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Flip The Food Bowl
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Reimagining the food system in Sunraysia
Ben Mitchell’s green crop
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Harvesting bukchoy at Merbein
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Directed by Malcolm McKinnon
Produced by Melinda Hinkson
Co-created and written by Deborah Bogenhuber, Melinda Hinkson, Malcolm McKinnon
There is something perverse in our food system. Sunraysia is one of Australia’s great food bowls with the nation’s largest agricultural export income. But local residents commonly find themselves buying produce that has travelled thousands of kilometres, including food grown locally that has been exported and freighted back to sell in local supermarkets. There is a huge disconnect between agricultural communities and the availability of fresh local food. The question “Where does our food come from?” is as urgent and perplexing in rural Australia as it is in any large, distant metropolis.
Flip the food bowl investigates existing arrangements for growing and marketing fruit and vegetables. It shines a light on creative initiatives by growers and activists to flip dominant export supply chains, so that people can access fresh food grown in their neighbourhoods.
In the face of ever expanding industrial-scale agriculture, how can farmers and their communities carve out space for a local food economy? Escalating costs, volatile markets, impacts of climate change, cost of living pressures, and the reluctance of governments to regulate corporate activity create a gridlock of challenges. Many food producers are struggling to make a livelihood and are contemplating exiting their industries. The implications are far-reaching and profound. How we respond to the dilemmas circling food production now will directly impact how we can live in Australia in the future.
Flip the food bowl explores knotty challenges and surprising stories of people working against the grain, finding ways to grow, distribute and share fresh food to benefit communities and environments.
Institute for Future Cooperation in association with Reckless Eye Productions and Floodplains and Food.
Produced by Melinda Hinkson
Co-created and written by Deborah Bogenhuber, Melinda Hinkson, Malcolm McKinnon
There is something perverse in our food system. Sunraysia is one of Australia’s great food bowls with the nation’s largest agricultural export income. But local residents commonly find themselves buying produce that has travelled thousands of kilometres, including food grown locally that has been exported and freighted back to sell in local supermarkets. There is a huge disconnect between agricultural communities and the availability of fresh local food. The question “Where does our food come from?” is as urgent and perplexing in rural Australia as it is in any large, distant metropolis.
Flip the food bowl investigates existing arrangements for growing and marketing fruit and vegetables. It shines a light on creative initiatives by growers and activists to flip dominant export supply chains, so that people can access fresh food grown in their neighbourhoods.
In the face of ever expanding industrial-scale agriculture, how can farmers and their communities carve out space for a local food economy? Escalating costs, volatile markets, impacts of climate change, cost of living pressures, and the reluctance of governments to regulate corporate activity create a gridlock of challenges. Many food producers are struggling to make a livelihood and are contemplating exiting their industries. The implications are far-reaching and profound. How we respond to the dilemmas circling food production now will directly impact how we can live in Australia in the future.
Flip the food bowl explores knotty challenges and surprising stories of people working against the grain, finding ways to grow, distribute and share fresh food to benefit communities and environments.
Institute for Future Cooperation in association with Reckless Eye Productions and Floodplains and Food.
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Film Creatives
Director & WriterMalcolm McKinnon
Malcolm McKinnon is an Australian artist, filmmaker, writer and ghost-wrangler working mainly in the realms of social history and digital multi-media. His work characteristically mines under-valued residues of living memory and celebrates distinct local vernacular. Much of his work is produced with and for rural communities. Malcolm has produced films and podcasts for national television and radio, including the documentaries “Close to the Bone”, “Miner Poets”, “Seriously Singing” and “Making Dust”. He also creates films for festivals and community events and for long-term exhibition in museums across Australia. |
Producer & WriterMelinda Hinkson
Melinda Hinkson is an independent writer and social researcher with wide ranging interests in people-place relationships. As an anthropologist she has worked extensively with Warlpiri people of the Central Desert and since 2022 with farmers and fruit growers of the Millewa-Mallee region. Her books include See How We Roll: Enduring Exile Between Desert and Urban Australia (Duke University Press) and Remembering the Future: Warlpiri Life Through the Prism of Drawing (Aboriginal Studies Press). For two decades Melinda taught and researched anthropology and visual culture at the Australian National University and Deakin University. She is currently an adjunct professor with the Climate Change Adaptation Lab, La Trobe University, and lives on a farm in the Millewa. |
Community Liaison & WriterDeborah Bogenhuber
Deborah Bogenhuber has a background in ecology. She has worked in freshwater ecology and cultural science in the Murray-Darling Basin, investigating ways to better manage our land and waters. She is a co-founder of Food Next Door Co-op and Out of the Box Co-op, both community-owned organisations working to build a healthy food system in Sunraysia. Deb has worked as Sunraysia's local food activator for the past eight years, engaging extensively with community, farmers, government, restaurants and cafes and the broader local food network. |
Discussion Panel
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Stefano de Pieri
Stefano de Pieri was born in Treviso and migrated to Australia in 1974. He studied politics at University of Melbourne, worked as an advisor to various State Labor ministers in the 1980s, moved to Mildura via marriage, and established Stefano’s restaurant. A passionate advocate for rural communities and local produce, Stefano has authored several cookbooks and appeared in the celebrated series A Gondola on the Murray (2003, ABC) and Australia’s Food Bowl (2021, SBS). He was involved in establishing Arts Mildura and served on La Trobe University Council and Mildura Rural City Council. He was awarded Legend status in 2019 by The Age Good Food Guide and in 2024 he became a member of an Order of Australia. |
Shingirai Nyabonda
Shingirai Nyabonda is the voluntary Executive Officer of Food Next Door Co-op, an agribusiness banker with National Australia Bank and a regional advisor to the Victorian Multicultural Commission. Shingi’s passion is to empower migrant communities to thrive through small-scale farming enterprise and related support systems. Empowering communities means creating opportunities for people to connect and build successful futures. With a background in farming himself, Shingi’s work is all about bridging cultures and strengthening communities through farming and shared experiences. |
Rowena Smart
Rowena Smart is a second-generation dried fruit grower. She and her husband Warren tend vines on their twenty-six-acre farm at Red Cliffs. She is passionate about regenerative farming techniques, minimal use of synthetic chemicals and maintenance of healthy soil. The Smart’s farming practice produces consistently high-volume, high-quality yields, demonstrating that while agriculture continues to scale up, small scale farming remains viable. They received the Top Crop award from Sunbeam and Dried Fruits Australia’s Highest Yield award for their Sunmuscat grapes in 2023 and 2024. Rowena sits on the board of Dried Fruits Australia. In her spare time she tends a substantial vegetable garden, looks after chooks, geese, dogs and a lamb, is passionate about creating healthy food, and makes her own clothes. |
Lauren Rickards
Lauren Rickards grew up in Bendigo in a farming-focused family, ending up in Oxford doing a D.Phil. on agricultural education. She is now the Chair of Climate Change Adaptation at La Trobe University where she leads a lab exploring how to identify, understand and redress complex climate change impacts. A past author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she is a member of the ministerial Victorian Agriculture and Climate Change Council and the research council of Regen Melbourne. |