RURAL Press journalist Matthew Cawood argues in his ‘Out here‘ column in this week’s Victorian Stock & Land that Slow Food’s Terra Madre world food commmunities’ meeting and Salone del Gusto artisan food fair in Italy last month demonstrate the economic and social value of ‘small food’. He questions if Australia can incorporate ‘alternative’ agriculture into national farm policy to encourage the development of other-than-commodity farm products. ‘The possibilities of small-scale, high-quality food and fibre production are large: greater diversification of land use, more return per hectare, more people on the land, more jobs, a broader base for agricultural produce,’ Matthew writes. It would be a mistake, he says, for agricultural policy to continue to be geared only to commodity-orientated food production.
