Agroecology Radio Hour
Talking all things agroecology
Agroecology Radio Hour
Episode 4 - Tammi Jonas
This months episode we chat with AFSA's focal point for farmers Tammi Jonas. Tammi has been farming on unceeded Dja Dja Wurrung country for close to 15 years at Jonai Farms and has long been engaged in activism. Tammi and Lucy chat about Jonai farms, the language of "peasant" in Australia, how the food sovereignty movement has grown over recent years and more!
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Links:
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Jonai Farms: https://jonaifarms.com.au/
Peasant means a person of the land, right. Especially in, in French peon. And, um, the, as soon as you ask small holders in this country, whether they feel like they're a peasant in that sense. They immediately say, yes, absolutely. I feel like a person of the land and like I'm in a reciprocal
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:with land that I have to care for. And the the aims of, of the global peasantry of the peasant the reproduction of the farm and the ecosystem in which it exists. So the aims are not profit maximization there. I wanna be able to do this here forever and I want everyone else to be able to as well and to do that, I'm going to have to look after this place. So that it exists in perpetuity for everyone to be able to provide for themselves in this really wonderful and rich and, uh, very located way.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Welcome to another episode of the Australian Agroecology Radio Hour, your monthly podcast that explores the issues of food sovereignty in the Australian landscape. I'm your host, Lucy Ridge, speaking to you from the unseated Lands of the NAL and Ry Peoples. In our last episode, we spoke with Morgan odi. The general coordinator of Lavere Campesina, who gave us a really excellent perspective on what the International Food Sovereignty Movement looks like this week. We wanna bring it back a little bit closer to home and talk about food sovereignty and agroecology in an Australian context, and there's no better person to help us do that than a's focal point for farmers. Tammy Jonas. Tammy has been farming on unseated Jaja war country for close to 15 years. Jonno Farms grows uncommonly delicious pork beef, and they also share their land with indigenous LED market gardeners. Tamari growers. Welcome Tammy.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Thanks, Lucy.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:So Tammy, we wondered if we could start off by, um, asking you what's it like on Jonno Farms at the moment? What have you been noticing on country lately?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:a little bit of rain a few days ago and we had about a week earlier, uh, there was a big downpour and so underneath. The, the dry brittle, um, dead annual grasses is the flush of green coming through. and you can watch Winnie, the House cow going out and nosing around for it. She's like, there's some green pluck under there. and yeah, the garden, the market gardeners down at Tamer, they're really struggling with the extreme, uh, growth of weeds all of a sudden. So they're trying to stay ahead of that. Um, yeah, just the whole, the whole land feels a little bit of relief after what's been quite a dry, you know, six, nine months.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:So we wanted to ask you a little more about you. So what led you to start Joni Farms and what's driven you to grow the farms and be involved in the Food Sovereignty Alliance? How did you get here?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:I think, um, the simplest way to answer the why did we start farming here was that, um, I mean. just thought you shouldn't treat animals the way they do in industrial agriculture. And I myself am from a, a cattle ranch in Oregon when I was young. so for me, I wanted to be back on land, but I didn't wanna be part of a system farming that was. Bad in my view.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:back onto land and live a more kind of, um, agrarian lifestyle, like what I dreamed would be the good way to do it, um, was to raise some pigs on pasture and some cattle on pasture and make a living farming. Um, and that that impulse to raise pigs properly was, which was like the, that was the strong impulse of why we came to farm pigs. Uh. That leads you down the, down the pathway of, oh wow, if you're gonna raise pigs properly, what happens when pigs are on one piece of ground for too long? Oh, you've gotta care about the ground. You've gotta care about the soil. You've gotta care about how much grass there is, and whether they're just destroying it or whether they're actually in a relationship that's benefiting that land. And. And then you just keep going and going and, you know, you realize you, you need a butcher. And so you become a butcher. And then, um, and then as those things arise, you realize how hard it is to do all those things. And so, especially when you're kind of a, a, an activist since you were a small child, go, oh, we better be an activist in the food sovereignty movement now. Because I mean, I had to be fair, I'd been a keyboard warrior writing about food ethics already, even when I was in the city. Um, but. When food, when I learned about the food sovereignty movement as a broader movement, not just a bunch of keyboard warriors, like doing stuff individually, that there was a movement that La Campesinas, the largest
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:in the world, you know, with like over 400 million signed up members. I was like, well, that's way better than being an individual at a keyboard. I'd much rather be part of something bigger than me
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:where people know more than I do, and I have a lot to learn as well as contribute.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Definitely, we really enjoyed speaking to Morgan and she spoke a lot about how it was a very hopeful movement because it's got that mix of sort of the broad political international movement and then the very sort of concrete, solid, tangible changes that you can see, you know, on the ground on your farm. And I can see that kind of mirrored in your story.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:So you've been part of Aafsa, um, for a long time now, and we've already talked a little bit about the origins of the, you know, the food sovereignty movement in Australia, um, with Jesse in episode one. Um, but we wondered how you've seen the local movement grow in the time that you've been involved.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:It's profound, the way it's grown because I mean, I've been involved since, uh, the end of 2013, so it's a while. Um, and from that original theory of change, which I'm pretty sure, sure Jess spoke about already, where was this idea amongst some of the founders that although the global food sovereignty movement was led by peasants and first peoples, um. Australia being a highly urbanized country, it would make more sense for it to be an urban led movement. And when I got involved, that was kind of the theory of change, um, amongst most of the national committee members. as more farmers got involved, you can imagine that started to shift on balance and um,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:of went, yeah, it is a very urban country, but. is still grown in the countryside. And, um, that
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:uh, identity and connection to land and that indigenous connection to land, those things still come from places where you're on land and you have to be in relations with it to produce, you know, healthy food that's, um, produced in, in good ways. So, so the theory of change there was, there was kind of a, um, that. A small ideological struggle, if you'd like. Over that, over that question for a
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:years, um, that reached a point where, uh, those who agreed with the global movements theory of change stayed. And those who thought that we were getting it wrong, kind of left. Um, and, and continued with good work actually in urban spaces. So it, like, I think there's
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:from people whose theory of change remains. You've gotta change the cities in a very urbanized country, um, and change policy in cities and how people have access to food and the, and I think so. I think it's actually. A strength in a way that we've continued with the global food sovereignty, um, theory of change, they're taking on an urban approach, um, for urban farms and, uh, food security in the cities that, that I think is really rich. Um, so I mean. We not only are farmer and first people's lead, uh, which very much matches the global movement. We've been involved in the international space for it's a decade now or just over. Um, and that, uh, engagement with the international movement has influenced us so deeply. I can't even. It's hard to convey if you haven't been involved in it. But I was talking, for example, with Jacob Birch today, who is, um, one of the leaders of our First Peoples subcommittee after, uh, subcommittee for First Peoples. And he was talking about his work in the international spaces more and how with uh, first Nations in on Turtle Island and other places has helped him. Actually viscerally experience the alternatives that not only are possible, but that that exist and getting outside of this
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Bubble of thinking. Uh, what's the ma Maggie Thatcher thing? Um, there is no alternative Tina, right? she, she coined that, that kind of idea. And the neoliberal states like ours, the, there is no alternative, but you go and you spend time with your comrades from the global south, or which is the majority world you'll recall, um, 80% of the world's population lives across what we call the global south. you go spend time
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:and. You don't have to wonder whether something else is pos, whether there are alternatives, whether there's a world where small holders feed the world, like it just is that way.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah,
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:it already exists. And so
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:now is so deeply informed by our international work. While we still have a very, um, strong in clear focus on, uh, the transformation happening here in Australia, it's, it's seriously
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:by what we know they're doing across the world.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. Um, one of the points that we spoke with Morgan about, um, last month was the global use of the term peasant and why it's important for Australian agroecological farmers to use that language for themselves. Uh, and you know, recently on the, uh, the agroecology roadshow, I know that you had a lot of conversations with farmers all up and down, sort of the east part of Australia about using the word peasant for themselves. So. I, um, I wondered a, if you could tell us a little bit about, about that and, and about the distinction between a peasant and an entrepreneur and, and why does that matter?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:That's such a good question. So, as you know, this is very close to my own heart and my, the PhD that I finished last year is, is called Australia's New Peasantry and the Rise of Agroecology. Um. And the question of do you wanna be a peasant or an entrepreneur or are you a peasant or are you an entrepreneur? Really throws most Australians. Um, it doesn't even matter if they come from a more kind of activist bent. They certainly think this, I know this is a trick question and I don't want to get it wrong. so,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:you think about the, what you would've heard from Morgan, I can't wait to listen to that episode. Um. The, the global peasantry. Peasant means a person of the land, right. Especially in, in French peon. And, um, the, as soon as you ask small holders in this country, whether they feel like they're a peasant in that sense. They immediately say, yes, absolutely. I feel like a person of the land and like I'm in a reciprocal
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:with land that I have to care for. And the the aims of, of the global peasantry of the peasant the reproduction of the farm and the ecosystem in which it exists. So the aims are not profit maximization there. I wanna be able to do this here forever and I want everyone else to be able to as well and to do that, I'm going to have to look after this place. So that it exists in perpetuity for everyone to be able to provide for themselves in this really wonderful and rich and, uh, very located way. The entrepreneur. On the other hand, I've had people say to me, can't I be an entrepreneurial peasant? uh, I mean, sure, you,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Can I have both?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:a go at it, but here's what's gonna happen. So the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur, um, you know, is, is built on taking risks and usually to build like projects, not, not life and livelihood. And this is who I am to my deepest core. it's actually, I wanna do something really cool. I'm gonna take, I'm gonna go out on a limb and, and take some risks to do that. And a lot of those risks are financial risks. Obviously. That's, that's a thing entrepreneurs are famous for often with somebody
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:that matter. Um, but when things go wrong, those, uh, the risks can end up having consequences, totally unintended consequences by really good people trying to do good things. Those consequences are usually born by, uh, the environment or workers who joined this entrepreneurial venture. Um, the risks are often not born very closely by the entrepreneur. And so that, that
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:to the project, even like, ah, that project failed. I'll go on to the next one. I'll find some more eventual capitalists and off I go. and I think that notion is really quite opposite to the peasants notion because. Peasants take risks too. They innovate and take risks all the time, but not ones that could fundamentally undermine the, uh, ecosystem that they depend on, or the community in which they're embedded. You can't risk those people's lives and livelihoods. Um, or, or you don't have somewhere else. You don't have a venture capitalist in the closet, um, to help you do the next thing. So. For
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:entrepreneurialism, you know, ultimately kind of leads to full blown capitalism. If you read somebody like, um, y Dewey Vander Plague. So he, he thinks of the entrepreneur as being kind of somewhere in the middle and he talks about how, um. I, in the past, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial farmers were kind of going on to be full blown capitalist farmers who own mega farms, et cetera. But now in the process of, um, there's been deep peasant the world, you know, we're losing peasants, but there's also a reverse trend of re peasant, and that's where this entrepreneurial class that they're failing, it's not an easy model to keep going to be that kind of startup or medium scale. Instead of the pathway into mega capitalist, most of them, if they wanna stay in it all, they, they actually resize, they're, they're the ones who are helping us grow the peasant class. They're going, wow, all that risk taking and trying to have all this capital behind me. not going very well. And so what I want is to grow food and live in harmony with nature. So maybe I'll try a different way.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. And often that feeds into that, um, notion of a degrow. Economy, you know, and, and, and being content with enough. What does enough look like? Rather than that, that constant, you know, yearning for more, more profit, more resources, more wealth, more land.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:and I mean, I've spoken with a farmer at, at a dialogue not long ago we were talking about that thing of profit margins versus turnover. Right? And, and, um, I heard a wonderful, uh, young man who would've been. 2021 A, a young dairy farmer in Tazzie at Grounded, he talked about how, you know, his dad's generation, they, they went, they wanted, they needed the turnover to have a sense of value and meaning. So they wanted to be the million dollar turnover, not the $200,000 turnover. But then their profit margin was like really small and Instead has chosen to stick with, he's only milking 40 cows. He employs five people. He sells everything directly in the region where he is up in New South Wales. And his dad's sitting in the audience proud, his punch, like smiling and nodding about it. His son's doing it better
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:which I was really pleased to see. But I, I talked to another farmer, um, not long ago who said, uh, we, we talked about that example. And I said, you know, our farm's like a $200,000 turnover farm, but we have a good profit margin so that we can live a decent living without that huge turnover. And he said, well. His turnover last year was 950,000 and his take home was 33,000. And it's like
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Wow.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:did you have to flog yourself to turn over 950,000 to only get 33,000 at the end of the day, like
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:again a big difference of enoughness and I don't, I
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:at all what the turnover is as long as I can pay my bills and, you know, time to feed ourselves as well as others. Um. That's enoughness for us, I guess.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and when you think about the difference between that 33,000 and that close to a million. You know, where did that extra money go? And it's, you know, it's going to middlemen, it's going to agrochemical businesses. You know, when you think about,
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:fossil
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:you know, if you are
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:too many animals to the abattoir actually.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah, yeah. You know, at, at that point, are you actually running a business for yourself or are you just running a business for, you know, for those other multinational corporations really?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Even though it's your own business, are you back in, you know, that notion of the wage slave, like, are you actually just, are you just drawing a tiny wage for, for very little joy?
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. So when we look at food sovereignty in the Australian context, you know, I think there's a lot of those farmers who are really tied into those, into that kind of wage slave, uh, situation where they're really tied to high turnovers, bigger pieces of land. I. More animals, more crops, more acres, um, and predominantly selling to an export commodities market. So what does a transition from this kind of market to a more localized and sovereign market look like? How do we get out of that Australian bubble and start to see that, you know, another way is possible?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Well, you know, to a certain extent, the abattoir crisis is a tipping point, and you're about to, you're about to watch how this is gonna go because many of those people who thought that they could play in those export markets are now losing. They're not big enough really. Um, and the, the more those companies vertically integrate, the less options the farmers who are happy to have their meat exported are going to have. But before we wait for the full crisis to determine for us what it looks like. Um, one of our, one of, like, one of my favorite success stories of some farmers who are on 2000 acres who came to one of the agroecology dialogues, they'd never tasted their own meat. Um, it had always just gone straight to the commodity market they ca.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Never, never tasted their own.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:is a multi-gen farm. Um, so they, they were like, this isn't very satisfying. You know, they, they're taking, they've taken over from the parents now and, uh, little kid on the ground and like, we just actually don't want to live like this. We don't wanna, we wanna look
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:mm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:properly. That's gonna take us some work to get more fencing in and move animals more quickly. This is a lot of land, but, so how do, what do we do with this many animals? And so they came to the dialogue. Had the Peasant Entrepreneur, uh, conversation went away and we're, you know, they're obviously on the path for this, but then they have, in the years since then, they've completely transformed the way they farm and the way they sell. They sell all of their meat directly now. Um, they're part
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Wow.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Collective here at Jonah. Uh, and then with an intention to build a burning room where they are, because it's a little bit further than, than the direct locals. Um, and in time a collective aperto over there as well. Um, and they're not, they're, they're, they're exiting the commodity market. I. Uh, but obviously you've gotta destock. There's a time period to do that, but the plan is to just
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:you know, at the whim of the sale yards anymore and sell everything directly. And so far, everything they produce, they can sell. There's people that wants to eat their food and so it's going
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:That's an and because they're part of a collective, you know, of all of us. We all use our networks to say, Hey, these guys have a little bit more. Produce and then boom,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:you know, it's gone. So are only one
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:that I've seen of some of those transitioning by with the Degrowth intention, you know, of trying to downsize and, um, look
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:land in each other and have time to enjoy their life producing food together.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm. And it's so interesting to me that you, you know, giving us this example, you can see that it started out as. Them wanting to transform their own life, but it's turned into sort of a mission to transform the lives of other people in their community as well. Right. With, you know, that collective action through selling directly to other locals. And I bet that first taste of their own beef tasted pretty damn good.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:I was there for it. It was really good.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. That's a very special moment. Hmm. And what a tangible change to be able to make as well. Yeah. Um, so in the last episode, you, uh, you hopped on to give us a quick update about the abattoir campaign. Uh, but what else is on the horizon for Aafsa at the moment that people might like to know about?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:I mean, there's always a lot on the horizon for us. So there's, um, currently there,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:the agrarian trust project, which is, um.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:amping up. We just got a, a bit of funding so that we've got a project coordinator in place who's been volunteering to do the work for ages, um, over a year and is now like employed part-time in the role. Um, and.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:And for people who haven't heard of the Agrarian Trust before, can you give us a little nutshell of what that looks like?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Um, so,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:because access to land is, is such a foundational problem for growing our movement. We're in a country where, uh, land's so expensive and, Hard to access ag. been advocating for land sharing through feral farming on other people's land, uh, for about five or six years now. And hence like from that actually came our land sharing agreement with tampon. Um, we know that that's not enough, uh, to get more people onto land in particular. Sure, you need to be in relations together to share land, we believe, but you can't expect everyone who needs access to land to know how to get in relations. So we need a more visible. Project, um, the land, those who would share their land and those who would like to share land, um, find each other if you like. So the agrarian trust is looking at things like community land trusts, um, as a, as a model of how we put land into trust. So it's, assured to be. Farmed in prep, in, in agri ecology oriented ways, uh, forever gives secure tenure to anyone who farms on that land, be they older or retiring, uh, or landholders or new entrants to farming. So everyone gets the same kind of right to secure tenure if they enter into the agreement
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:trust land. Um, we're right now working on what the governance will look like for the model, and then also questions of funding. There's, there's already an existing agrarian trust in the us. There's a much, a great deal more philanthropy in America than there is here. And so. They have even been able to buy land with philanthropic funds here. We're not really pursuing that line immediately. We're more interested in finding existing landholders who might be willing to put their land into trust to then share with others. Um, so a
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:donation if you like. It's not, it's a sharing model.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:so yeah,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:trust is, I think it's gonna have a good year of, uh, increasing the profile, working out the governance model, and hopefully getting some properties actually put into the trust by even, maybe by the end of the
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Excellent.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:next year.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:and then the, well, our current kind of interest we're just starting on is, is a water campaign. Um. Because
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:we get a lot of inquiries from smallholder, like market gardeners about, uh, fair access to water rights. And three that
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:recently were all quite different issues. One was, um, a very small market gardener. Annie Smithers, she's been on the news talking about it. She, she, her market garden just supplies her own restaurant in Trentham. she had been extracting water from her like 23 Megaliter Dam, which is a spring fed dam.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:then somebody turned her in and she didn't know she needed a license to do that. So she went, oh dear, okay, well then I will get a license. found that she couldn't buy any allocations because the speculation on the water market is so extreme that there are no
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:there are no allocations available. so I
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Wow.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:of digging
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:And that's been,
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Sorry.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:that's been quite a high profile case, I think. Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:high
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:of people have become really invested in that, in that journey. Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:celebrity chef, right? And she's, um, and she writes beautiful books about the importance of growing food with love for, to feed people, you know, like she's, she's amazing.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:and she extracts like a
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:a year. Like, I don't know if people understand how little that is, but compared with, there are water rights that are like 3000 megaliters a year. Like it's. You know, Omega's, nothing. We have two here for tampon. Um, it's a tiny fraction of what Coca-Cola extracts from under our region to put into plastic bottles and sell back to you as deep spring water. Um, so a bit more digging. And I've worked out that from the Victorian Water Register, 30% of of Victorian water rights are held by three multinationals, actually one's, uh, uh, like multinational. Um. Agribusiness landlord. So they own a lot of the water rights up on the Murray, and then they, um, they contract that out to the farmers or they sell it to the farmers who are contracting land from them. and
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Wow.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:other two are private equity firms. And so there's a couple possibilities of what they're doing with it. They could just be sitting on it and trading it in the market. Um, or they could be selling it to farmers at a, at a, like extremely inflated prices. So they, they play the market so fast. I, so I've just been reading Sold Down the River by Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kels, and I've had a nice conversation with Scott actually about this. 'cause I'm trying to understand it better. So AFSA can. Work out how to join with people like him on a campaign around water. Um, but the
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:it's, it makes the stock exchange look well regulated and friendly. Um,
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah. Wow.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:well regulated
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:And such a, you know, and such an important resource in, in what can be such a dry country,
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:so the Murray
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:you know, and
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:the
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:crucial.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:the market, um, everything below the bomber choke, which is just near Rey Wodonga, for those who know the region, um. Down, down further, further downstream. The, um, was not as heavily irrigated when it was mostly dairy. And then there were the, there was citrus for a long time, but now it's mostly almonds. That's the, the main thing. And they're in, in our context, the way they're grown in Australia, they're really, really water hungry. But, but
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Mm-hmm.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:should be being. and used more responsibly all the way along the river instead of sold to the highest bidder who then can export all of
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:of those almonds. And they're not all exported, but like a lot of them are. Um, so we wanna make it so that small holders and indigenous communities, um, and any remote communities have like fair access to their, the water that passes under them. They should never have separated
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:yeah.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:rights. They should have stayed together.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Absolutely. And yes, some very complex but, uh, worthwhile and very meaty issues
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:super complex. That book is amazing. But for somebody who doesn't have a strong head for like markets, it's, it's a tough read.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:So anything else that AFSA is working on that you'd like to, uh, like to let people know about?
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:Well, I hear we've launched a podcast, um, which is going well. Um, um, I'm sure there are, besides the abattoirs, and you tell me, Lucy, am I forgetting anything?
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Well, the best way to find out about all of S'S campaigns and everything we're working on is to go to our website, I reckon.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:It's very well updated.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Excellent. Well, thank you so much for jumping on and, uh, and having this chat with us today, Tammy, it's been really great.
squadcaster-aeeh_1_02-19-2025_164203:to join you.
lucy-ridge--her-_1_02-19-2025_164203:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Agroecology Radio Hour. If you'd like to support a's work, please head to our website, afsa.org au, where you can become a member or follow the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance on social media. You can also sign up as a subscriber to this podcast on buy me a coffee.com and contact us via our email address australian.food dot sovereignty@gmail.com. Thanks to our producer Ivan Blackett and our guest Tammy Jonas. We'll put relevant links in the show notes if you'd like to know more about Jon I Farms and apps ongoing work, the Agrarian Trust, the Abattoir Campaign, and the Campaign for Water Rights. And of course, please share this podcast with your networks so you can help grow the food sovereignty movement in Australia and beyond. Vibe.