Understanding and Transforming Food Systems: Insights from Nick Rose

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Neck Rose. Welcome to the podcast. Great to be with you.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Once the bloody technology allowed me to log into my
own account.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
But anyway, we are here.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I mean we are going to talk about all things food,
and you are heavily involved in food systems, so I
thought an interesting point to start would be just tell
you our listeners about your PhD, what you studied in
and in what you do now, and just give us

(00:40):
the five foot overview of the neck Rose train.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Great. Thanks, thanks very much. And yeah, my journey, my
journey into food is a little bit different, I guess
to a lot of others. I think a lot of
people come into working in food systems having worked in
hospital working training in dietetics or public health nutrition. But
those kinds of backgrounds and entry points. For me, it

(01:10):
was a little bit different. My first career actually was
in law. I was a corporate lawyer briefly, and then
a big turning point came in making the decision to
go and live in Guatemala and Central America. I had
been living in the UK for many years. After jettisoning
my corporate law degree, my career went and lived in

(01:31):
the UK for many years the nineteen nineties and then
made the decision to go and live in Guatemala at
the beginning of the year two thousand and that was
motivated not by food but by human rights. And I
guess that's kind of like my entry point into this
is really from a principal position that access to good
food for all people at all times is really and

(01:54):
should be seen as a basic human rights, something that
all of us should be entitled to simply by virtual
of the fact that you know, we're humans and we're
alive on a planet that is full of abundance and nourishment.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So why Guatemala.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
The time in Guatemala. The time in Guatemala was very formative. Paul, Yeah,
my partner at the time and I had in London.
We'd been meeting with the coordinator of a Spanish NGO
called Las regard as their pass in the Nacionales or
Peace Brigades International. They were set up in the mid

(02:31):
nineteen eighties as wanting to put the idea of human
rights into practice in a very physical and material way,
that is to say, mobilizing volunteers you know, from Europe,
from Britain, North America, you know, Australia, the global North
essentially to go and live and work in countries in

(02:52):
the global South that we're in situations of conflict, of
internal armed conflict or civil war, and the theory the
idea that by going and living and working in those
situations you could be making a very significant difference by
somebody who was say indigenous rights activists or women's rights group,

(03:17):
somebody like that, who, because of the work they were
doing in the context of the country at that time,
put them in tremendous danger. And often those people would
be experiencing harassment, threats, you know, disappearance, all kinds of
you know, risks and dangers you know that they were
exposing themselves to. And the idea of Peace Brigades is

(03:38):
that someone like myself as an Australian would go and
live and work alongside that person and I would be
a witness an observer, and my physical presence would be
at a terrant to the bad guys from actually following
through on their threats. Interesting, So that's what they did. Yeah, Yeah,
it's really very interesting organization and a very as I say,

(04:03):
very direct and tangible way of putting the idea of
human rights into reality on the ground. So we went
to Guatemala to learn Spanish and then wanted to go
to Columbia because there was a project that peaceologates had
at Columbia, which at that time was still in civil war.
But turned out that in Guatemala there was a need

(04:23):
for that work as well. I knew very little about
the country before going there. Got a massive life education,
historical political education going there because the language school I
went to didn't want to teach students just simply about
the Spanish language, but also about the reality of the
country and the history of the country. And you know

(04:44):
why there was features such as you know, in trench
poverty and increased you know, migration upwards to Mexico and
in the United States, and all these you know, these
big things. Why were they? Why were they taking place?
So I didn't just get an education in Spanish language,
I got an education in the whole history of Central

(05:05):
America and Guatemala in particular. And at that time, in
the year two thousand, Guatemala had recently exited its thirty
six years of internal conflict, and the first part of
the piece accords that were being implemented were exhumations of
all the mass graves. Because the Guatemalan military in the

(05:26):
years nineteen seventy eight to eighty two eighty three actually
implemented a brutal counterinsurgency strategy called scorch Earth tedda.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Adrasada I remember, which led to the I spent a
better time in Guatemala, I think, Yeah, there was nineties,
and I remember reading about the history of that was
quite horandous.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Right, terrible, absolutely appalling, And so all these mass graves
were around the country, and so the first part of
the piece of cords was to exhume those mass graves
in the first instance, so that survivers could actually you know,
move forward with their greeting process and move to some
sense of closure because they'd be able to provide their

(06:07):
loved ones with a dignified burial. But you know, for
the ex military, the last thing they wanted was those
bones being dug up, because they were all evidence of
their crimes against humanity and genocide, as it was later
ruled to be. So yeah, so we actually went to Columbia.
We ended up staying Guatemala and doing you know that

(06:28):
work for a year, and then we ended up working
with human rights organizations in Guatemala, Chiapas and Southern Mexico
and Hondurists and doing several years of human rights capacity
building workshops, and that again was a privilege for me
to meet some very brave leaders of these grassroots, indigenous

(06:49):
and peasant organizations. And I went back to study then
in Guatemala, did a master's in International Community Development and
then came back to Australia with my young family at
the end of two thousand and six. And that's why
I decided to do the PhD on food sovereignty as
a global small farmer indigenous people's movement that was about

(07:14):
trying to reorient the global agricultural and food system from
one that was really about maximizing corporate profits to one
that was about you know, flourishing people and ecosystems. And
that's been that's been my journey ever since, I guess,
so those very formative years in Guatemala. The book, actually

(07:37):
it was a book that really was central in this
story for me, was called Bitter Fruit, The Untold Story
of the CIA Coup in Guatemala, which was looking at
the history back in the early nineteen fifties when Guatemala
had its brief democratic spring as it was called, and

(07:59):
the government at that time, Guatemala was actually trying to
achieve a land reform process to modernize the country in
the way that Japan and Korea had done by breaking
up big feudal landholdings and redistributing that land to the
poor indigenous majority to give them an opportunity at a
decent life and to be food secure. But in doing

(08:24):
that in Guatemala, it came smack into the power of
the United Corporation, the Banana Company. That's why they speak
about banana republics, because this corporation in Honduras and Guatemala
in the first decades of the twentieth century, had tremendous
control over the economy and the politics of those countries.

(08:44):
So unfortunately for the people of Guatemala, you know, the
idea that it could modernize and embark on a land
reform program was deemed unacceptable to the interests of the corporation.
They had links with the Eisenhower White House. They you know,
they said, you know, there's a terrible threat to the
national security of the United States going on. The Communists

(09:07):
have taken power in Guatemala. If we don't do anything,
you know, the Soviet Union will be sticking missiles down
there and threatening our national security. Therefore, you know, it's
a regime change operation. They carried out a Kude tar
in nineteen fifty four, and a few years later, you know,
the country plunged into thirty six years of war, which
you know, the trauma is continuing and will continue for decades.

(09:30):
You know, there's no functioning legal system. You know, the
rates of violence against women are off the charts. You know,
waves of migrants, you know, pouring northwards to Mexico and
the United States. You know, gangs are controlling large parts
of the city. So it's it was, Yeah, I guess
for me, it made me so angry that a country

(09:55):
was simply trying to have a chance at its own
sovereignty and independence and actually rule itself for the benefit
of its people. And it was like a candle that
was snuffed out at that moment because you know, the
powers that be and in the global Empire decided it
was you know, impermissible that they could be allowed to

(10:15):
do that. And yeah, the violence and the suffering that
was unleashed as a result is heartbreaking, And I guess, yeah,
for me, that's what I've kind of brought into my
work around food and agricultural systems that you know, we
have every opportunity in this world for everyone to you know,
to live well and to eat well, but where you know,

(10:39):
we're not being able to fulfill that potential because the
you know, the systems and the major decisions are really
being taken, you know, to benefit, in the case of
the food system, a small number of very powerful corporate
interests who've got no real concern about our health and
well being. I mean, if we turn then to Australia

(11:00):
in twenty twenty five, and I know you've talked about this,
the food that we're being fed, the food that's being
promoted and discounted and marketed to our children, is you know,
is making it's slowly you know, killing us really and
diminishing our quality of life. And it's all simply to

(11:23):
fill the coffers of these powerful corporations.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I read a start neck the other week, and I
need to dig into it just to to find out
the validity of it. But it was it was from
doctor Chris van Housen. I think that one of the
guys in there who writes all about ultra processed food.
He said that seventy five percent of calories consumed in

(11:46):
the world are created by six corporations. Like I mean,
anybody who hears that you just could not help but
to be alone that that six companies are actually responsible
for the creation of seventy five percent of calories that.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
We all eat.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
And you know these companies that they're they're the major
thing is to drive and returns to shareholders, right, so
they are always going to put profit above everything else,
and they're just but interesting. It's very interesting to hear
the whole history around the Banana Republic. I wasn't familiar

(12:30):
that was the term, that was where the term actually
came from.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
And not surprising that the corporation.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Would there use the idea of communism to get the
United States and the CIA on board. And look at
anybody who's traveled in Central South America just knows and
has read about the history knows that the CIA have
done all sorts of horrendous things throughout that region. And

(12:56):
and you know, now you have a look at the
ramifications and it's just it's it's it's crazy. But anyway,
that's a whole other podcast actually, just which just reminds
me anybody who's interested in this subject. Should actually read
a book I don't know if you've ever heard of it,
Confessions of an Economic hit Man.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
And it is a ridiculous eye opener, isn't it About
what goes.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
On behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
With these big are well with with interests, international interests,
and how basically money is used to control other nations.
And anyway, I highly recommend that people go and read
that book.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic book. John John Perkins. I mean
it's a real sort of whistleblowers tal. He was inside
the beility of the base and it's it's from his
personal experience. Actually, he described himself as an economic hit
man and if if the financial and economic leaders didn't
get the trick done, then they would call the jackals,

(14:06):
as he put it, the jackals would come in after
the economic hitman tried to do the job. But we
can get it done, and the jackals, of course being
the CIA and the you know, the local you know,
paramilitary outlets.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And it's quite interesting now, and look we will get
back onto the topic.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
But it does bring up that interesting point.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I mean, this whole I think the Chinese Belt Road
Initiative is doing similar things from a point of view
of lending big amounts of money to underdeveloped nations who
will probably end up defaulting on that, or they'll own
their ports and all of this sort of thing. It's
a kind of similar ish playbook that the Americans were

(14:50):
doing thirty forty years ago.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
But anyway, we digress. Let's get back and talk about food.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
So you came to Australia and study during night, talk
to our listeners about just give them a sense of
how the food system actually works, because I've become increasingly
concerned about a small handful of retailers here in Australia

(15:19):
selling most of our foods, and you know, two of them,
Woolworths and Cole's. So for our overseas listeners, excuse, but
there's two major supermarkets here that sell most of the food,
and then there's a few other chains that are smaller
than that, and a lot of smaller grocery stores and

(15:39):
butchers and bakers are actually being crowded out. So just
talk about what are some of the issues, the systemic
issues with that sort of a system, and also use
that to give our listeners a bit of an overview
of the overall food network. Because I don't think a

(16:01):
lot of people think about where the food comes from,
what the politics is, all of this sort of stuff.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
No, absolutely right, So I think, yeah, the subject that
you raise in that introduction is a good place to start,
because I don't think we can have a serious conversation
about the Australian food and agricultural system if we don't
talk about the supermarkets. They are far and away the
most powerful actors in the system, and in Australia we

(16:33):
say that we have a duopoly. So that's you know,
two corporations you've mentioned them, Coles and Woolworths that between
them hold somewhere around sixty seven to seventy percent of
the total grocery market in this country. That's up from
around thirty five to forty fifty years ago. So they

(16:56):
are the dominant actors and they at the prices. They
set the prices for our farmers, and they also of
course set the prices for the consumers. And with the farmers,
I've spoken to vegetable producers in different places around Melbourne

(17:18):
over the last ten years fifteen years I've been doing
this work, and some of them say that they are
getting the same prices that they got back in the
nineteen eighties, like the price they're getting for their product
has not moved yet. The costs of doing business, you know,

(17:39):
the wages, the energy, the inputs, the water, the land,
et cetera, et cetera, has obviously gone up dramatically. And
CSIRO and was this was at the end of the
nineteen nineties. I don't know that they've updated these figures,
but they were looking at the overall of Australian agriculture

(18:01):
at the end of the nineteen nineties and the figure
that always just has always stayed with me is that
Australian farmers at the end of the nineteen nineties needed
to produce four times the volume to earn in real terms,
just over half of what they had done fifty years

(18:21):
earlier in the nineteen fifties. You are kid, Yeah, So
just think about that in terms of like an insane
treadmill of production where you're just running faster and faster
in terms of production and going backwards, like you're losing money.
So how that is you know, fair, How it's sustainable,

(18:42):
how it's ethical, how it's the foundation of a decent
agricultural and food system in this country is you know,
just beggars belief. But that's and yet and yet farmers
you know, are still are still operating under those kinds
of terms. So that's that's I think a good place,
a good place to start. And then if we look

(19:03):
at consumers, you know, we've we've all heard talk in
this country and I think it's true around the world
as well about the cost of living crisis, the inflation
that we've experienced since COVID. You know, in Australia, we've
seen our housing costs go up dramatically if we're paying
the mortgage or renting with all these interest rate rises

(19:24):
as well as the inflation. So that's all been happening,
and the supermarkets have been making record profits during during
these years. So a lot of people are very unhappy
about that, and they're saying, well, why should we all
of us as you know, as way journers and mortgage
players and renters be doing it so damn tough. Well,

(19:45):
you know, over here these two are just breaking in,
you know, billion dollar profits year after year after year.
It's not it's not right. So that's actually it's a
number of inquiries that have taken place and demand for
some serious action to be taken. I don't think it's
gone anywhere near far enough. I think we've got a

(20:07):
long way to go to address the massive power and
balance that exists in the Australian food system. And the
other thing, and you've mentioned, we've touched on this briefly
already in terms of the food that you actually now
can buy in a supermarket. You know, the Georgia Institute

(20:28):
of Public Health in Sydney as documented that well over
half of it is now ultra processed or discretionary. So
people think in a suburb or a neighborhood, okay, we've
got healthy food because we've got a supermarket down the road.
But if you actually go into the supermarket and see
what the food is that's available, you know, far and

(20:48):
away the majority of it is not healthy and all that.
So much of that ultra process and unhealthy food is
what's discounted and marketed. It's always at the end of
the checkout aisle. You know, the cartons of Coca Cola,
it's always buy one, get the second one for forty
percent off, for half price. You know, it's it's there's

(21:09):
just no controls on that. You know, they've got they've
got an open, open season to market and promote and
discount these products as wherever they want to children without restraint.
And this is why we're seeing, you know, the massive
public health crisis that we are in this country. So
all these things come together in the in the supermarkets,

(21:31):
and as you also said, in terms of the you know,
the urban environment and the spatial environment, they are crowding
out high street businesses. You know, there's something called land
banking where if a new suburbs is going to be built,
they kind of go in there, they snap up the
prime sites, they keep competitors out, and they make it
very difficult for locally owned businesses to operate. And that's

(21:54):
a real problem in terms of, you know, a workably
competitive market into it's a proper choice for consumers, in
terms of fair market alternatives for producers, and in terms
of affordable access to good food. And we demonstrated this
ourselves in the twenty twenty five federal election by going
to a local green grocer. A locally owned green grocer

(22:15):
in Sunshine in Melbourne's West spent one hundred dollars mainly
on fresh produce, took that same shopping list with those
same weights of produce that we'd spent at Gasco's. The
local Green Grosser went to the local Woolworths in Sunshine
had to spend one hundred and twenty five dollars to
get the same shopping list full, and the differential on

(22:40):
some items was stark. Bananas were two and a half
times more expensive at Walworths, Roma tomatoes were four times
more expensive, Lemon grass was ten times more expensive, garlic
was three times more expensive. Like it was just it was.
It was eyewateringly stark the differences between the price. So

(23:02):
we're actually as part of our commitment as a healthy
in Sstainable Food Systems organization, a health promotion charity with
our partners, we've actually got a bit of funding to
go and replicate this research with groups of students from
Monash University and r MIT in different parts around the
northern and western suburbs of Melbourne as well as further

(23:25):
out in Victoria's West over the next few months and
we will be doing these price comparisons and having a
list of fruit and bed and doing the compar comparisons
between local Green Grosses and the supermarkets because our assumption
is that in many cases, particularly in low income neighborhoods.

(23:45):
It's the local businesses that will be cheaper. But people
don't think of it like that when they think about
food and where you get your food, Oh, you just
go to the supermarket, Like that's just the default. We're
wanting to challenge that assumption and also make the point
that these locally run businesses are essential to the fabric

(24:05):
of a diverse and connected and healthy neighborhood and suburb.
And we know, if anything, we need incentives and support
to bring more green grossers, more cultural grosses, more of
these locally owned businesses back into our neighborhoods. We've got
to start saying, look, enough of the supermarkets. They've had

(24:26):
it really good for fifty years. It's time to kind
of say, no, we don't need any more supermarkets. We
actually need more locally owned businesses and green grossers because
they are the ones that are not accountable to massive
institutional shareholders and their profit expectations like hedge funds and
so on. They actually will create local jobs for local people.

(24:46):
They'll support local farmers where they can, and they'll give
a fair price to their customers, and particularly in culturally
diverse areas, they will provide a much better range of
the types of veggs and fruit.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Not to Mancha Nick being a shipload fresher than the
stuff that you get in the supermarkets as well, right,
And I.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Just want to add it and not and not repped
in plus.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, exactly, And I want to add something to this
to just from some some.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Personal observation.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
So I did a bunch of work and it was
in New Zealand, but I think they've got a very
similar system here. And I was working with a big
food producer I won't name them. I was working with
their leadership team and they had a problem in that
they created a lot of baked goods and one of
the biggest supermarket came to them and said, we want

(25:38):
you to produce for us a dollar white loaf that
will be a supermarket own brand, right, And that dollar
white loaf that that they.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Wanted to produce.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
To produce it was going to cost them more to
make it. But they said to them, if you will
produce that that white loaf for us, that we will
brand and does the supermarket one, and we will then
give you preferred shelf space for your major products. And
if you don't, we will go to your competition and

(26:11):
we'll do the deal with the competition. So the leadership
team we're wrangling about how much money they were going
to lose on giving a supermarket their brand that they
could brand as their own and to then be able
to have their products put in the primary position, you know,
at the end of the aisles and these things that

(26:32):
eye level all of this sort of stuff. So all
the stuff that you're buying in the supermarkets that is,
and it doesn't matter what it's this country or another country,
or Worlworth's home brand or Cools home brand, they're not
making it.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
They're going in and they're screwing.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
The thumbscrews of the people who are making it and
to do deals with them so that they can get
more profits on their home brand stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Right, This is the sort of subter.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Fee use that goes on with these supermarkets. And I
think the other point next with the farmers who are.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Being increasingly screwed.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
If they don't do the deal with calls and supermarkets,
what are they going to sell their product to Because
trying to get it to the local green grocer or whatever,
or particularly if you're a diry farmer, trying to get
those those other channels that you can sell at is crazy.
And I know farmers who have just shut up shop
because they've gone this has just become far too difficult

(27:31):
and to your point, exactly exactly completely unsustainable, right.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Exactly it is, Yeah, it is. It's a it's a
food system that is driven by the short term profit
interests of these big corporations, and the consequences for us
and for our future and future generations are just not
they're not factoring into their thinking. And I guess to
just kind of go back to you to your original

(27:57):
question about, you know, the food system and the reason
to kind of like make these connections and see the
bigger picture. You know, part of the part of the
crisis in the Australian food system is with the demographic
change in farmers and the fact that so many farmers,
I think the average age of farmers in Australia now
is over sixty, many of them are over seventy, and

(28:20):
young people are not going into agriculture for the reasons
that we've been discussing, because it's seen as a mug's game.
You know, it's just really hard work with little reward,
and they're just not feeling supported and that's a problem,
that is a huge problem, and it's not just this country,
and there's been similar there's a protest in the UK
at the moment that it's the same thing. It's like,

(28:42):
where's your food if you don't have farmers. That's the point,
right The soil, the soil and the water is the
foundation of the food system. But we need labor, we
need farmers to grow the food and if we don't
have them and they're being so screwed over by the
current system, it's a disaster for us that is going

(29:04):
to come around and bite us really really quickly. So
I think the numbers of farmers under the age of
thirty five in Australia is now down to about twelve
or thirteen percent. It was about thirty percent twenty years ago.
So there's a massive generational issue in how do we

(29:27):
incentivize and encourage and enable and support the next generation
of farmers and young people into agriculture, which is and
we can, you know, if we have time, we can
touch on this in your local context in Mornington, because
they're one of the few local councils in Australia that
are really trying to do this well and tackle this
issue through their food Economy and Agrocology strategy and their

(29:49):
Producer Food Economy task Force that's working with the local
government that's actually looking at this question amongst others, and
one of the other questions that they're looking at is
the question of sustainability and caring for the land and
supporting farmers to make the transition away from highly destructive,

(30:11):
chemical intensive forms of land management and agriculture that have
devastated this country, you know, in so many places, and
so much so that Australia, after you know, invasion and
colonization in seventeen eighty eight, has the highest rate of
biodiversity loss and species extinction on the planet and the

(30:33):
principal reason for that is agriculture and the massive the
massive landing has changed that it's brought about. So, you know,
that's another dimension of the food and agricultural system that
you know, most of us, because we're so urbanized, we're
one of the most urbanized countries in the world. We
just you know, most of us don't know a farmer. Now.
We don't really spend much time going out you know,

(30:54):
we don't go out there to the you know, to
the to the countryside or you know where wheat and
the sheep and the cattle are raised. You know, if
we go on holiday, we tend to go to the coast,
or we get in a plane and go somewhere else.
We don't have a lot of connection with our own country,
so these issues we don't think about them. You know

(31:16):
that we our interaction with the food system is through
what's on the shelf at the supermarket, and that's it.
And we look at the price, and maybe we look
at the label, and maybe we think about organic, and
maybe we think about fair trade and some of these things.
But you know, these bigger issues, these structural issues and problems,
are just out of mind, out of sight. So in

(31:38):
my teaching in the Food Studies degree, I have an
assignment for my students called commodity chain analysis, which is
helping them to think critically back through the whole chain
and the food system to actually understand where the food
comes from and what the conditions of production actually are
and what all the consequences of those relationships entail. So

(32:01):
we look at coffee, for example, and the conditions of
the coffee producers in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, and
and how that you know that product gets from Honduras.
Let's say to you know, to a cafe in Brunswick
or or North Melbourne, and and who you know, who's
benefiting from that six dollars you're paying for your laste

(32:23):
or your flat white and all the you know, the complexities.
It's a it's a it's it's it's a it's a
big and important topic. But I think it's something that
we need to be discussing more because these issues affect
all of us, Like all of us eat, you know,
all of us are impacted by what's happening with our soils,

(32:44):
with our waterways, with the you know, with the with
the climate. We can't we can't pretend that this is
you know, somebody else's problem for someone else to And
if you.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Don't want to, if you don't want to be eating
lab grown food when you're when you're old, and don't
want your grandchildren to be mostly club grown food, we
need to do something about it now.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
So that's it. Well, that's it, and exactly let's pivot.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Let's pivot to talk about what we can do. So,
so two topics here, what can the individual do and
all the listeners, what can they do just from a
purchasing perspective from.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Having your own own garden? Then what can communities do?

Speaker 2 (33:29):
And then what what's the big stuff that you're doing
with obviously groups and trying to influence people. So so
pick any of those three. But I remember reading in
about lockdown. One of one of the benefits of lockdown.
I remember seeing in the UK and all these kind
of gardens popping up in the what do they call them,

(33:51):
the allotments, right, and people going and doing a lot
more gardening and allotments, and I know, I think your
organization has been involved with a couple of those different projects.
So maybe maybe talk to that and then also talk
about what we can do as consumers.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Like are there there are some.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Products that you're better off doing, and I know things
like obviously farmers' markets, going to your local fruit and vegs,
going to your local butcher those sorts of things. Maybe
we'll take that first, what an individual can do from
a purchasing perspective, and maybe growing your own Then how
can we put pressure on them, and what are local
government's doing, And then we'll maybe talk about the big

(34:32):
stuff that that's more like people like you influencing it.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Sure, Okay, So at the individual level, let's just talk
about growing some of your own food, which, according to
research from the Australia Institute, more than fifty percent of
Australians already participating in that activity in one way, shape
or form. And I think indeed it's a fair you know,
in this sport obsessination that Australia, probably the most popular

(35:04):
activity so called recreational activity is actually gardening, where a
nation of gardeners even more than we are a nation
of sports mad fanatics. So so many of us are
already doing this. And there's there's such power in that
simple act of even if it's as simple as kind

(35:25):
of like a pot of herbs on your balcony, if
you're in an apartment or townhouse too, if you get
a little bit more space, you know, having having some veggies,
you know, the skills you can learn, the satisfaction that
you can derive from, you know, that creative produce, that
that creative process is immense because it connects you with

(35:46):
the source of life. When when you're doing that, you're
actually tapping in to life itself, to the you know,
to the cycle of life. The creative process.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
And next time we've got a glimpse.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I havn't just written a sort of chapter on this
area of my book. Spending time in nature is really
good for you mentally. Gardening has been shown to be
really good for your mental health and diversifies your microbiome.
Actually working the soil diversitiphise your microbiome as well. And

(36:20):
the food that you produce in your own garden is
going to be a shit little more nutritious than the
stuff that you buyd the supermarkets.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Right, one hundred per yep. All those points fall absolutely,
and indeed the mental health one is really really important.
And during COVID, my organization sustain did a survey. We
called it the Pandemic Gardening Survey. We had it open
for one month from mid June to mid July twenty twenty.

(36:51):
We received over nine thousand responses, so that survey nine
and forty responses from all over the country, and what
people said again and again was just how important it
was at that time of heightened anxiety to be able
to participate in that very calming and reassuring activity of gardening,

(37:16):
access to green space and growing some of their own food.
And I'll just give you. We had over twenty five
thousand quotes with the survey. We wrote, had many open
field questions and it was a moment in time when
people were at home in lockdown, and this touch tapped
into a bit of a zeitgeist, I think, and people

(37:38):
really engaged with it. And so we had over twenty
thousand long form answers that we're still kind of slowly
working our way through. But his a woman age in
the twenty five to thirty four bracket, living in the
outer suburbs of Melbourne, and she said, watching things grow

(38:00):
so helping them into the world has been enormously comforting
in a year when where things feel like they've been
put on pause, the inexorable growth of our vegetables has
been a sweet and quiet lesson in motion, a sense
of things carrying on. And I think that, you know,
that was that was reflective of a sentiment of thousands

(38:23):
of respondents to this survey of the the the enormous
mental health benefits of access to gardening and food growing
at that time. But I think it's you know, it's
a it's a general, a general statement that holds very true.
So the simple act of growing some of your own

(38:44):
food I think would be a really positive and empowering
thing for people to do. I'm sure many of your
listeners already do it, but if you if you haven't
tried it, it's it's not that hard. It's just a
couple of pots and some soil and some ceilings and
care and attention and and it's it becomes a militative practice.

(39:05):
I think it's it became and it was, you know,
a daily ritual people who are answering with survey, So
that would be that would be I guess the first thing.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Sorry, I was just added to that.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Actually, the in the island of Okinawa in Japan, and
I identterviewed a professor Ken Mogi, and and you know
it's known as one of the centers for.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Longevity, and there's I think there's been.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
A bit few misrep representations about why Ken Mogi was
saying a lot of the older people there they have
an ikey guy of growing their own food. Right, that
is that that this ikey guy, that Japanese what gets
you up in the morning. And and it's when when
they have been surveyed, they say that that that gives

(39:53):
them the joy to be able to grow their own
food and to eat their own food.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
And eat it as a community.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
That's a hue huge reason why they are much longer lived.
And we have actually started doing it more, Kylie. But
I've actually started getting into it, and we're actually now
expanding out.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Of the herbs and the strawberries and those sorts of things.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
And I'm about to get a greenhearst because we have
actually felt the benefits of it, and it's it's a
mindful activity, you know, it is one of those gay
So I echo everything that that Leally said in.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
The court.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Absolutely. And I love the fact that you mentioned joy
and pleasure because that's really important as well. And I
think that's something that we've perhaps lost touch with in
Australia in you know, in our culture where everything's so
much about you know, material things and consumption and you

(40:48):
know career progress and you know financial you know all
the all the metrics, both for ourselves as individuals, but
for our society it's so instrumentalized and so you know,
reduced to you know, financial metrics that we've lost. I
think in some ways we've lost touch with the more
you know, spiritual foundational elements of life. That are really

(41:14):
what gives life meaning and purpose, and the joy of
gardening is a is a really important aspect of that.
Not just just briefly share with you another aspect of this,
another you know another quote and we're just you know
by co author Kelly Dinati and I just had this
chapter published in a book about this. The joy that

(41:40):
people derived in so many different ways from being able
to garden, not just not just growing the food, but
observing the interactions of other creatures in the garden. So
bees observing bees feeding in the garden was a particular
source of joy for some. And this person said, what
all the native bees going crazy over my pineapple sage

(42:06):
makes me happier and more content than you could believe.
I think that's just really it seems such a small thing,
but I think it's really there's so much beauty and
power in that where you can you know, by having
having that flowering plant, you're giving food to others, to
other creatures, You're you're nourishing them, that you're nourishing yourself

(42:30):
spiritually and mentally as well, simply by creating that that beauty,
those aesthetics, and then being able to go out there
and see the bees, you know, do do what they do,
and just lose yourself in that. In that moment, it's really.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
And now moment where we can have a positive contribution
to the ecosystem of the earth and try to offset
something some of our obvious destruction just by by having
to exist, you by not not intentionally, but just all
the things that we do, the things that we consume

(43:06):
are probably not negative for the ecosystem of the earth.
So if you can just balance it that little bit
and get a bonus for your mental health, a bonus
for your physical health as well, and take some money
out of the freakin' supermarkets pockets, then there's got to
be a when we're not all around.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Right one hundred percent one hundred percent pull Okay, So
from gardening then obviously, you know most of us are
going to get most of our food not from what
we grow ourselves, but from what we purchase. And I
think we've already talked about this. I mean, every purchasing
decision that you can make which doesn't involve the supermarket,

(43:41):
to optly is a good a good decision, I think.
And if you can support your local farmer, be it
at your local farmer's market or you know there are
direct there are direct ways of doing that in some
parts of the city. But even just going to a
locally owned business, a locally owned green grosser, of which
which you know there are still plenty around the city

(44:02):
if you do look for them, I think that's really
a really positive thing to do. Support your locally owned businesses,
their family run businesses. They're not being accountable to remote shareholders,
they're not driven by profit maximization. They're there the reasons
of passion. You know, they're running that business because you
know it's been in their family or it's what they're
passionate about. And if we can get behind them and

(44:23):
support them, I think those are all really you know,
good things that we can do on a daily and
weekly basis. All right, So those from individuals, then too
at the community level, you know, community gardens, if you
again to going back to growing food and participating in
those kinds of activities, if you do want to get

(44:43):
into it more seriously, you know, participating in the community
garden is a great thing to do. It's you know,
one of the other crises that we're facing is I'm
sure you know is is loneliness and social isolation that
has been a real feature in the way of our economy,
particularly in the Anglo Saxon world, has has developed in
these decades of neoliberalism. It's you know, people have become

(45:05):
adomized and isolated and lonely. And that's another reason why
mental health and stress is such a you know, such
such big, you know, big problems in society. So you
know that they've said that, you know, the so called
third spaces that we used to have, you know, decades
ago in our towns and cities have disappeared and vanished,

(45:26):
and you know, we only have kind of you know, constructed,
commodified opportunities to gather together in collectivities at you know,
commercial sport and and the like. So community gardens are
one of those third spaces where it's not it's not
about money, it's not about a commodified commercial experience, and
simply people joining together because they're you know, they're interested

(45:48):
in pursuing this activity together and there's an opportunity to
to learn and socialize in a relaxed, pleasing way. And
it's a great form of you know, light exercise. I
know that you've spoken about this, you know, the benefits
of physical activity and how important that is for you,
you know, your mental health and your bodily health. So

(46:09):
so that's a really a really good thing to do.
You know, if you've got children, if you've got families
and schools to you know, support them to to get
a garden happening at the school if they don't already
have one.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
You just took the world. You just took the words
out of my mouth.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Actually, I did some some work with a specialist school.
It was a bunch of principals and they were for
specialist schools, so you know, these are the teachers that cheesee,
they do the hard yaka. And because of the talk
that I did, one of the principals at one of
the schools and they then brought me back in to

(46:47):
show me everything, and they completely changed their canteen. They
stopped selling chips and crappy food and they said that
the students that were young it was a primary school,
this is students are almost revolting.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
But they started they got the students involved.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
With growing a lot of the food that they then
sold into the talk shop, and so the students then
were eating their own food and a lot of these
these kids had had disabilities, whether it was physical or
intellectual disabilities.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
And he said the change.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
In the students after that first bit of resistance was
just amazing.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
So I fully endorsed that.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
You know, as parents, if you know somebody a parent
on the committee, just harassed them or get on the
committee and and just harass the well being and people
in the school to say, if you don't have a garden,
let's get a garden, Let's get the kids involved in it,
Let's get them having an understanding of this.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Absolutely. And there's there's two fantastic initiatives that have taken
the next level in Victoria that if you if you
each of them happy to put you in touch with them.
One is called farm Raiser and that's a special development
school in Bellfield in West Heidelberg and that they these
are and this was the initiative of three students graduating

(48:12):
from Melbourne University's granted urban horticulture a few years ago.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
And that is bloody awesome. The stuff that's going in
those three is good. So if you're a parent, go
and harassed your shoulders are politely suggest that they might
want to do something like this.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
So what then about local government.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
What sort of local government initiatives are going on that
can be helpful here.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, that's a great question, and I just want to
say one of the reasons why I love working in
this space and doing this work is because there's so
many great things happening, Like it's such a creative, energizing space.
There's so much positivity and good people doing amazing work
for the very best of reasons. And that's that's another reason,

(48:58):
you know, to get involved in terms of local government.
They have a really important role to play in this space,
not least because they they manage land and they can
make that land available for people to do activities such
as urban farms and community gardens and where ourselves benefit
from that. In the city of Durban, we've been running

(49:21):
an urban farm on what used to be called the
Melbourne Innovation Center at Alphington. This, interestingly, was one of
Melbourne's most contaminated and polluted sites. It was an ex
landfill that was capped I think about thirty or forty
years ago, and now it's become a bit of an
urban agri food hub with a weekly farmers market with

(49:46):
two women growing oyster mushrooms and shipping containers with the
urban farm that we're running, yeah, and with a waste
business reground, a social enterprise that provides waste auditing services
to the hospitality sector and takes away coffee grounds and
donates them the community gardens. So it's a little cluster

(50:06):
of food food related activities and it's all land owned
by the City of Darrabin, so they make that space
available for all these social enterprises and organizations to do
this work and for us. Also up at Bundura Park Farm,
which is one of Melbourne's original original farms poster colonization,

(50:28):
we have had a license from Durbin Council half an
acre of land up there for the past two years
and we have used that to create a First Nations
Food Fiber and Medicine garden on one paddock and on
the adjacent paddock a more traditional European style market garden.

(50:49):
The First Nation's Food, Fiber and Market Garden has been
such a satisfying project. Through some of the philanthropic funding
we've had, we've been able to employ a yaw to
your what a woman, an artist, a musician who did
one of our rounds of paid internships. You know, she
loves doing that work, and she's now leading a group

(51:11):
of eight First Nations people in a ten week paid
internship that we're commencing next week, which will be helping
them to recover connection to country, recovery of cultural knowledge,
the plants that were grown here pre colonization, to visit
other First Nations run sites around the city, and to

(51:32):
build that sense of community and connection. And we've also
got a yarning circle and the fire pit you know
for smoking ceremonies up there at that site. So that's
all been made possible by the Yeah, it's really exciting
and fantastic, and it's been supported by the City of
Durbin in making that land available to us at a,
you know, a pretty favorable rate. So those are kinds

(51:56):
of things that local governments can do. They can also
bring community together and having the kinds of conversations you
and I have been having, creating spaces for communities to
have them with each other about these issues. So we've
been part of that process ourselves many times, going back
to twenty sixteen with Cardinia Shire Council and the creation
of the Cardinia Community Food Strategy that we helped facilitate

(52:18):
with I think it was about fifty small group talks,
kitchen table conversations, people sitting around a table having these
kinds of discussions that being documented, and all those you know,
all those inputs going into writing up the council Community
Food Strategy to the City of Banuel in twenty twenty
two to twenty three, when we supported them to engage

(52:40):
with over six hundred local residents and create the City
of Anuel's first urban food strategy. To Mornington Peninsula Shy
Council's Food Economy and agro Ecology Strategy, which has been
driven by a council by the Agribusiness Officer Sarah Saxton,
to work with local producers and help them make the
shift to sustainable and regenitive forms of food production on

(53:01):
the peninsula. So, you know, those are just a handful
of examples. We've been working with local governments ourselves for
the better part of ten years now and can see
the difference it makes when they actually understand these issues
and really work with and get behind community members to
put some you know, some cohesion and longer term vision

(53:23):
and strategies and goals around this work. So that's local now,
state government, and federal government.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Obviously presumably next sorry before before you get onto state
and federal presumably individuals like me will have more of
an impact going and talking to the local.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Government, absolutely, and federal government, Yeah, because exactly, you're right, Yeah,
because because they're much more accessible. You know, it's much
you know, they're the closest level of government to people,
to communities that you know, anyone can go along to
council meetings, you can you can seek meetings with your
men and your counselors and uh and involve yourself in

(54:05):
the process. And I guess, you know, for me, coming
back to what I said at the start in terms
of my entry point into this whole area, it's it's
it's it's also about breeding life back into our democratic culture,
because I feel that is also part of the crisis
that we're facing. We've become very cynical and jaded about

(54:26):
about politics, about about government, about how these decisions are
making are made with you know, with perfectly good reason,
because we can see that the decisions are not being
made in our interests. But you know, despair is not
the answer. And I think, you know a lot of
people would be very happy if more and more people
did just throw up their hands in despair and say, well,

(54:47):
it's all hopeless, and you know, there's nothing we can do,
because if if, if that's the aatitude that we take
and we don't do anything, then nothing will ever change,
and we'll only it will only get worse. It's only
I think by embracing the antithesis of despair, which is hope,
and saying that what happens next, both in my own
life but in broader social life, is up to us. Really,

(55:10):
we need to be the agents of change ourselves and
be active and be engaged and involving ourselves at the
local level with processes like creating food strategies is a
good place to start. So at the state level, at
the state level and federal level, we need the state
government to get engaged. We've talked about the ultra process

(55:34):
food industry, the burden of chronic disease. A big part
of the problem is that in the Victorian planning provisions,
the word health is not mentioned, the word well being
is not mentioned, the word for the phrase food security
is not mentioned. And that means that the fast food industry,
as long as it's in you know, the so called

(55:55):
activity zone of the planning visions. Local governments have no
power to stop the expansion of of those businesses, and
they can set up and have set up across the
road from daycare centers, from early learning centers, and from
schools and primary schools. So this is a political.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Question in an accident that is not an accident, right.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
No, it absolutely not exactly exactly. And look at how
they you know, you look at how they market and
promote their products. So there what audience they're targeting rights,
it's kids, it's it's young kids. This is wrong, you know,
if you know, if we're concerned about health and wellbeing

(56:44):
of our city, of our country, we cannot let this
industry which does not care about health and well being.
It cares about its bottom line, it cares about its profits,
just to have carte blanche to expand wherever and whenever
it was. But to change this we actually have to

(57:04):
get involved in the political process. So we did that.
My organization met with politicians in twenty twenty three. That
led to the establishment of two food security inquiries in
the Victorian Parliament last year, one looking at the mental
and dietary impacts of food poverty and food health in Victoria.
As well as what can be done to expand affordable

(57:26):
access to good food. And the second one was looking
at securing Victorian Victoria's food supply and the impacts of
population growth and urban sprawl on food security. So both
those committees and we gave evidence, we made submissions, we
encouraged others to get evidence. Those committees reported in November

(57:46):
last year quite ambitious recommendations. They talked about legislating the
human rights good food for all in Victoria. They talked
about Victorian food system strategy, they talked about changing the
planning provisions. As I just mentioned the whole raft of things.
It's like a really solid reform agenda for the Victorian government. Unfortunately,
the Victorian government lasts not the week before last, issued

(58:09):
its report to those recommendations, which was very underwhelming. To
be frank, they did not embrace an ambitious reform agenda.
They said, well, we're already doing these kinds of things.
We're already getting a lot of money to food bank.
You know, we're kind of we've got it covered, we don't,
you know, We'll look at some of these things maybe
later on down the line and see if we think

(58:30):
it needs to be done. So that's disappointing. I'm not saying, well,
that's you know, end of story. We're coming into an
election next to you in Victoria. This T shirt that
I've got on I Vote for Food. We have got
a campaign that we want to run where we want
candidates and sitting members to sign our pledge. There's five
elements of our Vote for Food Pledge and we can

(58:52):
share this link with the viewers later that are calling
for a healthy and fair food system that prioritizes human
and ecological health as the top priorities. And we want
our politicians to sign up to that. You know, we
think that's what they should be doing as our representatives.
So that's the campaign that we'll be running going into the.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Did you const sorry? I love that. I love that
you're getting into the action.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Did you did you and your group ever consider creating
a political party.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
It's funny you should say that because one of my
staff members, who comes from a farming family is a
Kiwi and he's going back there next year, is actually yeah, throwing, throwing,
that's the path he's going down. He's saying, you know,
you've got to you've got to get in there and
roll your sleeves up and getting the political process if
you want change, So he's he's doing that. I have

(59:46):
not gone down that path yet, but we are. We
are building. We're trying to build a mass membership. That's
that's the next phase of our work. We've got a
digital platform called the Australian Food Network where we're wanting
to bring together people all around the country who care
about these things and want to find other people who

(01:00:06):
care about them and who want to share these kinds
of stories. I've been talking about stories of inspiration and
hope and to work together. So if we can, you know,
if we can start to build some membership. We've got
about two hundred and fifty three hundred so far. If
we can get that, you know, up over a thousand
and beyond, then then yeah, quite quite possibly. I think
it's something that's definitely worth considering, definitely worth considering. But

(01:00:30):
I just wanted to finish perhaps with this discussion about
you know, bigger picture change and policy, to talk about
the federal government because obviously they're the you know, the
biggest resource they've got with us where most of the
money is. You know, they could do things like put
a super profits tax on the supermarket and invest in
urban farms and community gardens and school gardens. They could

(01:00:52):
use that money to invest in universal school meals, which
other countries have done. You know, That's that's where the
doal can really be shifted. So we have an opportunity
right now because as part of our Voat for Food campaign,
we called on the federal government to commit to a
national food security strategy, and that's what the Albanezi government
did in March. They said they were going to create

(01:01:15):
the Feeding Australia Strategy it's called. So now we're expecting
them later this month or in September to make the
first announcements about what that process is going to be
and where it's going to go forward. So we've been
meeting with the bureaucrats, the food policy team at DAFT,
the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. We have been

(01:01:38):
saying to them, this has to be a participatory process.
You cannot say, Okay, we've allocated three and a half
million the federal money to develop this strategy, We're just
going to chuck that to Price waterhouse Coopers or somebody
like that. Lock them in a room with Coles and
Wolworths in Australian Food and Grocery Council and right up.
A strategy that's all about the interest of the big

(01:01:58):
end of towns needs to be open, it needs to
be participatory, it needs to be inclusive, It needs to
prioritize our first nations, communities, and it needs to prioritize
the people who are living with food poverty and food insecurity,
because that should be the priority of a national food
security strategy. So that's what we've been saying to them,

(01:02:20):
that's what we expect them to do, and we are.
It's an open invitation to work with people around the
country to involve ourselves in this process. And we've got
some ideas approaches about how we might take that take
that forward, but that's going to be starting, you know,
quite quite solod.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Awesome, Nick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
This has been a very eye opening podcast that I
think affects everybody, whether you're an Australian listener, you're not
an Australian listener. I mean, I would imagine we could
look at many developed nations and the CM systemic issues
would be present in those nations. Look, there's teach cooms

(01:03:02):
here for individuals, but if they want to assess you
in your really important work and what sort of things
should they should they be doing this the Australian Food
Network presumably they can go and join that and we'll
put all the links into the show notes. But what
would you like those who are concerned citizens who go, actually,

(01:03:23):
I want to do something about this, even if it
is just giving my support to the people who are
actually taking the action.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
How can we help?

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Thank you? Thank you, Paul. Yeah, so I'm glad you
mentioned citizens because that is something that we're talking about here,
food citizenship, food democracy. Let's get involved. If we want
to change the food system, we have to get involved
in shaping it, and that means inhabiting our identity as citizens,
as participants in this policy that we that we call Australia.

(01:03:53):
So I would say join, join us. You can become
a member, We'll share the link. It's sixty dollars a
year and that will connect you to the Australian Food
Network platform where you'll be meeting hundreds of people around
the country who are also on this journey, who've been
working in their own communities in different ways for many,

(01:04:15):
many years. We have monthly webinars, we caught skill of
the month where people can learn and understand different aspects
of the food system and how to change it. We've
got the Vote for Food campaign that will be ongoing,
so that will also be a link, and you can
sign the pledge and add your name to support the

(01:04:40):
Vote for Food Pledge. Those would probably be the two,
I guess the two main calls to action. Consider becoming
a member of sustain and sign the Vote for Food Pledge,
Join the Australian Food Network and you know find you know,
find your fellows, your fellow companions in your local communities
and and get involved. There's so many different entry points

(01:05:03):
to this, so many different ways to be involved, and
as I said, it's such a positive and empowering space
to be in so many ways. So yeah today, you know,
seize the moments.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
And I would add into yeah, absolutely and give up
ten minutes of your time and take the extra trip
to the local green grocer and boucher sother than just
the supermarket.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Awesome, Nick, this has been great. Thank you. I tip
my hat to you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
So you're doing purposeful work and keep going, keep building
that steam up because it's important stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Thank you, Thank you very much. Paul, I'm grateful for
the opportunity and yeah, thank you, thank you for giving
me the time to share some of my story and
why I do this work. And you know it really
it's the important work. I think, as Wendelberry said, you know,
this is part of the great work that you know,
all of us are live today, are engaged in. You know,
I think all of us have to ask the question

(01:05:58):
why are we alive? Are we here?

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
And for me it is to try and make you know,
the positive change that I can with the experience and
skills and capacities and energy that I have. And and yeah,
it's been it's been an honor and a pleasure to
speak with you about it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Wow, awesome, Thanks Matte.

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