Aotearoa Food Action Alliance - quo vadis?

Kia ora e hoa, kia ora tātau hoki

So nice to read your reflection Urs, I feel like it really captures where I’m at as the year winds down too - small pause amidst the doing and a reminder that nothing happens without us working together. So thank u for the prompt! I am 100% behind the “different vision for agriculture on these islands” described here.

Like u write, I know my ‘feeling busy’ is common and also that there’s always room to move. I want to make time for this. Gaza makes it too clear what the stakes are: life v death. I want to be part of stepping up. So with those keen let’s do it. A public account explaining the shared politic, critiquing existing models etc, and also (starting after) some sort of peer to peer, ‘farmer to farmer’ angle for building our own collective capacity and power: events, wānanga etc.

However, I am also hesitant of the projections of expertise and ‘completeness’ that go with being ‘public facing’. If people are open to it, I would love for us to own our limitations and lack of knowledge too - commiting publicly to a shared political project, i.e., deepening our abilities to feed people in ways that are explicitly enriching of ‘others’ - without claiming to have any finished ‘solutions’.

This might not be the right language but hopefully you get my drift. I can’t pretend to be a viable business or master grower or pushing a people-engaging community project but as I see it, the power of the alternative socio-economic model/vision  that food helps us to embody is that we don’t need to know where it’s going, just that the potential is there and that there’s always room to learn and engage and go deeper, letting small changes and connections build up over time.

This is the appeal of food as I’ve felt it here, and know from the times we’ve connected that this is very much a shared sentiment, so would love to join and build upon the other pockets (your other pockets!) already doing this around the country; not as some functioning alternative to fonterra and federated farmers’ system, but an explicit commitment to finding out, refusing where we are now. A “different vision for agriculture on these islands” that is also, necessarily, a different future full stop.

One place we could start: sharing our own stories of change. I always find it reinforcing to hear how others have come to see and act against exploitation that is otherwise normalised. At some point I thought nothing of Countdown’s footprint or what fills their shelves and now it shits me to no end (I will spare u the rant! 😂). Many of us have been radicalised, coming to wish and work for an alternative way of life. These stories of change are powerful, so that could be one angle for the social media… Come up with questions together (like this + others), answer them individually, then share the answers with some photos over time, build from there.

I know we did versions of this when we introduced ourselves in an earlier thread. For those that consent, doing a similar exercise publicly might be a nice way to stake out and grow into ‘our’ space but of course, always keen to hear alternatives or counters. I’m with Urs that doing something imperfect beats nothing at all.

Anyway, long reply over lol. Whoever else is keen, in the new year, let’s do something together.

X

Dan

Kia ora taatou,

I appreciate you opening the discussion again Urs, and your thoughtful reply Dan. You know, we are all busy. Especially in December and January when you're growing food!

I'm a firm believer that to achieve anything, movements of change have to act at all levels, the personal/private, in the wider community, and making representations to government AND within government. So, I try to be active in whatever way I can at all of these levels (not in government yet ha ha).

I also noticed that in modern society we are not NEARLY as organised as in previous generations. The modern young person is overwhelmed with worries and distractions, the personal and societal problems they face are too large and complex... and many don't get involved in collective action and organisation. At the same time, existing organisations have to struggle to stay relevant and supported, and are dwindling.

So, my feeling is that effort needs to be focused and directed where there already IS some level of organisation. That's why I put my time into trying to support Soil & Health NZ, and redirecting its focus for the current times, addressing the climate crisis and the GE threat to NZ. A lot of my energy has been put into just trying to keep the organisation afloat, unfortunately. Organic Week is one of our initiatives. It's basically being lead by a group of volunteers - we would welcome any participation in the steering committee.

Sharing stories of change... that could be via our publication, OrganicNZ. We are trying to keep it relevant and out there in the public domain. How many other radical composting organisations from the past have a journal on the supermarket shelves? Do you know realise tenuous this is? We publish articles on degrowth, crop swaps, biochar, ethical investment, native insects... you name it. We're trying to move the dial.

We do need to unite. We need to join our energies.

There's a lack of an organisation that really supports regenerative/organic growers. I see that. But have you seen this youth movement that recently started? I've been keeping in touch with a few of them. It's a voice to stand up to Fed Farmers. https://futurefarmersnz.org/

Right, off to work in the market garden 💪.

Jenny.

Kia ora Urs and anybody else who still has an ear to this space. Thanks for stepping up to attempt to rekindle this dialogue, and thanks Dan and Jenny for your contributions. 

Busy, yes, with family and these days finally feeding some people in our community with the first season of our new CSA scheme, so sorry for the tardy response, it's not a reflection of disinterest.

I’m loath to say too much as I’ve said enough in this space already in the past, but I can't help myself, so I will say that although we do have passionate organisations focused on ‘food system change’, they seem to be rooted in technology - ‘biodynamic’, ‘organic’, ‘regenerative’, and seeking top down policy 'solutions', I don’t see any evidence of an organised food movement in Aotearoa rooted in a historic, settler-colonial, socio-economic, land / labour / class analysis. Which is what I read you pointing towards. Of course there are groups like Te Waka Kai Ora / Hua Parakore and many community groups doing amazing work in and at the local level, so no shade. Hence the word 'organised', perhaps meaning networked...

If energy emerged around something more akin to Agroecology (the original peasant led and political rather than FAO iteration), La Via Campasina, The MST, The Landworkers Alliance et al - something grounded in agroecology & food sovereignty, i.e. with an explicit politic - I’d certainly be keen to be a participant. If a group forms which is intent of sitting at the big table… less so. 

The fact that this discussion keeps intermittently rearing its head speaks to others also feeling the absence of such a movement. 

I read an article about food system change in The Listener earlier this year in which a British writer and activist? (I can't remember his name sorry) was interviewed amongst New Zealand food system thinkers. He had been a part of a group convened by government to address their 'broken' food system, and had resigned in frustration as the state would not act on any of their recommendations - I'm personally not interested in wasting valuable time like that. He said "we know that if you act on just one part of a complex system, the system is liable to fight back", and I can't agree more, except, the food system is one part of a complex system, and until our food movement stops separating it into it's own entity with the belief that the bigger system under which it is a foundation (of cheapened food / land / labour) can 'fix it's brokenness" we're stuck in a mirage.

I’d posit that our food system is behaving exactly as it has always been designed, to subsidise capital accumulation and power, and to counter this is the long slow work of coming-together; in relationship, solidarity and culture building - this is it's own goal, to 'build good ruins' together, to collectively make some sense of the brokenness, not of the food system but of the broader systems we swim in. As Tame Iti said during the covid protests, "you don't go to parliament and look for freedom". I’m up for starting to walk down that path without a per-ordained destination in mind, in the hope that we could one day have enough mana to then pose a compelling alternative narrative to institutions like Federated Farmers. Like the Campasina to Campasina movements, but broader than those with hands in the soil, as we have people like Dan amongst us who aren't explicitly feeding people from the land, but in addition to growing do the hard intellectual work that is required for us to better understand the broader systems I'm pointing to and how we might organise against them.

So yes; rants (as above), and a monthly zoom , perhaps with the aim of building towards something that looks something like The Oxford Real Farming Conference - that sounds great. Perhaps those few of us with a desire for something like this could step aside into a smaller group and see where the relationship takes us?

Aaron

Kia ora koutou,

I'm popping in to support the conversation here. I think the Campasina movements provide a lot of insight into small farming and food democracy. Our challenge in Aotearoa is bringing small-scale farming back to local life, alongside land-back and constitutional transformation. Creating a small growers/farmers movement could help exemplify the possibilities and feed the imagination of communities.

Jo

Kia ora tātou,

thanks for your responses - Jenny, Jo, Aaron and Dan. Also Michael Reynolds (who i think has unsubscribed) and Tāne have been in touch.

Great food for thought. I agree - Jenny - that we need to be involved widely in various existing groups and movements to contribute to the collective development of alternative visions to agriculture. We are involved with Tāhuri Whenua (on the fringes) and quite deep in the climate justice movement. When mooting the idea of an anti-capitalist pro-Te-Tirit farming group with some of our climate comrades up a t Waitangi, there was certainly quite a bit of interest (with one suggesting the name "Conferederated Farmers" which i thought was pretty funny). 

I am thinking of going to Tāmaki for the upcoming wānanga oragnised by Te Waka Kaiora (11-13 April - see https://www.papawhakaritorito.com/he-whenua-rongo). If there are a few of us going, maybe we could work towards a physical catch up around the time of the wānanga and have a couple of zoom sessions leading up to that? Furthermore, I am thinking about a wānanga at Parihaka on Sunday, 9th June (we have our Puanga New Year Festival the day before) to discuss agroecological solutions - might be more of a local Taranaki focus, but open to everyone. TBC.

Ngā mihi

Urs

Kia ora Urs, Aaron, and all those who have kept this thread alive and/or those who 'still have an ear to this space', feeling how important it could be

Apologies for not engaging or introducing myself sooner [if anyone is still following it, I'll try drop a short one in the long-inactive Whakawhanaungatanga thread over the next few days). I've started (or tried) to, on many different occasions, beginning long-winded drafts; but I have always fallen short of feeling fully able to 'be useful' in this space, and so have abandoned those drafts.

Now, however, in the spirit of 'any action being better than no action' and 'activity attracting further activity, interest and interaction' that Urs has sparked up, I'm chiming in. I guess just to say that I'm here. That I still believe strongly in the power and importance of whatever it is that our shared urge(ncy), frustration and drive (dare I say...hope?!) periodically rearing its head in this thread every few months/years speaks to.

So, just saying I'm keen to support and/or engage in whatever I can over the coming months - specifically, Zoom catch-ups leading up to the Te Waka Kaiora wānanga in April?

Apologies for a scatty contribution here, but hopefully I can fill in some gaps soon, and look forward to getting a bit of momentum over the coming months.

Best to all. Stay human,

David

Kia ora tātou,

I understand the context is different in a settler colony, but some of you might find this interesting / useful nonetheless...

https://peopleslandpolicy.home.blog/towards-a-manifesto-for-land-justice-new-pamphlet-download-here/

One of its authors Dr Bonnie VandeSteeg speaks with Adam Calo here

https://landscapes.libsyn.com/