Forgive me - it has been over a year since my last blog post… but in that time I have written many thousands of words for my PhD and for submissions to government inquiries for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance… if you aren’t a member of AFSA yet, what’s stopping you?
It's an (almost) overwhelmingly exciting time at Jonai Farms as we approach next steps on the micro-abattoir project, commence planning for an on-farm fromagerie, await the imminent arrival of our first grandchild, and remain immersed in and committed to radically transforming the food system from the ground up!
I’ll write a separate post soon with more detail about the abattoir plans, but for now have a look at the draft design, and you can read this Stock and Land article for a sense of where we’re up to.
The Fromagerie
Last week I enjoyed an intense five-day Fundamentals of Artisanal Cheesemaking workshop with the incomparable Ivan Larcher at The Cheese School in Castlemaine. After milking Clarabel and Wynny for the past 18 months, I'm ready to go from ill-attentive amateur home cheesemaker to serious artisanal cheesemaking with our partner in all things dairy Melanie Brown - an aspiring young goat farmer without a farm. We learned the science and theory of cheese in the depth we needed to move on to the next level, and then some! Ivan is a wealth of knowledge and passion for this craft, and Australia is lucky to have him here, largely thanks to one of Australia's strongest advocates for small-scale cheesemaking Alison Lansley. Stuart is working on the design for the fromagerie while I keep practising the cheesemaking and starting to get my head around another area of food safety regulation.
I realised during the course that soon we will have first hand experience of the production, processing, and distribution challenges and regulatory burden for nearly every aspect of food production - meat, dairy, veg, and soon grains as we increase wheat production this year to achieve a small saleable surplus above our breadmaking needs... which makes me even more committed to increasing the diversity of what we do here! Not only is this an endlessly interesting life of following our curiosity and desire for resilience and autonomy from commodity supply chains, it strengthens my capacity for food sovereignty advocacy with every new link in the chain! Viva!
Read on to see how you can get your hands on some rare & uncommonly delicious Jonai pork raised by the young agrarians just up the road to support the abattoir project, as well as some of our bountiful garlic harvest.
the young agrarians
We have one of our rare offers of some uncommonly delicious pork with a twist - these pigs have been grown by three aspiring young farmers - the young agrarians - just up the road at Mara & Ralf's beautiful property Orto with the aim of raising funds for our micro-abattoir project!
To order a pork pack, jump onto their website!
You can also order some of our beautiful purple hard-necked garlic with your pork order - all proceeds from these sales are being saved exclusively for abattoir construction expenses.
The young agrarians - Adam, Mads, and Cait - have learned so much about farming through this project. They have run the pigs in a mobile system at Orto with waste stream feed from our usual supply, increasing landscape function with carefully timed movements while teaching Mara & Ralf the skills of pig husbandry. They've learned how to set up a website and tell their story on Instagram (go follow them!), and learned that developing a community of eaters for their produce takes time, effort, and good communication skills! And they've also learned a lot about the rich and rewarding complexities of collaborating with other farmers beyond us Jonai - check out more of their story on their website.
And of course these beautiful young people have done all of this in support of our project to improve local food system resilience and autonomy from commodity supply chains by building a micro-abattoir at Jonai Farms! We are grateful for their support and activism and admire their collective chutzpah to contribute to the food sovereignty movement in many tangible ways.
So get on it! Get some beautiful Jonai/young agrarians/Orto collaborative pork to help us build a better future for everyone!
Viva la revolución!
