Building Resilient Food Networks: Lessons from the Victorian Food Policy Forum
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Photo by Marcelo Paternoster
Article Summary
- The ‘Feeding Australia’ strategy aims to build a long-term, resilient food system by addressing economic, climate, and geopolitical shocks that currently threaten Australia’s food security.
- Indigenous Food Sovereignty and local community enterprises are identified as essential, regenerative models that fill critical structural gaps and support place-based food solutions.
- Achieving true food system reform requires a collaborative, non-siloed approach where governments and communities act as co-creators to prioritize equity, ecology, and preventative rather than reactive strategies.
By Daniel Vlahek
Food is the bedrock of society, essential not just for sustenance but also as a vital link in our culture and economy.
Yet, for all of Australia’s celebrated agricultural prowess, increasing reports of food insecurity from local governments and civil society alike are exposing widening fractures in our system.
In response, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) took action in July 2025, launching the development of the National Food Security Strategy, branded ‘Feeding Australia’.
The goal is clear: to establish a long-term, robust framework designed to bolster the productivity, resilience, and security of our food supply.
With over 400 responses from people across the food supply chain, it outlined what all food actors have been collectively observing – that economic, climate, and geopolitical shocks are testing the structural limits of Australia’s food system.
Earlier this year, Sustain – an Australia-based health promotion and place-based network – brought together government officials, community food organisations and people with lived experience to discuss and engage with the strategy, paving the way for a healthier, fairer and more sustainable food system.
Understanding Australia’s Food Systems
Opening the Forum was Nick Rose, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sustain, who provided a snapshot of our current food system.
“Australia…is especially vulnerable, dependent…on imports for 90% of refined fuel and as much as 85% of major synthetic chemical fertilisers used in agriculture,” he said.
A food security pulse check survey by Sustain found 84% of the 679 respondents had already made changes to their food purchasing behaviour.
Alarmingly, over 4% also reported skipping meals more often.
Previous national food plans were criticised as industry-biased. However, recent parliamentary inquiries at the federal and state levels have given food actors a valuable lever for reform.
Among these recommendations is the need to adopt a systems approach that incorporates public health, environmental, and community concerns, while providing adequate resourcing to local governments and organisations at the coalface of addressing food insecurity.
Photo by Marcelo Paternoster
A Pathway to Resilient Food Systems
While a National Food Plan can provide the structure and direction for our food systems, Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) can serve as its action plan.
Current production systems are monoculture-based – efficient, but the cause of substantial environmental degradation.
Drawing on insights from two of Australia’s leading Indigenous-led agroecology enterprises, our food systems can pivot from being extractive to regenerative.
Jacob Birch, a Gamilaraay man and co-founder of Yaamarra and Yarra, showcased how native grains, adapted to local soils, can offer resilient alternatives to conventional agriculture.
Leaning into the current impacts of the fertiliser supply chain in Australia, Jacob highlights, “we’re working with millet, and that’s a very low input crop that’s adapted to our soil; you don’t have to [use] any fertiliser,” he said.
Ngarrindjeri and Narungga man Josh Williams, founder of Tumpinyeri Growers, also showed that Indigenous food enterprises can better support a climate-adapted, multi-species, high-throughput production system.
“These models are pretty low capital to build and set up,” he noted.
Although ownership and labour barriers remain substantial hurdles, Indigenous Food Sovereignty principles can be a lynchpin for the government.
That’s because Indigenous Food Sovereignty is more than just eating ‘native’ food. It’s a place-based regenerative model grounded in values of stewardship, reciprocity and ecological responsibility.
Participatory Food Systems
For food systems to flourish, local infrastructure also needs to be supported – because when shocks hit, our neighbourhoods feel them first.
Like schools and hospitals, community enterprises such as Box Divvy, Yarra Valley ECOSS and The Community Grocer play a critical role that goes beyond ‘providing food’.
They are local, decentralised hubs that build community capacity and capability.
Likewise, legislation has constrained enterprises from operating effectively, especially for Box Divvy, whose online market faces legal hurdles.
“You cannot pick up from a local residence if you are ordering online [in Victoria]’, Anton van den Berg, co-founder of Box Divvy, says.
This has hampered their ability to expand into Victoria, despite running a highly successful model in NSW.
Community groups can fill structural gaps, but a national strategy without local implementation is a wasted opportunity for lasting impact.
“This work is complex…seeking grants is wonderful to start things, but a start-up business is often a start-up for 5-10 years,” says Rebecca Lindberg from The Community Grocer, who added that there is a need for long-term vision and investment.
Photo by Marcelo Paternoster
Government as an Enabler in Food System Equity
The recent 2025 active living census has revealed that food insecurity has significantly increased, and in some cases doubled, as shown by Loddon Campaspe in central Victoria, which rose from 9.2% in 2019 to 18% in 2025.
Despite these figures, councils can support greater community capability, highlighted by Banyule City Council’s ‘Urban Food Strategy’.
“We believe urban councils have a big role to play in food production”, Banyule City councillor Alida McKern says.
Indeed, local interest in urban agriculture – driven by the pandemic, rising costs of living, and environmental concerns – has surged in recent times, with Banyule responding by implementing workshops and community events to better educate constituents.
Healthy Loddon Campaspe has expanded on these initiatives to incorporate food knowledge and cooking, such as its ‘Healthy Schools Project’.
“We’re teaching all the kids how to cook…they’re taking that back to their parents and teaching them things they weren’t taught when they were younger,” Jasmine Noske from Healthy Loddon Campaspe said.
Challenges remain, however, with the panel collectively agreeing on the need to reform the Victorian Planning Provisions (VPP) to better support food system initiatives.
“There’s a big opportunity around advocacy…around embedding health outcomes and food security into the Victorian planning provisions”, argued Rebecca Dalrymple, Food Systems Officer from the City of Greater Bendigo.
Ultimately, when governments act as enablers, conveners and co-creators with communities, can we see food networks become preventative rather than reactive.
Stewards in Self-Determined Food Systems
Moving from strategy to practice, Sustain brought together de facto stewards of food system innovation across Victoria.
Professor Anna Peeters, CEO of VicHealth, highlighted the power of having simple conversations with a diverse range of actors.
“One of the best things we can do is bring everyone together, build our collective understanding and motivation,” she said.
Whilst change is inevitable, she added, “are we going to be the architects of that change or not?”
Almari van der Merwe, Director of Impact and Innovation at Cultivating Community, noted that participation must go beyond consultation as a ‘tick-box exercise’, rather “it is through co-design and co-creation, because [communities] know what they need most.”
These sentiments were also supported by Nikki Hale & Louise Singleton from the Mornington Peninsula’s Community Plate, saying that “communities already hold many of the solutions.”
This is because collaboration just doesn’t happen overnight, it needs ‘structured time and resourcing’, carried by a ‘one logo, no ego’ approach to governance, said Hale.
When responding to a question on systemic change, Peters argued that the sector does need to shift public discourse from ‘that’s nice’ to ‘oh yeah, that’s going to work’, pairing policy reform with tangible, localised results.
What’s clear is that solutions already exist – what is required is for the government to remove barriers so that citizens and groups alike can become agents in self-determining their own food system.
Photo by Marcelo Paternoster
Community Gaps Require Community Innovation
The Panel on ‘Community Food Solutions’ underscored the many challenges highlighted in today’s forum.
But it also provided some of its best innovations.
“We imagined…a school that could feed its community,” explained James McLennan, CEO of Farm My School.
By using unutilised school land, Farm My School built a commercially viable market garden whose operations not only educate school kids but also feed the locals on the Bellarine Peninsula.
Likewise, using commercial-grade kitchens in spaces that are not consistently used has enabled ‘Alex Makes Meals’ to provide nutrient-dense meals to those in need across Melbourne.
“While we’re not serving any individuals directly…[by provisioning food to] social workers and neighbourhood houses beneath us, we’re able to improve the level of service, Alex Dekker, CEO of Alex Makes Meals, said.
Despite limited funding and support, these initiatives demonstrate ingenuity in overcoming operational gaps by leveraging complementary partnerships.
Perceptions, however, can limit meaningful, systemic change.
As Savannah Supski, Co-Founder of Just Food Collective, whose work spans advocacy, storytelling, and community power, noted: “Foodbank talked about students needing behaviour change, and the ABC talked about food waste feeding the hungry people of Melbourne…those types of ideas just continue to perpetuate the shame and stigma that goes with traditional free relief models.”
Shaping a more equitable and sustainable food system
True reform will not come from working in silos.
Rather, it’s a unified approach that integrates community, indigenous, and government efforts – moving food systems thinking from the margins to the centre of all decision-making
Doing so will place equity and ecology at the heart of our food future, lifting the stigma of traditional food relief in favour of a system that is preventative and dignified.
As Cr Alina McKern succinctly noted, “we do rely on connections and partnerships with our community because there’s no other way we could ever do this alone.”
That is a clear indication that the way forward is collaborative, comprehensive and collectively owned.
