Charles Massy

Charles Massy gained a Bachelor of Science (Zoology, Human Ecology) at ANU (1976), before going farming for 35 years, developing the prominent Merino sheep stud Severn Park. Concern at ongoing land degradation and humanity’s sustainability challenge led him to return to ANU in 2009 to undertake a PhD in Human Ecology. Charles was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his service as Chair and Director of a number of research organisations and statutory wool boards. He is the author of acclaimed Breaking the Sheep's Back (2011), and most recently, the acclaimed Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth (2019).
 

Rebecca Sullivan

Rebecca Sullivan (@grannyskills) is a food educator, regenerative farmer, Yale World Fellow, and TV presenter who has featured in ABC’s Gardening Australia as well as on Channels Nine and Ten. She has a Masters in sustainable agriculture, worked in the UK Slow Food movement and teaches natural living and cookery at River Cottage UK and The Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania.  Her writing can be found in Peppermint, ABC Organic Gardener, SA Gardener and Delicious.

Rebecca and her husband, Damien Coulthard, are co-founders of Warndo, a native food enterprise and ethical lifestyle brand which runs pop-up restaurants and workshops, and employs local Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Their first book, Warndu Mai, was awarded best cookbook in Australia at the Gourmand Awards.   In 2022, their book First Nations Food Companion: How to buy, cook, eat and grow Indigenous Australian ingredients was published. 

Fiona Weir

Fiona Weir is the owner of Buena Vista Farm, a small mixed farm in Gerringong which operates under organic principles. She has been a dairy goat farmer and cheesemaker, a pasture-raised meat chicken producer and flower farmer, and has run a cooking school on the farm for the last ten years.  Fiona and her husband Adam are dedicated to practicing sustainable agriculture on their property and encourage people to make real connections with where their food comes from.  

Buena Vista’s cooking school teaches traditional food preparation such as sourdough baking, cheesemaking and fermenting and in 2022 Hardie Grant published Fiona’s cookbook, From Scratch, based on those classes. From Scratch is a particularly cheerful collection of recipes and a simple guide to making delicious food and pantry staples. It’s a cookbook with a lot of story and heart along with handfuls of encouragement to leave industrialised packaged goods behind. 

Georgina Reid

Georgina Reid is a writer, poet and the editor of Wonderground journal. Her book, The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos and Plants  was published in 2018. She’s also a PhD candidate and sessional academic in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney. Her essays and poetry have been published in books and magazines nationally and internationally. Georgina lives amongst she-oak trees on the banks of Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River.