On the fringe? Visions for healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems in Australia

Across history, social movements have played essential roles in driving societal change. This occurs through engagement with institutional forms of governance (e.g., participation in government consultation) and a raft of other, non-institutional strategies that challenge the status quo (e.g., protest).

Healthy, equitable, and sustainable food systems are key to planetary health equity. Yet, contemporary industrial food systems, which function as central cogs in the consumptogenic system, are undermining these objectives by prioritising certain interests, such as corporate profits, over public and planetary interests.

Amy’s research combines these two elements—social movements and food systems—by exploring the existence of a social movement for planetary health equity-aligned food systems in Australia. In the first stage of this research, Amy is analysing submissions provided to the Australian Government’s development of a National Food Security Strategy to identify the interests and visions of different actors, and the policy asks they propose. Preliminary results indicate a broadly consistent vision being promoted by civil society actors, suggesting that healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems are not a “fringe” ideal.

The ‘Saving the World’ webinar series, presented by the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, releases a new episode each month, discussing the intersections between climate change, inequity and human health. The webinars focus on actions that enable transformative change away from the harmful consumptogenic system to systems that promote good health, social equity and environmental wellbeing.