It’s here!  Fair Food Week August 19 – 25 is a week of events that will celebrate the work of Australia’s fair food leaders.

Coordinated by the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), to support the Peoples’ Food Plan, Australia’s first-ever Fair Food Week shines a light on our new story of food. The crowd-sourced week demonstrates the initiative of citizens, organisations and small business in creating events that convey the message of fair access to good food for all, an abundant future for Australia’s farmers who produce what we eat and the sovereignty of free choice over the foods we want as the eaters of that food.
Over 90 events are being staged across the country: forums, workshops, speakers, films, farmers’ fairs, food swaps, community garden and farm tours, and more. The powerful response to the first Fair Food Week reflects renewed community interest in what we eat, how it is produced and how it gets to us.

Here in northern Victoria we have already had free food at the Seymour Community Market, the Red Gum Food Group Koondrook Barham Local Food Challenge has kicked off, Growing Abundance in Castlemaine has a Food for Thought lunch coming up on Tuesday, on Thursday Growing Change and the Bendigo Community Food Network are hosting a community film night with Nourish the documentary and Fresh the movie, the Bowden Street Women are gathering on Friday night and on Saturday the week rounds out with the Trentham Growers Cookers and Eaters dinner.

Fair Food Week was organised because Australia’s food economy is changing in ways that do not always benefit farmers, our food processing industry or eaters. There are concerns over how food is processed, the excessive market power of supermarkets, how cheap food imports with unknown health impacts force Australian farmers off the land and Australian food processors to close, and over biosafety. Plus both farmers and farm workers and food processors should be able to enjoy healthy, good and fair working conditions.

Then there is the link between food advertising and the national epidemic of diet-related ill health, highlighting a need for change that is obvious and overwhelming. Countering these trends is an upsurge of interest in our food future and of initiatives by small to medium scale business, social enterprise and communities in co-creating a better food system with increased access to healthy foods.

Supporting regional food economies with the employment opportunities they bring is not only desirable, but that it is achievable too. Food fairness is the real quadruple bottom line: it looks after our health and well-being, it cares for the land and water, generates decent jobs and conditions for producers and contributes to prosperous and resilient communities.

Communities where there is fair access to good, tasty food for the thousands of Australians and their children living on low incomes.

So during Fair Food Week, we can all go out and enjoy food produced fairly and realise that fair food can nourish all people, support communities, keep growers profitable and nurture the environment.