Food Systems
Hayley Morris, Chair, Sustainable Table Executive Director, Morris Family Foundation
“The time is now for a new paradigm of investing, where growth is not the main indicator for success, but instead we see transformational ecological, social and cultural changes at the pace necessary to arrest the impact of climate.”
Australia’s ecosystem resilience loss covers one of the largest areas in the world. The agri-food sector is responsible for a significant portion of this degradation. But one organisation is working to change that.
A regenerative approach to farming enables the regrowth, renewal or restoration of ecosystem and relationships – including those that have been damaged or lost.
Environmental not-for-profit Sustainable Table is looking at where we are as a planet in terms of our ecological and social systems – and how we can alter our current trajectory.
When it first opened its doors in 2009, Sustainable Table aspired to raise awareness of the benefits of regenerative agriculture by helping people make the connection between the food on their plates and the state of our planet.
The team soon realised education was only part of the solution. Sustainable Table quickly shifted its focus to systemic change – helping power the key players leading the regenerative agriculture (RegenAg) movement in Australia.
“We trialed a place-based small scale funding grants program down in Victoria,” says Tanya Massy, Industry Development Manager at Sustainable Table. “And after seeing the power of small amounts of capital in the hands of people on the ground, we went national with our funding offer.”
Today, Sustainable Table is regenerating Australia’s farming, food and fibre systems from the ground up. With the help of industry partners, the organisation works across three pillars: amplifying through consumer education, enabling change through funding, and building organisational capacity.
Removing roadblocks to bring about change ↓
There are many RegenAg organisations doing fantastic work with novel solutions. But they’re working on a shoestring and struggling to survive. That’s why Sustainable Table focuses on supporting, working alongside and amplifying the people on the ground. “Often the critical barriers at the systems level are access to finance or funding, and capacity building. And so we're trying to remove those critical blockages in the system and address needs,” Tanya explains.
With a growing interest from the philanthropic and broader investment communities, the organisation is also starting to play a matchmaker role – making sure people and organisations with capacity to support initiatives know where to invest.
Powering more RegenAg initiatives ↓
Making sure all regenerative businesses can get the funding they need means looking beyond Australia’s small pool of philanthropic investments. And this requires different skills sets, helping organisations put governance frameworks in place and get investment ready. While Sustainable Table don’t have these skills internally, it collaborates with partner organisations like Sefa to fill any gaps. “Sefa has a real depth of experience in bringing appropriate finance to businesses without compromising their purpose. That's fundamental for the way that we work,” says Tanya.
“We also value Sefa’s resistance to taking a cookie cutter approach – they recognise that every business is at different stage, has different needs and different people running it. Sefa comes in prepared to tailor what they do, and work closely to adapt to the businesses.” Through Sustainable Table, Sefa has helped RegenAg organisation Kandanga Farm define its purpose and get funding ready – and we’re about to support another for-purpose enterprise, Active Vista with strengthening the organisation’s investment readiness.
A roadmap for rebuilding farming and fibre systems ↓
Sustainable Table is currently working on implementing its Regenerating Investment in Farming and Food: Roadmap. The roadmap outlines ways to change the financial system so that it puts regeneration front and centre, rather than financial returns. Part of this project is piloting a regenerative infrastructure fund that provides finance for all the different infrastructure needs across the supply chain – a critical bottleneck in the system. Sustainable Table also continues to focus on making sure capital can flow through to the work on the ground.
“Having intermediaries like Sefa is a catalyst for this,” observes Tanya. “Together we can build more investment readiness and capability, and more rigour into the pitch decks – which enables capital to flow more freely. This can also build greater relationality and trust between different stakeholders that really want to work together, but don't quite know how.” Sustainable Table and Sefa’s partnership is a great example of how collaboration can really shift the needle in social and environmental impact. It’s only by working together that can create lasting meaningful change.
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