 3: that we've experienced since COVID. You know, in Australia, we've
Speaker 3: seen our housing costs go up dramatically if we're paying
Speaker 3: the mortgage or renting with all these interest rate rises
Speaker 3: as well as the inflation. So that's all been happening,
Speaker 3: and the supermarkets have been making record profits during during
Speaker 3: these years. So a lot of people are very unhappy
Speaker 3: about that, and they're saying, well, why should we all
Speaker 3: of us as you know, as way journers and mortgage
Speaker 3: players and renters be doing it so damn tough. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, over here these two are just breaking in,
Speaker 3: you know, billion dollar profits year after year after year.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not right. So that's actually it's a
Speaker 3: number of inquiries that have taken place and demand for
Speaker 3: some serious action to be taken. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: gone anywhere near far enough. I think we've got a
Speaker 3: long way to go to address the massive power and
Speaker 3: balance that exists in the Australian food system. And the
Speaker 3: other thing, and you've mentioned, we've touched on this briefly
Speaker 3: already in terms of the food that you actually now
Speaker 3: can buy in a supermarket. You know, the Georgia Institute
Speaker 3: of Public Health in Sydney as documented that well over
Speaker 3: half of it is now ultra processed or discretionary. So
Speaker 3: people think in a suburb or a neighborhood, okay, we've
Speaker 3: got healthy food because we've got a supermarket down the road.
Speaker 3: But if you actually go into the supermarket and see
Speaker 3: what the food is that's available, you know, far and
Speaker 3: away the majority of it is not healthy and all that.
Speaker 3: So much of that ultra process and unhealthy food is
Speaker 3: what's discounted and marketed. It's always at the end of
Speaker 3: the checkout aisle. You know, the cartons of Coca Cola,
Speaker 3: it's always buy one, get the second one for forty
Speaker 3: percent off, for half price. You know, it's it's there's
Speaker 3: just no controls on that. You know, they've got they've
Speaker 3: got an open, open season to market and promote and
Speaker 3: discount these products as wherever they want to children without restraint.
Speaker 3: And this is why we're seeing, you know, the massive
Speaker 3: public health crisis that we are in this country. So
Speaker 3: all these things come together in the in the supermarkets,
Speaker 3: and as you also said, in terms of the you know,
Speaker 3: the urban environment and the spatial environment, they are crowding
Speaker 3: out high street businesses. You know, there's something called land
Speaker 3: banking where if a new suburbs is going to be built,
Speaker 3: they kind of go in there, they snap up the
Speaker 3: prime sites, they keep competitors out, and they make it
Speaker 3: very difficult for locally owned businesses to operate. And that's
Speaker 3: a real problem in terms of, you know, a workably
Speaker 3: competitive market into it's a proper choice for consumers, in
Speaker 3: terms of fair market alternatives for producers, and in terms
Speaker 3: of affordable access to good food. And we demonstrated this
Speaker 3: ourselves in the twenty twenty five federal election by going
Speaker 3: to a local green grocer. A locally owned green grocer
Speaker 3: in Sunshine in Melbourne's West spent one hundred dollars mainly
Speaker 3: on fresh produce, took that same shopping list with those
Speaker 3: same weights of produce that we'd spent at Gasco's. The
Speaker 3: local Green Grosser went to the local Woolworths in Sunshine
Speaker 3: had to spend one hundred and twenty five dollars to
Speaker 3: get the same shopping list full, and the differential on
Speaker 3: some items was stark. Bananas were two and a half
Speaker 3: times more expensive at Walworths, Roma tomatoes were four times
Speaker 3: more expensive, Lemon grass was ten times more expensive, garlic
Speaker 3: was three times more expensive. Like it was just it was.
Speaker 3: It was eyewateringly stark the differences between the price. So
Speaker 3: we're actually as part of our commitment as a healthy
Speaker 3: in Sstainable Food Systems organization, a health promotion charity with
Speaker 3: our partners, we've actually got a bit of funding to
Speaker 3: go and replicate this research with groups of students from
Speaker 3: Monash University and r MIT in different parts around the
Speaker 3: northern and western suburbs of Melbourne as well as further
Speaker 3: out in Victoria's West over the next few months and
Speaker 3: we will be doing these price comparisons and having a
Speaker 3: list of fruit and bed and doing the compar comparisons
Speaker 3: between local Green Grosses and the supermarkets because our assumption
Speaker 3: is that in many cases, particularly in low income neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: It's the local businesses that will be cheaper. But people
Speaker 3: don't think of it like that when they think about
Speaker 3: food and where you get your food, Oh, you just
Speaker 3: go to the supermarket, Like that's just the default. We're
Speaker 3: wanting to challenge that assumption and also make the point
Speaker 3: that these locally run businesses are essential to the fabric
Speaker 3: of a diverse and connected and healthy neighborhood and suburb.
Speaker 3: And we know, if anything, we need incentives and support
Speaker 3: to bring more green grossers, more cultural grosses, more of
Speaker 3: these locally owned businesses back into our neighborhoods. We've got
Speaker 3: to start saying, look, enough of the supermarkets. They've had
Speaker 3: it really good for fifty years. It's time to kind
Speaker 3: of say, no, we don't need any more supermarkets. We
Speaker 3: actually need more locally owned businesses and green grossers because
Speaker 3: they are the ones that are not accountable to massive
Speaker 3: institutional shareholders and their profit expectations like hedge funds and
Speaker 3: so on. They actually will create local jobs for local people.
Speaker 3: They'll support local farmers where they can, and they'll give
Speaker 3: a fair price to their customers, and particularly in culturally
Speaker 3: diverse areas, they will provide a much better range of
Speaker 3: the types of veggs and fruit.
Speaker 2: Not to Mancha Nick being a shipload fresher than the
Speaker 2: stuff that you get in the supermarkets as well, right,
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 3: Just want to add it and not and not repped
Speaker 3: in plus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And I want to add something to this
Speaker 2: to just from some some.
Speaker 1: Personal observation.
Speaker 2: So I did a bunch of work and it was
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, but I think they've got a very
Speaker 2: similar system here. And I was working with a big
Speaker 2: food producer I won't name them. I was working with
Speaker 2: their leadership team and they had a problem in that
Speaker 2: they created a lot of baked goods and one of
Speaker 2: the biggest supermarket came to them and said, we want
Speaker 2: you to produce for us a dollar white loaf that
Speaker 2: will be a supermarket own brand, right, And that dollar
Speaker 2: white loaf that that they.
Speaker 1: Wanted to produce.
Speaker 2: To produce it was going to cost them more to
Speaker 2: make it. But they said to them, if you will
Speaker 2: produce that that white loaf for us, that we will
Speaker 2: brand and does the supermarket one, and we will then
Speaker 2: give you preferred shelf space for your major products. And
Speaker 2: if you don't, we will go to your competition and
Speaker 2: we'll do the deal with the competition. So the leadership
Speaker 2: team we're wrangling about how much money they were going
Speaker 2: to lose on giving a supermarket their brand that they
Speaker 2: could brand as their own and to then be able
Speaker 2: to have their products put in the primary position, you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the aisles and these things that
Speaker 2: eye level all of this sort of stuff. So all
Speaker 2: the stuff that you're buying in the supermarkets that is,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter what it's this country or another country,
Speaker 2: or Worlworth's home brand or Cools home brand, they're not
Speaker 2: making it.
Speaker 1: They're going in and they're screwing.
Speaker 2: The thumbscrews of the people who are making it and
Speaker 2: to do deals with them so that they can get
Speaker 2: more profits on their home brand stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, This is the sort of subter.
Speaker 2: Fee use that goes on with these supermarkets. And I
Speaker 2: think the other point next with the farmers who are.
Speaker 1: Being increasingly screwed.
Speaker 2: If they don't do the deal with calls and supermarkets,
Speaker 2: what are they going to sell their product to Because
Speaker 2: trying to get it to the local green grocer or whatever,
Speaker 2: or particularly if you're a diry farmer, trying to get
Speaker 2: those those other channels that you can sell at is crazy.
Speaker 2: And I know farmers who have just shut up shop
Speaker 2: because they've gone this has just become far too difficult
Speaker 2: and to your point, exactly exactly completely unsustainable, right.
Speaker 3: Exactly it is, Yeah, it is. It's a it's a
Speaker 3: food system that is driven by the short term profit
Speaker 3: interests of these big corporations, and the consequences for us
Speaker 3: and for our future and future generations are just not
Speaker 3: they're not factoring into their thinking. And I guess to
Speaker 3: just kind of go back to you to your original
Speaker 3: question about, you know, the food system and the reason
Speaker 3: to kind of like make these connections and see the
Speaker 3: bigger picture. You know, part of the part of the
Speaker 3: crisis in the Australian food system is with the demographic
Speaker 3: change in farmers and the fact that so many farmers,
Speaker 3: I think the average age of farmers in Australia now
Speaker 3: is over sixty, many of them are over seventy, and
Speaker 3: young people are not going into agriculture for the reasons
Speaker 3: that we've been discussing, because it's seen as a mug's game.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just really hard work with little reward,
Speaker 3: and they're just not feeling supported and that's a problem,
Speaker 3: that is a huge problem, and it's not just this country,
Speaker 3: and there's been similar there's a protest in the UK
Speaker 3: at the moment that it's the same thing. It's like,
Speaker 3: where's your food if you don't have farmers. That's the point,
Speaker 3: right The soil, the soil and the water is the
Speaker 3: foundation of the food system. But we need labor, we
Speaker 3: need farmers to grow the food and if we don't
Speaker 3: have them and they're being so screwed over by the
Speaker 3: current system, it's a disaster for us that is going
Speaker 3: to come around and bite us really really quickly. So
Speaker 3: I think the numbers of farmers under the age of
Speaker 3: thirty five in Australia is now down to about twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen percent. It was about thirty percent twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: So there's a massive generational issue in how do we
Speaker 3: incentivize and encourage and enable and support the next generation
Speaker 3: of farmers and young people into agriculture, which is and
Speaker 3: we can, you know, if we have time, we can
Speaker 3: touch on this in your local context in Mornington, because
Speaker 3: they're one of the few local councils in Australia that
Speaker 3: are really trying to do this well and tackle this
Speaker 3: issue through their food Economy and Agrocology strategy and their
Speaker 3: Producer Food Economy task Force that's working with the local
Speaker 3: government that's actually looking at this question amongst others, and
Speaker 3: one of the other questions that they're looking at is
Speaker 3: the question of sustainability and caring for the land and
Speaker 3: supporting farmers to make the transition away from highly destructive,
Speaker 3: chemical intensive forms of land management and agriculture that have
Speaker 3: devastated this country, you know, in so many places, and
Speaker 3: so much so that Australia, after you know, invasion and
Speaker 3: colonization in seventeen eighty eight, has the highest rate of
Speaker 3: biodiversity loss and species extinction on the planet and the
Speaker 3: principal reason for that is agriculture and the massive the
Speaker 3: massive landing has changed that it's brought about. So, you know,
Speaker 3: that's another dimension of the food and agricultural system that
Speaker 3: you know, most of us, because we're so urbanized, we're
Speaker 3: one of the most urbanized countries in the world. We
Speaker 3: just you know, most of us don't know a farmer. Now.
Speaker 3: We don't really spend much time going out you know,
Speaker 3: we don't go out there to the you know, to
Speaker 3: the to the countryside or you know where wheat and
Speaker 3: the sheep and the cattle are raised. You know, if
Speaker 3: we go on holiday, we tend to go to the coast,
Speaker 3: or we get in a plane and go somewhere else.
Speaker 3: We don't have a lot of connection with our own country,
Speaker 3: so these issues we don't think about them. You know
Speaker 3: that we our interaction with the food system is through
Speaker 3: what's on the shelf at the supermarket, and that's it.
Speaker 3: And we look at the price, and maybe we look
Speaker 3: at the label, and maybe we think about organic, and
Speaker 3: maybe we think about fair trade and some of these things.
Speaker 3: But you know, these bigger issues, these structural issues and problems,
Speaker 3: are just out of mind, out of sight. So in
Speaker 3: my teaching in the Food Studies degree, I have an
Speaker 3: assignment for my students called commodity chain analysis, which is
Speaker 3: helping them to think critically back through the whole chain
Speaker 3: and the food system to actually understand where the food
Speaker 3: comes from and what the conditions of production actually are
Speaker 3: and what all the consequences of those relationships entail. So
Speaker 3: we look at coffee, for example, and the conditions of
Speaker 3: the coffee producers in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, and
Speaker 3: and how that you know that product gets from Honduras.
Speaker 3: Let's say to you know, to a cafe in Brunswick
Speaker 3: or or North Melbourne, and and who you know, who's
Speaker 3: benefiting from that six dollars you're paying for your laste
Speaker 3: or your flat white and all the you know, the complexities.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a it's it's it's a it's a
Speaker 3: big and important topic. But I think it's something that
Speaker 3: we need to be discussing more because these issues affect
Speaker 3: all of us, Like all of us eat, you know,
Speaker 3: all of us are impacted by what's happening with our soils,
Speaker 3: with our waterways, with the you know, with the with
Speaker 3: the climate. We can't we can't pretend that this is
Speaker 3: you know, somebody else's problem for someone else to And
Speaker 3: if you.
Speaker 2: Don't want to, if you don't want to be eating
Speaker 2: lab grown food when you're when you're old, and don't
Speaker 2: want your grandchildren to be mostly club grown food, we
Speaker 2: need to do something about it now.
Speaker 3: So that's it. Well, that's it, and exactly let's pivot.
Speaker 2: Let's pivot to talk about what we can do. So,
Speaker 2: so two topics here, what can the individual do and
Speaker 2: all the listeners, what can they do just from a
Speaker 2: purchasing perspective from.
Speaker 1: Having your own own garden? Then what can communities do?
Speaker 2: And then what what's the big stuff that you're doing
Speaker 2: with obviously groups and trying to influence people. So so
Speaker 2: pick any of those three. But I remember reading in
Speaker 2: about lockdown. One of one of the benefits of lockdown.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing in the UK and all these kind
Speaker 2: of gardens popping up in the what do they call them,
Speaker 2: the allotments, right, and people going and doing a lot
Speaker 2: more gardening and allotments, and I know, I think your
Speaker 2: organization has been involved with a couple of those different projects.
Speaker 2: So maybe maybe talk to that and then also talk
Speaker 2: about what we can do as consumers.
Speaker 1: Like are there there are some.
Speaker 2: Products that you're better off doing, and I know things
Speaker 2: like obviously farmers' markets, going to your local fruit and vegs,
Speaker 2: going to your local butcher those sorts of things. Maybe
Speaker 2: we'll take that first, what an individual can do from
Speaker 2: a purchasing perspective, and maybe growing your own Then how
Speaker 2: can we put pressure on them, and what are local
Speaker 2: government's doing, And then we'll maybe talk about the big
Speaker 2: stuff that that's more like people like you influencing it.
Speaker 3: Sure, Okay, So at the individual level, let's just talk
Speaker 3: about growing some of your own food, which, according to
Speaker 3: research from the Australia Institute, more than fifty percent of
Speaker 3: Australians already participating in that activity in one way, shape
Speaker 3: or form. And I think indeed it's a fair you know,
Speaker 3: in this sport obsessination that Australia, probably the most popular
Speaker 3: activity so called recreational activity is actually gardening, where a
Speaker 3: nation of gardeners even more than we are a nation
Speaker 3: of sports mad fanatics. So so many of us are
Speaker 3: already doing this. And there's there's such power in that
Speaker 3: simple act of even if it's as simple as kind
Speaker 3: of like a pot of herbs on your balcony, if
Speaker 3: you're in an apartment or townhouse too, if you get
Speaker 3: a little bit more space, you know, having having some veggies,
Speaker 3: you know, the skills you can learn, the satisfaction that
Speaker 3: you can derive from, you know, that creative produce, that
Speaker 3: that creative process is immense because it connects you with
Speaker 3: the source of life. When when you're doing that, you're
Speaker 3: actually tapping in to life itself, to the you know,
Speaker 3: to the cycle of life. The creative process.
Speaker 1: And next time we've got a glimpse.
Speaker 2: I havn't just written a sort of chapter on this
Speaker 2: area of my book. Spending time in nature is really
Speaker 2: good for you mentally. Gardening has been shown to be
Speaker 2: really good for your mental health and diversifies your microbiome.
Speaker 2: Actually working the soil diversitiphise your microbiome as well. And
Speaker 2: the food that you produce in your own garden is
Speaker 2: going to be a shit little more nutritious than the
Speaker 2: stuff that you buyd the supermarkets.
Speaker 3: Right, one hundred per yep. All those points fall absolutely,
Speaker 3: and indeed the mental health one is really really important.
Speaker 3: And during COVID, my organization sustain did a survey. We
Speaker 3: called it the Pandemic Gardening Survey. We had it open
Speaker 3: for one month from mid June to mid July twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: We received over nine thousand responses, so that survey nine
Speaker 3: and forty responses from all over the country, and what
Speaker 3: people said again and again was just how important it
Speaker 3: was at that time of heightened anxiety to be able
Speaker 3: to participate in that very calming and reassuring activity of gardening,
Speaker 3: access to green space and growing some of their own food.
Speaker 3: And I'll just give you. We had over twenty five
Speaker 3: thousand quotes with the survey. We wrote, had many open
Speaker 3: field questions and it was a moment in time when
Speaker 3: people were at home in lockdown, and this touch tapped
Speaker 3: into a bit of a zeitgeist, I think, and people
Speaker 3: really engaged with it. And so we had over twenty
Speaker 3: thousand long form answers that we're still kind of slowly
Speaker 3: working our way through. But his a woman age in
Speaker 3: the twenty five to thirty four bracket, living in the
Speaker 3: outer suburbs of Melbourne, and she said, watching things grow
Speaker 3: so helping them into the world has been enormously comforting
Speaker 3: in a year when where things feel like they've been
Speaker 3: put on pause, the inexorable growth of our vegetables has
Speaker 3: been a sweet and quiet lesson in motion, a sense
Speaker 3: of things carrying on. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: that was that was reflective of a sentiment of thousands
Speaker 3: of respondents to this survey of the the the enormous
Speaker 3: mental health benefits of access to gardening and food growing
Speaker 3: at that time. But I think it's you know, it's
Speaker 3: a it's a general, a general statement that holds very true.
Speaker 3: So the simple act of growing some of your own
Speaker 3: food I think would be a really positive and empowering
Speaker 3: thing for people to do. I'm sure many of your
Speaker 3: listeners already do it, but if you if you haven't
Speaker 3: tried it, it's it's not that hard. It's just a
Speaker 3: couple of pots and some soil and some ceilings and
Speaker 3: care and attention and and it's it becomes a militative practice.
Speaker 3: I think it's it became and it was, you know,
Speaker 3: a daily ritual people who are answering with survey, So
Speaker 3: that would be that would be I guess the first thing.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I was just added to that.
Speaker 2: Actually, the in the island of Okinawa in Japan, and
Speaker 2: I identterviewed a professor Ken Mogi, and and you know
Speaker 2: it's known as one of the centers for.
Speaker 1: Longevity, and there's I think there's been.
Speaker 2: A bit few misrep representations about why Ken Mogi was
Speaker 2: saying a lot of the older people there they have
Speaker 2: an ikey guy of growing their own food. Right, that
Speaker 2: is that that this ikey guy, that Japanese what gets
Speaker 2: you up in the morning. And and it's when when
Speaker 2: they have been surveyed, they say that that that gives
Speaker 2: them the joy to be able to grow their own
Speaker 2: food and to eat their own food.
Speaker 1: And eat it as a community.
Speaker 2: That's a hue huge reason why they are much longer lived.
Speaker 2: And we have actually started doing it more, Kylie. But
Speaker 2: I've actually started getting into it, and we're actually now
Speaker 2: expanding out.
Speaker 1: Of the herbs and the strawberries and those sorts of things.
Speaker 2: And I'm about to get a greenhearst because we have
Speaker 2: actually felt the benefits of it, and it's it's a
Speaker 2: mindful activity, you know, it is one of those gay
Speaker 2: So I echo everything that that Leally said in.
Speaker 1: The court.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And I love the fact that you mentioned joy
Speaker 3: and pleasure because that's really important as well. And I
Speaker 3: think that's something that we've perhaps lost touch with in
Speaker 3: Australia in you know, in our culture where everything's so
Speaker 3: much about you know, material things and consumption and you
Speaker 3: know career progress and you know financial you know all
Speaker 3: the all the metrics, both for ourselves as individuals, but
Speaker 3: for our society it's so instrumentalized and so you know,
Speaker 3: reduced to you know, financial metrics that we've lost. I
Speaker 3: think in some ways we've lost touch with the more
Speaker 3: you know, spiritual foundational elements of life. That are really
Speaker 3: what gives life meaning and purpose, and the joy of
Speaker 3: gardening is a is a really important aspect of that.
Speaker 3: Not just just briefly share with you another aspect of this,
Speaker 3: another you know another quote and we're just you know
Speaker 3: by co author Kelly Dinati and I just had this
Speaker 3: chapter published in a book about this. The joy that
Speaker 3: people derived in so many different ways from being able
Speaker 3: to garden, not just not just growing the food, but
Speaker 3: observing the interactions of other creatures in the garden. So
Speaker 3: bees observing bees feeding in the garden was a particular
Speaker 3: source of joy for some. And this person said, what
Speaker 3: all the native bees going crazy over my pineapple sage
Speaker 3: makes me happier and more content than you could believe.
Speaker 3: I think that's just really it seems such a small thing,
Speaker 3: but I think it's really there's so much beauty and
Speaker 3: power in that where you can you know, by having
Speaker 3: having that flowering plant, you're giving food to others, to
Speaker 3: other creatures, You're you're nourishing them, that you're nourishing yourself
Speaker 3: spiritually and mentally as well, simply by creating that that beauty,
Speaker 3: those aesthetics, and then being able to go out there
Speaker 3: and see the bees, you know, do do what they do,
Speaker 3: and just lose yourself in that. In that moment, it's really.
Speaker 2: And now moment where we can have a positive contribution
Speaker 2: to the ecosystem of the earth and try to offset
Speaker 2: something some of our obvious destruction just by by having
Speaker 2: to exist, you by not not intentionally, but just all
Speaker 2: the things that we do, the things that we consume
Speaker 2: are probably not negative for the ecosystem of the earth.
Speaker 2: So if you can just balance it that little bit
Speaker 2: and get a bonus for your mental health, a bonus
Speaker 2: for your physical health as well, and take some money
Speaker 2: out of the freakin' supermarkets pockets, then there's got to
Speaker 2: be a when we're not all around.
Speaker 3: Right one hundred percent one hundred percent pull Okay, So
Speaker 3: from gardening then obviously, you know most of us are
Speaker 3: going to get most of our food not from what
Speaker 3: we grow ourselves, but from what we purchase. And I
Speaker 3: think we've already talked about this. I mean, every purchasing
Speaker 3: decision that you can make which doesn't involve the supermarket,
Speaker 3: to optly is a good a good decision, I think.
Speaker 3: And if you can support your local farmer, be it
Speaker 3: at your local farmer's market or you know there are
Speaker 3: direct there are direct ways of doing that in some
Speaker 3: parts of the city. But even just going to a
Speaker 3: locally owned business, a locally owned green grosser, of which
Speaker 3: which you know there are still plenty around the city
Speaker 3: if you do look for them, I think that's really
Speaker 3: a really positive thing to do. Support your locally owned businesses,
Speaker 3: their family run businesses. They're not being accountable to remote shareholders,
Speaker 3: they're not driven by profit maximization. They're there the reasons
Speaker 3: of passion. You know, they're running that business because you
Speaker 3: know it's been in their family or it's what they're
Speaker 3: passionate about. And if we can get behind them and
Speaker 3: support them, I think those are all really you know,
Speaker 3: good things that we can do on a daily and
Speaker 3: weekly basis. All right, So those from individuals, then too
Speaker 3: at the community level, you know, community gardens, if you
Speaker 3: again to going back to growing food and participating in
Speaker 3: those kinds of activities, if you do want to get
Speaker 3: into it more seriously, you know, participating in the community
Speaker 3: garden is a great thing to do. It's you know,
Speaker 3: one of the other crises that we're facing is I'm
Speaker 3: sure you know is is loneliness and social isolation that
Speaker 3: has been a real feature in the way of our economy,
Speaker 3: particularly in the Anglo Saxon world, has has developed in
Speaker 3: these decades of neoliberalism. It's you know, people have become
Speaker 3: adomized and isolated and lonely. And that's another reason why
Speaker 3: mental health and stress is such a you know, such
Speaker 3: such big, you know, big problems in society. So you
Speaker 3: know that they've said that, you know, the so called
Speaker 3: third spaces that we used to have, you know, decades
Speaker 3: ago in our towns and cities have disappeared and vanished,
Speaker 3: and you know, we only have kind of you know, constructed,
Speaker 3: commodified opportunities to gather together in collectivities at you know,
Speaker 3: commercial sport and and the like. So community gardens are
Speaker 3: one of those third spaces where it's not it's not
Speaker 3: about money, it's not about a commodified commercial experience, and
Speaker 3: simply people joining together because they're you know, they're interested
Speaker 3: in pursuing this activity together and there's an opportunity to
Speaker 3: to learn and socialize in a relaxed, pleasing way. And
Speaker 3: it's a great form of you know, light exercise. I
Speaker 3: know that you've spoken about this, you know, the benefits
Speaker 3: of physical activity and how important that is for you,
Speaker 3: you know, your mental health and your bodily health. So
Speaker 3: so that's a really a really good thing to do.
Speaker 3: You know, if you've got children, if you've got families
Speaker 3: and schools to you know, support them to to get
Speaker 3: a garden happening at the school if they don't already
Speaker 3: have one.
Speaker 1: You just took the world. You just took the words
Speaker 1: out of my mouth.
Speaker 2: Actually, I did some some work with a specialist school.
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of principals and they were for
Speaker 2: specialist schools, so you know, these are the teachers that cheesee,
Speaker 2: they do the hard yaka. And because of the talk
Speaker 2: that I did, one of the principals at one of
Speaker 2: the schools and they then brought me back in to
Speaker 2: show me everything, and they completely changed their canteen. They
Speaker 2: stopped selling chips and crappy food and they said that
Speaker 2: the students that were young it was a primary school,
Speaker 2: this is students are almost revolting.
Speaker 1: But they started they got the students involved.
Speaker 2: With growing a lot of the food that they then
Speaker 2: sold into the talk shop, and so the students then
Speaker 2: were eating their own food and a lot of these
Speaker 2: these kids had had disabilities, whether it was physical or
Speaker 2: intellectual disabilities.
Speaker 1: And he said the change.
Speaker 2: In the students after that first bit of resistance was
Speaker 2: just amazing.
Speaker 1: So I fully endorsed that.
Speaker 2: You know, as parents, if you know somebody a parent
Speaker 2: on the committee, just harassed them or get on the
Speaker 2: committee and and just harass the well being and people
Speaker 2: in the school to say, if you don't have a garden,
Speaker 2: let's get a garden, Let's get the kids involved in it,
Speaker 2: Let's get them having an understanding of this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And there's there's two fantastic initiatives that have taken
Speaker 3: the next level in Victoria that if you if you
Speaker 3: each of them happy to put you in touch with them.
Speaker 3: One is called farm Raiser and that's a special development
Speaker 3: school in Bellfield in West Heidelberg and that they these
Speaker 3: are and this was the initiative of three students graduating
Speaker 3: from Melbourne University's granted urban horticulture a few years ago.
Speaker 2: And that is bloody awesome. The stuff that's going in
Speaker 2: those three is good. So if you're a parent, go
Speaker 2: and harassed your shoulders are politely suggest that they might
Speaker 2: want to do something like this.
Speaker 1: So what then about local government.
Speaker 2: What sort of local government initiatives are going on that
Speaker 2: can be helpful here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question, and I just want to
Speaker 3: say one of the reasons why I love working in
Speaker 3: this space and doing this work is because there's so
Speaker 3: many great things happening, Like it's such a creative, energizing space.
Speaker 3: There's so much positivity and good people doing amazing work
Speaker 3: for the very best of reasons. And that's that's another reason,
Speaker 3: you know, to get involved in terms of local government.
Speaker 3: They have a really important role to play in this space,
Speaker 3: not least because they they manage land and they can
Speaker 3: make that land available for people to do activities such
Speaker 3: as urban farms and community gardens and where ourselves benefit
Speaker 3: from that. In the city of Durban, we've been running
Speaker 3: an urban farm on what used to be called the
Speaker 3: Melbourne Innovation Center at Alphington. This, interestingly, was one of
Speaker 3: Melbourne's most contaminated and polluted sites. It was an ex
Speaker 3: landfill that was capped I think about thirty or forty
Speaker 3: years ago, and now it's become a bit of an
Speaker 3: urban agri food hub with a weekly farmers market with
Speaker 3: two women growing oyster mushrooms and shipping containers with the
Speaker 3: urban farm that we're running, yeah, and with a waste
Speaker 3: business reground, a social enterprise that provides waste auditing services
Speaker 3: to the hospitality sector and takes away coffee grounds and
Speaker 3: donates them the community gardens. So it's a little cluster
Speaker 3: of food food related activities and it's all land owned
Speaker 3: by the City of Darrabin, so they make that space
Speaker 3: available for all these social enterprises and organizations to do
Speaker 3: this work and for us. Also up at Bundura Park Farm,
Speaker 3: which is one of Melbourne's original original farms poster colonization,
Speaker 3: we have had a license from Durbin Council half an
Speaker 3: acre of land up there for the past two years
Speaker 3: and we have used that to create a First Nations
Speaker 3: Food Fiber and Medicine garden on one paddock and on
Speaker 3: the adjacent paddock a more traditional European style market garden.
Speaker 3: The First Nation's Food, Fiber and Market Garden has been
Speaker 3: such a satisfying project. Through some of the philanthropic funding
Speaker 3: we've had, we've been able to employ a yaw to
Speaker 3: your what a woman, an artist, a musician who did
Speaker 3: one of our rounds of paid internships. You know, she
Speaker 3: loves doing that work, and she's now leading a group
Speaker 3: of eight First Nations people in a ten week paid
Speaker 3: internship that we're commencing next week, which will be helping
Speaker 3: them to recover connection to country, recovery of cultural knowledge,
Speaker 3: the plants that were grown here pre colonization, to visit
Speaker 3: other First Nations run sites around the city, and to
Speaker 3: build that sense of community and connection. And we've also
Speaker 3: got a yarning circle and the fire pit you know
Speaker 3: for smoking ceremonies up there at that site. So that's
Speaker 3: all been made possible by the Yeah, it's really exciting
Speaker 3: and fantastic, and it's been supported by the City of
Speaker 3: Durbin in making that land available to us at a,
Speaker 3: you know, a pretty favorable rate. So those are kinds
Speaker 3: of things that local governments can do. They can also
Speaker 3: bring community together and having the kinds of conversations you
Speaker 3: and I have been having, creating spaces for communities to
Speaker 3: have them with each other about these issues. So we've
Speaker 3: been part of that process ourselves many times, going back
Speaker 3: to twenty sixteen with Cardinia Shire Council and the creation
Speaker 3: of the Cardinia Community Food Strategy that we helped facilitate
Speaker 3: with I think it was about fifty small group talks,
Speaker 3: kitchen table conversations, people sitting around a table having these
Speaker 3: kinds of discussions that being documented, and all those you know,
Speaker 3: all those inputs going into writing up the council Community
Speaker 3: Food Strategy to the City of Banuel in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two to twenty three, when we supported them to engage
Speaker 3: with over six hundred local residents and create the City
Speaker 3: of Anuel's first urban food strategy. To Mornington Peninsula Shy
Speaker 3: Council's Food Economy and agro Ecology Strategy, which has been
Speaker 3: driven by a council by the Agribusiness Officer Sarah Saxton,
Speaker 3: to work with local producers and help them make the
Speaker 3: shift to sustainable and regenitive forms of food production on
Speaker 3: the peninsula. So, you know, those are just a handful
Speaker 3: of examples. We've been working with local governments ourselves for
Speaker 3: the better part of ten years now and can see
Speaker 3: the difference it makes when they actually understand these issues
Speaker 3: and really work with and get behind community members to
Speaker 3: put some you know, some cohesion and longer term vision
Speaker 3: and strategies and goals around this work. So that's local now,
Speaker 3: state government, and federal government.
Speaker 2: Obviously presumably next sorry before before you get onto state
Speaker 2: and federal presumably individuals like me will have more of
Speaker 2: an impact going and talking to the local.
Speaker 3: Government, absolutely, and federal government, Yeah, because exactly, you're right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because because they're much more accessible. You know, it's much
Speaker 3: you know, they're the closest level of government to people,
Speaker 3: to communities that you know, anyone can go along to
Speaker 3: council meetings, you can you can seek meetings with your
Speaker 3: men and your counselors and uh and involve yourself in
Speaker 3: the process. And I guess, you know, for me, coming
Speaker 3: back to what I said at the start in terms
Speaker 3: of my entry point into this whole area, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's it's also about breeding life back into our democratic culture,
Speaker 3: because I feel that is also part of the crisis
Speaker 3: that we're facing. We've become very cynical and jaded about
Speaker 3: about politics, about about government, about how these decisions are
Speaker 3: making are made with you know, with perfectly good reason,
Speaker 3: because we can see that the decisions are not being
Speaker 3: made in our interests. But you know, despair is not
Speaker 3: the answer. And I think, you know a lot of
Speaker 3: people would be very happy if more and more people
Speaker 3: did just throw up their hands in despair and say, well,
Speaker 3: it's all hopeless, and you know, there's nothing we can do,
Speaker 3: because if if, if that's the aatitude that we take
Speaker 3: and we don't do anything, then nothing will ever change,
Speaker 3: and we'll only it will only get worse. It's only
Speaker 3: I think by embracing the antithesis of despair, which is hope,
Speaker 3: and saying that what happens next, both in my own
Speaker 3: life but in broader social life, is up to us. Really,
Speaker 3: we need to be the agents of change ourselves and
Speaker 3: be active and be engaged and involving ourselves at the
Speaker 3: local level with processes like creating food strategies is a
Speaker 3: good place to start. So at the state level, at
Speaker 3: the state level and federal level, we need the state
Speaker 3: government to get engaged. We've talked about the ultra process
Speaker 3: food industry, the burden of chronic disease. A big part
Speaker 3: of the problem is that in the Victorian planning provisions,
Speaker 3: the word health is not mentioned, the word well being
Speaker 3: is not mentioned, the word for the phrase food security
Speaker 3: is not mentioned. And that means that the fast food industry,
Speaker 3: as long as it's in you know, the so called
Speaker 3: activity zone of the planning visions. Local governments have no
Speaker 3: power to stop the expansion of of those businesses, and
Speaker 3: they can set up and have set up across the
Speaker 3: road from daycare centers, from early learning centers, and from
Speaker 3: schools and primary schools. So this is a political.
Speaker 1: Question in an accident that is not an accident, right.
Speaker 3: No, it absolutely not exactly exactly. And look at how
Speaker 3: they you know, you look at how they market and
Speaker 3: promote their products. So there what audience they're targeting rights,
Speaker 3: it's kids, it's it's young kids. This is wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: if you know, if we're concerned about health and wellbeing
Speaker 3: of our city, of our country, we cannot let this
Speaker 3: industry which does not care about health and well being.
Speaker 3: It cares about its bottom line, it cares about its profits,
Speaker 3: just to have carte blanche to expand wherever and whenever
Speaker 3: it was. But to change this we actually have to
Speaker 3: get involved in the political process. So we did that.
Speaker 3: My organization met with politicians in twenty twenty three. That
Speaker 3: led to the establishment of two food security inquiries in
Speaker 3: the Victorian Parliament last year, one looking at the mental
Speaker 3: and dietary impacts of food poverty and food health in Victoria.
Speaker 3: As well as what can be done to expand affordable
Speaker 3: access to good food. And the second one was looking
Speaker 3: at securing Victorian Victoria's food supply and the impacts of
Speaker 3: population growth and urban sprawl on food security. So both
Speaker 3: those committees and we gave evidence, we made submissions, we
Speaker 3: encouraged others to get evidence. Those committees reported in November
Speaker 3: last year quite ambitious recommendations. They talked about legislating the
Speaker 3: human rights good food for all in Victoria. They talked
Speaker 3: about Victorian food system strategy, they talked about changing the
Speaker 3: planning provisions. As I just mentioned the whole raft of things.
Speaker 3: It's like a really solid reform agenda for the Victorian government. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: the Victorian government lasts not the week before last, issued
Speaker 3: its report to those recommendations, which was very underwhelming. To
Speaker 3: be frank, they did not embrace an ambitious reform agenda.
Speaker 3: They said, well, we're already doing these kinds of things.
Speaker 3: We're already getting a lot of money to food bank.
Speaker 3: You know, we're kind of we've got it covered, we don't,
Speaker 3: you know, We'll look at some of these things maybe
Speaker 3: later on down the line and see if we think
Speaker 3: it needs to be done. So that's disappointing. I'm not saying, well,
Speaker 3: that's you know, end of story. We're coming into an
Speaker 3: election next to you in Victoria. This T shirt that
Speaker 3: I've got on I Vote for Food. We have got
Speaker 3: a campaign that we want to run where we want
Speaker 3: candidates and sitting members to sign our pledge. There's five
Speaker 3: elements of our Vote for Food Pledge and we can
Speaker 3: share this link with the viewers later that are calling
Speaker 3: for a healthy and fair food system that prioritizes human
Speaker 3: and ecological health as the top priorities. And we want
Speaker 3: our politicians to sign up to that. You know, we
Speaker 3: think that's what they should be doing as our representatives.
Speaker 3: So that's the campaign that we'll be running going into the.
Speaker 1: Did you const sorry? I love that. I love that
Speaker 1: you're getting into the action.
Speaker 2: Did you did you and your group ever consider creating
Speaker 2: a political party.
Speaker 3: It's funny you should say that because one of my
Speaker 3: staff members, who comes from a farming family is a
Speaker 3: Kiwi and he's going back there next year, is actually yeah, throwing, throwing,
Speaker 3: that's the path he's going down. He's saying, you know,
Speaker 3: you've got to you've got to get in there and
Speaker 3: roll your sleeves up and getting the political process if
Speaker 3: you want change, So he's he's doing that. I have
Speaker 3: not gone down that path yet, but we are. We
Speaker 3: are building. We're trying to build a mass membership. That's
Speaker 3: that's the next phase of our work. We've got a
Speaker 3: digital platform called the Australian Food Network where we're wanting
Speaker 3: to bring together people all around the country who care
Speaker 3: about these things and want to find other people who
Speaker 3: care about them and who want to share these kinds
Speaker 3: of stories. I've been talking about stories of inspiration and
Speaker 3: hope and to work together. So if we can, you know,
Speaker 3: if we can start to build some membership. We've got
Speaker 3: about two hundred and fifty three hundred so far. If
Speaker 3: we can get that, you know, up over a thousand
Speaker 3: and beyond, then then yeah, quite quite possibly. I think
Speaker 3: it's something that's definitely worth considering, definitely worth considering. But
Speaker 3: I just wanted to finish perhaps with this discussion about
Speaker 3: you know, bigger picture change and policy, to talk about
Speaker 3: the federal government because obviously they're the you know, the
Speaker 3: biggest resource they've got with us where most of the
Speaker 3: money is. You know, they could do things like put
Speaker 3: a super profits tax on the supermarket and invest in
Speaker 3: urban farms and community gardens and school gardens. They could
Speaker 3: use that money to invest in universal school meals, which
Speaker 3: other countries have done. You know, That's that's where the
Speaker 3: doal can really be shifted. So we have an opportunity
Speaker 3: right now because as part of our Voat for Food campaign,
Speaker 3: we called on the federal government to commit to a
Speaker 3: national food security strategy, and that's what the Albanezi government
Speaker 3: did in March. They said they were going to create
Speaker 3: the Feeding Australia Strategy it's called. So now we're expecting
Speaker 3: them later this month or in September to make the
Speaker 3: first announcements about what that process is going to be
Speaker 3: and where it's going to go forward. So we've been
Speaker 3: meeting with the bureaucrats, the food policy team at DAFT,
Speaker 3: the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. We have been
Speaker 3: saying to them, this has to be a participatory process.
Speaker 3: You cannot say, Okay, we've allocated three and a half
Speaker 3: million the federal money to develop this strategy, We're just
Speaker 3: going to chuck that to Price waterhouse Coopers or somebody
Speaker 3: like that. Lock them in a room with Coles and
Speaker 3: Wolworths in Australian Food and Grocery Council and right up.
Speaker 3: A strategy that's all about the interest of the big
Speaker 3: end of towns needs to be open, it needs to
Speaker 3: be participatory, it needs to be inclusive, It needs to
Speaker 3: prioritize our first nations, communities, and it needs to prioritize
Speaker 3: the people who are living with food poverty and food insecurity,
Speaker 3: because that should be the priority of a national food
Speaker 3: security strategy. So that's what we've been saying to them,
Speaker 3: that's what we expect them to do, and we are.
Speaker 3: It's an open invitation to work with people around the
Speaker 3: country to involve ourselves in this process. And we've got
Speaker 3: some ideas approaches about how we might take that take
Speaker 3: that forward, but that's going to be starting, you know,
Speaker 3: quite quite solod.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Nick.
Speaker 2: This has been a very eye opening podcast that I
Speaker 2: think affects everybody, whether you're an Australian listener, you're not
Speaker 2: an Australian listener. I mean, I would imagine we could
Speaker 2: look at many developed nations and the CM systemic issues
Speaker 2: would be present in those nations. Look, there's teach cooms
Speaker 2: here for individuals, but if they want to assess you
Speaker 2: in your really important work and what sort of things
Speaker 2: should they should they be doing this the Australian Food
Speaker 2: Network presumably they can go and join that and we'll
Speaker 2: put all the links into the show notes. But what
Speaker 2: would you like those who are concerned citizens who go, actually,
Speaker 2: I want to do something about this, even if it
Speaker 2: is just giving my support to the people who are
Speaker 2: actually taking the action.
Speaker 1: How can we help?
Speaker 3: Thank you? Thank you, Paul. Yeah, so I'm glad you
Speaker 3: mentioned citizens because that is something that we're talking about here,
Speaker 3: food citizenship, food democracy. Let's get involved. If we want
Speaker 3: to change the food system, we have to get involved
Speaker 3: in shaping it, and that means inhabiting our identity as citizens,
Speaker 3: as participants in this policy that we that we call Australia.
Speaker 3: So I would say join, join us. You can become
Speaker 3: a member, We'll share the link. It's sixty dollars a
Speaker 3: year and that will connect you to the Australian Food
Speaker 3: Network platform where you'll be meeting hundreds of people around
Speaker 3: the country who are also on this journey, who've been
Speaker 3: working in their own communities in different ways for many,
Speaker 3: many years. We have monthly webinars, we caught skill of
Speaker 3: the month where people can learn and understand different aspects
Speaker 3: of the food system and how to change it. We've
Speaker 3: got the Vote for Food campaign that will be ongoing,
Speaker 3: so that will also be a link, and you can
Speaker 3: sign the pledge and add your name to support the
Speaker 3: Vote for Food Pledge. Those would probably be the two,
Speaker 3: I guess the two main calls to action. Consider becoming
Speaker 3: a member of sustain and sign the Vote for Food Pledge,
Speaker 3: Join the Australian Food Network and you know find you know,
Speaker 3: find your fellows, your fellow companions in your local communities
Speaker 3: and and get involved. There's so many different entry points
Speaker 3: to this, so many different ways to be involved, and
Speaker 3: as I said, it's such a positive and empowering space
Speaker 3: to be in so many ways. So yeah today, you know,
Speaker 3: seize the moments.
Speaker 2: And I would add into yeah, absolutely and give up
Speaker 2: ten minutes of your time and take the extra trip
Speaker 2: to the local green grocer and boucher sother than just
Speaker 2: the supermarket.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Nick, this has been great. Thank you. I tip
Speaker 1: my hat to you.
Speaker 2: So you're doing purposeful work and keep going, keep building
Speaker 2: that steam up because it's important stuff.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you very much. Paul, I'm grateful for
Speaker 3: the opportunity and yeah, thank you, thank you for giving
Speaker 3: me the time to share some of my story and
Speaker 3: why I do this work. And you know it really
Speaker 3: it's the important work. I think, as Wendelberry said, you know,
Speaker 3: this is part of the great work that you know,
Speaker 3: all of us are live today, are engaged in. You know,
Speaker 3: I think all of us have to ask the question
Speaker 3: why are we alive? Are we here?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: And for me it is to try and make you know,
Speaker 3: the positive change that I can with the experience and
Speaker 3: skills and capacities and energy that I have. And and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's been it's been an honor and a pleasure to
Speaker 3: speak with you about it.
Speaker 2: Wow, awesome, Thanks Matte.