Today's convo is with the incredibly passionate Tammi Jonas. What the Jonas family are doing on Jonai Farms has been very well documented in print, television and radio, so we touched on this only a little to give some background before delving deep into discussing agroecology, their involvement with the Food Sovereignty Alliance, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and where things are headed in the future. The passion she has for her farm, family, and the community is undeniable and it is an exciting vision for the future of agriculture.

The Jonai (aka Tammi, Stuart, Oscar, Antigone & Atticus Jonas) tired of choosing between saving the world or savouring it, so figured out a way to do both.

In May 2011, they left their rather farm-like suburban Melbourne environs behind, took a shortcut across America to glean wisdom from a range of ethical farmers, and landed some months later on Dja Dja Wurrung country at what would become Jonai Farms, 69 acres at Eganstown, just outside the beautiful town of Daylesford, to raise happy, tasty, heritage-breed Large Black pigs on pasture.

Jonai Farms enacts food sovereignty, which asserts everyone's right to culturally appropriate, nutritious and delicious food grown in ecologically sound and ethical ways, and our right to collectively determine our own food and agriculture systems.

They are a resilient, diverse family farm that focuses on living a life in common with nature, and managing animals for optimum soil health as multiple species are rotated around the farm to grow fertility and diversity on the paddocks.

After being the first farm in Australia to crowdfund major infrastructure in 2013 to build a licensed butcher’s shop on the farm, they succeeded again in 2014 and built a licensed curing room and commercial kitchen to make farmstead cured meats and a range of charcuterie, as well as bone stocks and lard-based soap, to ultimately deliver a full nose to tail no-waste offering. ‘Waste’ from the boning room includes bones after pate and bone broth making, which are then pyrolysed into bone-char and used as fertiliser for their small commercial crop of garlic, taking them from 'paddock to plate' to 'paddock to paddock'.

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Credits: Production by 'MAV marketing' ([email protected])

Hosted by Dan Vanderhoek - Eco & Lifestyle Property Specialist (@dangympierealestate)

Guest was Tammi Jonai

Music by @DanielRaymxnd

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Mentions:

Jonai Farms

http://jonaifarms.com.au/

@jonaifarms

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA)

https://afsa.org.au/

>> click below to sign up

https://afsa.org.au/membership-account/membership-levels/

Community Supported Agriculture

https://afsa.org.au/csa/

Urgenci

https://urgenci.net/

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