Food sovereignty – which means people have the right to control how their food is produced, distributed, and eaten – is closely tied to place, according to University of Tasmania media and communications professor Alana Mann.

Speaking at the Tasmanian Mushroom Festival Field Day in Triabunna on Sunday 8 June, Mann described food sovereignty as “quite uncontroversial” in Tasmania because there are local efforts and government strategies aimed at supporting resilient, community-led food systems.

One such initiative is the Food Relief to Food Resilience Action Plan 2023–2025, which aims to shift from emergency food support to longer-term solutions. The plan includes a $2 million investment in food security initiatives across the state.

Despite this progress, Tasmania struggles with food insecurity. According to Healthy Food Access Tasmania, around 30 per cent of Tasmanians experience poor access to food – which contributes to long-term health issues and rising public costs.

A recent academic paper, ‘Evolution of Food and Nutrition Policy: A Tasmanian Case Study from 1994 to 2023’, states that while policy efforts have been made, the shift toward true food sovereignty has been slow. The authors argue that more integrated and grassroots approaches are needed to make lasting change.

Mann echoed this sentiment, questioning how local producers can go hungry in a food-producing nation.

“Seventy per cent of the world’s food is still feeding local people,” she said.

“Small-scale farmers are still doing that, yet the people who are hungry are largely in those places as well. How can the farmers be the hungry ones? I’d argue that in Australia, there are a lot of food-insecure farmers as well. Many of them are women and girls.”

Mann also said G8 governments and large multinational corporations often resist the idea of food sovereignty because “it doesn’t work for them” – they prioritise global trade over local food security.

With the Food Relief to Food Resilience Action Plan set to finish in 2025, next steps will be critical. Will Tasmania double down on local control and long-term solutions – or allow global pressures to dictate what ends up on people’s plates?

From Orphan to Leader

While talking at the Tasmanian Mushroom Festival, Alana Mann told the story of a young Zimbabwean woman named Chido Govera, whose life was transformed by fungi.

“Chido was 11 when she was orphaned,” Mann said, “and she was supposed to be married off to an older man, but she ran away and managed to get some education in growing mushrooms.”

This made Govera believe that mushrooms were something that she could work with, and she went on to create her own business called Future of Hope.

“She earned her own small amount of money, and now she goes around the world showing women how they can grow mushrooms as a means of earning their own incomes, developing micro-enterprises, and basically realising their own self-empowerment,” Mann said.

“[Chido is] absolutely tremendous as an example of someone who’s found a food that we can all use in so many ways, not just materially, but socially and spiritually as well.”

This is what Mann really admires about fungi.

“What we learn from fungi is how to resist and adapt and be resilient. We learn how to build local network systems that are based on cooperation, sometimes a little bit of healthy competition, and they are the things that will sustain us in the future.”

The Tasmanian Mushroom Festival continues throughout June. For event details and bookings, visit the official website.

Callum J. Jones studied English, History, and Journalism at the University of Tasmania and lived in western Sydney from 2022 to 2024 while working as a journalist for Professional Planner, a leading online publication for financial planners. He has written for Tasmanian Times since 2018 and has also been published in a range of other outlets, including Quadrant and the BAD Western Sydney anthologies.

Tasmanian Times (TT) is a community-based news and current affairs service covering the island state of Tasmania. It exists to provide a diverse view of Tasmanian issues. TT creates and supports independent media content utilising the best of modern technologies and tried-and-true practices of public-interest journalism.

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