FIFTY producers looked at Family Farming for the Future at the recent Mary Valley Country Harvest co-operative summer school in Kandanga.

The co-op supports a network of small scale fruit and vegetable growers and food producers who work together to make their businesses easier to manage, more efficient and more profitable.

Spokeswoman Elaine Bradley said the co-op co-ordinated sales and distribution of members' produce and products, organised production levels to help meet larger orders and to reduce gluts and-or shortages and also provided relevant training, support and mentoring services for members, many of whom were new to the farming business.

Mrs Bradley said local production for local consumption was an important part of the small farm movement.

Robert Pekin, a former dairy farmer and small crop grower and the founder of Food Connect, said the co-op was a social enterprise food hub focused on selling seasonal, ecologically produced food direct from the farmer.

"It is well established that people are more and more wanting to know about their food,” Mr Pekin said.

He said small scale growers were well positioned to be able to explain directly to consumers how food was grown and how any environmental impact was managed.

"Current large scale farming systems create large amounts of waste,” he said.

"The system also tends to treat the environment with little care.”

Mr Pekin said whether you were a vegan or meat eater, it all involved clearing vegetation, and that issue was not black and white.

He said under our current food production system the greatest risk had been placed back on to the farmers who grew the food as they were price takers not price makers.

"Bank interest is often higher, loans harder to get, and operating margins small,” he said. "Consumer expectations driven by supermarkets continue to keep fresh food prices low.”

Mr Pekin said farmers had to be multi-skilled in a number of different jobs, having to be mechanics, book keepers, as well as knowing all about the how, what, when and why relating to crops. He said there were solutions, and the resilience and keeping money in a local area were where small scale production could show the way.

To the question of what could be done, Mr Pekin said whatever the name - for example, slow food - locally grown and consumed food was finding an increasing niche with consumers.