MATTHEW Evans former restaurant critic and now farmer in Tasmania includes on his web site an article he wrote years ago about the milk from Billawara Dairy in Denmark, Western Australia. Matthew’s interesting and evocative journey from chef to restaurant critic to farmer can be followed in the SBS program “Gourmet Farmer”. His philosophy of savouring and appreciating good flavours in food and the sharing and sustainability of food makes his web site a delicious read.

INTERVIEWED on the 2nd March in Bush Telegraph Richard Stirzaker explains the scientists method of growing food especially in its relation to water. Richard is also interviewed on the CSIRO about food production for future populations and appears on ABC Canberra Stateline talking about how he and his family shaped his overgrown backyard into a suburban food bowl.

CORBY Kummer, journalist and author, writes in detail in the “Atlantic” about Walmart’s’ new program called “Heritage Agriculture” This will encourage farms within a day’s drive of one of its warehouses to grow crops that now take days to arrive in trucks. In many cases the crops once flourished in the places where Walmart is encouraging their revival, but vanished because of Big Agriculture competition. Also reported in his article is the Department of Agriculture’s in USA new policy of “Know your Farmer, Know your Food”

ABC Landline News today, 19th February 2010 reported that Oils ain’t Oils, The Australian Olive Oil Industry is taking a stand against international oils masquerading as extra virgin olive oil. To find out more about the olive oil’s industry code of practice and taste testing watch Landline this Sunday 21st February.

REPORTED in the Australian Food News recently that even though more Australians are buying more equipment for their kitchens, less and less are interested in cooking. Read further.

JAMIE Oliver wins the 2010 prestigious TED prize, listen to his thought provoking acceptance speech. He uses this speech to attack the global food giants for profiting from obesity without ever investing significantly in ways to address the worlds worsening health crisis. Diet related diseases, which is a global problem, is the biggest killer in the USA. He hopes the TED community will create a movemnet to educate every child about food and inspire families to cook again. TED is a small nonprofit organisation devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

ACCORDING to a report in the Farm Weekly the promised benefits to dairy farmers, processors and consumers over ten years ago has not materialised. In Western Australia there are about 320 dairy farms that between them produce around 370 million litres of milk per year. The main existing dairy regions are situated from fifty kilometres from the coast from Waroona to Albany. There were many more dairy farms north of Perth but these have fallen with the encroachment of urban dwellings. Prior to the 1970s, the dairy industry was made up of large numbers of small family owned farms milking under 70 cows, but today the dairy industry is a large scale, intensive operation using the latest technology. Cattle are milked in large dairies, which can milk up to 800 cattle per hour.

DAN Barber of the famous Blue Hill Farm at the Stone Barns Centre for Food and Agriculture at Greenwich USA visited Eduardo Sousa at Pateria de Sousa in Extramadura in Spain to find out about Eduardo Sousa’s method of raising geese for production of foie gras, not by the traditional ‘la gavage’ but by providing them with an abundance of food, especially in the season that the geese start gorging on food in preparation for winter. Because his geese did not eat the abundance of corn their livers were an undesirable grey. But he found a wild local plant, the lupin bush, growing all around Extramadura. He gathered the seed and he planted it on his 30 acre farm. The geese love the seeds of the bush and when they eat the seeds their foie gras turns yellow. Eduardo won the prestigious Coup de Coeur for Best Foie Gras from the Paris International Food Salon in 2007. Dan Barber was named in the “Time 100″ as one of the hundred scientists and thinkers who most affect our world. Read and listen to Dan Barber’s interview on TED about his journey to Spain.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill Café showcase the farmers’ year-round activities by bringing the field to the plate.

LAST year on August 14th 2009 the ABC’s Bush Telegraph beehive started its journey in Kyneton, central Victoria. This beehive, along with three hundred other hives will be in the hands of beekeeper Steven Goldsworthy and will be placed in various locations around the Victoria. Read more about the importance of bees, the beehives journey, Australian honey and the varroa destructor mite.

MARGARET Simons in her lead article in the latest Griffith Review highlights the cold hard facts of the Australian food chain and sustaining the nations food supply. Philip Adams in a Late Night Live on 29th January talks to three of the authors from this latest Griffith Review.