Fair Food – a documentary for the times

Last week we teamed up with Permaculture Victoria to present the Fair Food documentary. The documentary reminds us that we all have choices. Choices about who we are, what we eat, the food we grow, buy and eat. These are choices that can have a huge impact on the kind of environment we want to have, as well as how animals are treated and of course how we as a society care and support for each other. And these are choices we can make one mouthful at a time.

‘Fair Food: The Documentary’ which examines the current Australian agricultural system and some of the alternatives. A great way to get people thinking about their food and where it comes from.

Following the screening, we were honoured to have a panel of esteemed guest speakers: Nick Rose (Sustain: The Australian Food Network), Serenity Hill (Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and Open Food Network), Pippa French (3000 acres), Sophia Christoe (Melbourne Farmers Markets) and Paul Miragliotta (Days Walk Farm and Farmer Incubator). Once they’d introduced themselves and spoke of their involvement in the documentary and the ways in which they worked within the fair food space, the discussion took off!

Left to right: Paul Miragliotta, Sophia Cristoe, Serenity Hill, Pippa French and Nick Rose.

Questions covered topics such as farmer education, redistributing supermarket waste, discussing if the world is ready to leave behind the current industrialised agricultural system and move towards more ethical ways of feeding the world. As Nick Rose put it. “it may be more expensive initially to set up these systems, but once you have healthier soil the costs of production actually go down – so it becomes cheaper to produce better food”.

Food for thought!

Paul also spoke about the Farmer Incubator program which mentors people thinking of commencing farming as a career – there’s a video that captures his work beautifully – check it out below!

If you want to connect to your local producer, Sophia suggests “You can support the farmers at the coalface of the Fair Food movement every weekend by shopping at one of Melbourne Farmers Markets accredited markets. We run 6 markets and work with over 300 stallholders year round; rain, hail or shine. Check out our website or Facebook to find the market and farmers who are nearest you.”

You can also join the Open Food Network, co-founded by Serenity Hill and Kirsten Larsen, to find who’s growing, brewing and trading around.

Finally, the Fair Food doco suggests these as ways you can get connected to the Fair Food movement:

1. Grow some of your own food!
2. Get to know your farmer – shop at a farmers market, join a CSA, support local food businesses
3. Join a community garden – www.communitygarden.org.au
4. For more information, visit the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) – www.australianfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/join-us

Thanks to Pip Magazine for donating two Pip subscription packs (including a bag and calendar) to two lucky attendees, as well as Ben’s Bees for enabling us to gift the speakers and helpers with jars of honey!
And of course a *huge* thanks to the wonderful audience who helped us raise almost $400! This will be donated to the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance to help them in their work promoting fair food for all.