Voice For Food | Catriona Macmillan

My Story 

​I was brought up for the first five years of my life on a Pig farm in Suffolk, and with my loving mother collecting mushrooms from the woods and in the orchards that there would be fruit and an apple loft where they used to hang the pheasant – nowadays we are looking to resurrect this type of living where people had a connection to the land.

​

Moving into an urban setting the contrast was perturbing and I eventually forgot about those early years until I began at the London School of Film, right next to Neal's Yard, a beacon for good, fresh, wholesome food. I found it shocking to discover I could work more efficiently , I felt so much better in myself and still had vitality  in the evening.

​

So I started to explore food, food quality, how it was labelled, ingredients, who owned it, how I was eating it, and began to see foods for healing but also the politics & power of food and the effect on the environment. Like today there were many ways of connecting food to ourselves and to nature from the care of animals,  macrobiotic, vegetarianism and vegan diets. However what truly connects us is artisan, traditional, wholesome unadulterated foods and to define good quality food as free from artificial chemicals, fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides…free from the ‘-cides’ of death.. 

Using what I knew – events coordination -and set up spaces to give a stage for the voices in food. To build a picture of the complexities of food and understand we are part of a food system, through the sharing of knowledge from those involved in the food system.

The building up of understanding led me to work with a number of organizations from the organic rural sector trying to connect consumers with retailers with farmers together. The active campaigns have seen these stakeholders shaping our cities and the rural countryside e.g., Bring to others the knowledge holders of good soil and destructive  industrial food systems

It became evident how important soil, its care and what we feed it, as this eventually becomes the nutritional quality of what we eat. The soil is an ecosystem in itself and destroying this through the -cides is destroying us. It is heartening to see so many involved in the RegenAg revolution, who are working to reclaim and protect our soil

As the publisher of the first annual Organic Food Directory (launched in 1998) it worked to connect producers and consumers together and promote an understanding of organics. In the age of the internet the paper based directory was no longer necessary, however the real-life connections made have endured and continue to give support to network members.

As a founder-member of the Organic Federation of Australian I also sat on the Australia Organic Standards Committee and it became evident that producers also need agri-business skills & consumers needed to trust, Australia has some of the largest acreage of  organic certified land, but it is still a challenge to produce a yield and keep the business sustainable. This is especially so for new people who are starting in food.

Aa a founding member of Sydney Food Fairness Alliance, we produced  a food declaration, the first of its kind in Australia, which was presented to  Parliament House with the emphasis on the NSW food system rather than just one product or a single issue. Whilst there has been some change, we need to keep advocating for fair and sustainable food systems.

Advocating has to be matched with practice and recently I was the project manager for FoodLab Sydney, creating networks and advocating for  food welfare, especially within immigrant communities.

Developing Ways of Seeing

Developing  the concept of True Price of Food  & the complementary concept of Eco-identity: Emotional. Economy. Ecological, Environmental, these can be used to identify the hidden costs to our welfare and financial costs to society, when we take a step back and take in the whole. Taking a balanced approach and based on passion and  stories, each ‘E’ can be woven together and to consider how they influence each other.

The Purpose of this Website

A central purpose is to highlight women in foods and to make visible their vital roles in the food system -at a fundamental level the role of women in producing nutritious food for families is not valued as an economic contribution to society, so is devalued.

The media are implicated in this invisibility as, often, women do work requiring collaboration and seek to share success, however, the media is attracted to ‘leaders’ to those who are the ‘first’ and mis-understand and under-report the community aspects of farming and of retail and of cooking in the home.

To deal with food systems we need everyone working together and a good starting point is the collectiveness that happens around women's action.

Food heroes are not only the food star celebrities, but all those less observed but are critical in opening up an awareness of food within their communities.

I feel that my experience of food is not a solitary experience, rather one shared by many and this website will work to make and enable and support the experiences of others.

I do not want to live in a world of food pyramids, I live in a holistic world of food communities based on a deep love for our family of food businesses from the soil to the stomach.  It revolves around caring for others, including generations to come and being present with our hearts. There is a place for everybody…there is a place for you in this food community.

​

Welcome!