Fed Up and Fighting Back. Lucy Ridge and Tammi Jonas with Rushani Epa.
Description
What happens when women walk away from broken systems and start building their own?
Lucy Ridge was a chef burned out by the misogyny, long hours and barked orders of commercial kitchens. So she walked away. Her journey didn't lead her out of food, it led her deeper in. Travelling across Australia, she discovered a world of women-led farming, foraging and food production, including Jonai Farms, right here on Dja Dja Wurrung country. Her debut book, Fed Up, charts that journey from paddock to plate.
Tammi Jonas is the farmer behind Jonai Farms. An agroecologist and president of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, she and her family farm heritage-breed pigs, cattle and garlic. Her book, Eat Like the Jonai – part recipes, part stories, part manifesto – is a food sovereignty warrior's handbook to crack the industrial food system in the most uncommonly delicious ways. Proceeds from the book helped fund her seven-year fight for a micro-abattoir on her farm, recently approved by council, offering ethical, humane slaughter and supply chain security for small farmers locked out of industrial systems.
Lucy and Tammi come together for a conversation, moderated by food journalist and Daylesford newcomer Rushani Epa, about the power of women-led farming to transform our food systems, from paddock to plate and back again.
This Town Hall Talks session is Auslan interpreted.
Lineup
Meet Lucy
Lucy Ridge is a food writer, former chef and food systems advocate living on Ngunnawal/Ngambri land in Canberra. Her debut book 'Fed Up: a chef's adventures in food, farming & feminism' was published by Monash University Publishing in March 2026.
Meet Tammi
Tammi Jonas is an agroecologist, farmer, meatsmith, and activist whose work sits at the intersection of ethical food systems, land justice, and community resilience. A former vegetarian academic, she now farms heritage-breed Large Black pigs and cattle on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in central Victoria with her family at Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths . As President of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), she advocates for everyone's right to culturally appropriate, nutritious food grown ecologically and ethically . Her farm operates on degrowth principles, diverting organic waste from landfill, using community-supported agriculture, and demonstrating a nose-to-tail, paddock-to-paddock model . Tammi is a widely published scholar, co-editor of Farming Democracy: Radically transforming the food system from the ground up (2019), and recently completed a PhD on the biodiverse and decolonial practices of agroecology-oriented farmers .
Meet Rushani
Rushani Epa (she/her) is a food and travel journalist, editor and literary agent, originally from Melbourne and now based between Daylesford and Italy. Her work focuses on global dining, identity and the cultural narratives that shape food and hospitality. She has written for publications including the Financial Times, Roadbook, Gourmet Traveller, The Guardian, VICE, Broadsheet, Good Food (The Age), and more. She is also the founder of Colournary, a multiplatform food and culture publisher centring the global majority; a food-focused literary agent with Zeitgeist Agency; and was previously the food and lifestyle commissioning editor at Hardie Grant Australia.
Books
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