Australian Fair Food Forum

Looking for potato grower (speaker) - for YouthFoodMovement Potato event | 20 May

TRADING POST WANTED
#1

Hello all,

We from the Youth Food Movement are organizing an exciting project: the Potato Social. It’s a community festival which uses the humble spud as a vehicle to get young Melbournians to consider the food system in a more meaningful way. To do this, we are holding workshops, talks and more. One of them being ‘how to grow potatoes at home’.

Therefor we are looking for someone with expertise in growing potatoes who is keen to tell and teach the participants all about this practice.
You don’t necessarily have to be professional - enthusiasm and some experience is what we would like :slight_smile:

It will be 3 workshops of half an hour each: from 11.30 till 13.00 on Saturday 20 May.

It would be a fair trade, so in return we would like to give the speaker free publicity on the event itself, via social and/or the YFM website / open for other ideas to promote as well!

Who can help us with this? Love to hear suggestions and connections!

Many thanks already from Youth Food Movement!!!

#2

@Viv.Y and @Julian , hope the forum can help us! :slight_smile:

#3

I have an idea for a magnificant potato grower just outside Koo Wee Rup - I’ll see if he’s interested . .

1 Like
#4

Hi Kirsten,

Thanks for your help! I’m Vivien, one of the co-leaders of Youth Food Movement in Melbourne and I’m just adding a few updates here:

We have another speaker on board who will talk about the history of potatoes and how to grow them (Dr. Chris Williams from UniMelb), but we’re now interested in finding someone else who can talk more explicitly their experience as a potato grower, with an emphasis on their experience of the food system.

The general aim of the session is for the audience to understand more about the food system, and what the future might or should hold; and for our guests (young people ~18-35yo) to connect with and learn about the experience of growers, their challenges, needs, and expertise.

Basically, through their stories and Q&A, their talk will cover what the food system looks like from a potato grower’s perspective, why potato growers are important to regions and economies, and what a good/better system might look like. They may like to share their stories of what it was like to grow up on a potato farm or in a potato growing region, how issues within the food system may escalate (e.g. chip manufacturers pushing growers to financial brinks) and what thee effects are for their families, farms and their communities.

We would also love to hear their ideas about the present contributions and the future of these potato growing communities, and the consumers who depend on them.

Of course, these are just our ideas and there is plenty of space for a speaker to make this talk their own. We’re not expecting anyone to be an expert on anything other than their own experience!

Format: Interview/talk (~15mins) + Q&A (~15mins)

#5

Thanks for the extra info @Viv.Y - I haven’t heard anything back from the farmer I had in mind. Justin Walsh might have an idea, I’ll invite him . .

#6

Thanks @kirsten! We were in touch with Justin, but would still appreciate it to invite him! :slight_smile:

#7

Thank you @kirsten! As Simone said, we have been in touch with Justin. At this stage we’re after a back-up speaker in case he is unable to make it.

#8

Hey @kirsten, did you hear anything back from your potato grower? :slight_smile: Or Justin? :slight_smile:

#9

How about Adam Bremner of Wombat Forest Organics - he is young-ish for a farmer, and has a 5-year crop rotation model, with 12 different crops in between each crop of spuds. Used to do hands-on kids program at the Melbourne Show with Gary Thomas called Spud Hunters - fab interactive - best thing for kids at the show for a number of years…

1 Like
#10

Great suggestions @redbeardbakery , thanks! Gonna give him a call :smiley: