Tammi Jonas believes in a communal work environment for her small scale Eganstown heritage pig and Speckleline cattle operation, Jonai Farms and Meatsmiths.
She invites her workers to sit at her home table daily, enjoy lunch together and discuss the day's work, or whatever else may be on their mind.
It's a small part of the philosophy that underlies some of her work as president Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), a farmer-led "civil society organisation of people working together towards socially-just and ecologically-sound food and agriculture systems".
"We believe in a small scale agricultural farm future where local communities have not only access to local food but also democratic control of the food system," Ms Jonas said.
"And so food sovereignty asserts everybody's right to a nutritious and culturally determined food that's produced and distributed in ethical and ecologically sound ways and our right to participate in the food system."
Food sovereignty is defined as a system where farmers who produce, distribute, and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of its production and distribution.
Ms Jonas said it allows farmers more autonomy but barriers exist and is calling for reforms for the concept to grow locally.
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"Globally, 70 per cent of the world's food is produced by smallholders... not broadacre farms like we have here," she said.
"But [land costs] are the biggest barrier to growing this movement, not only in Australia, but all over the world."
Ms Jonas also cites a program AFSA oversees called Farming On Other People's Land, which tries to help with land sharing agreements as a pathway for agricultural careers, but also for collaboration.
She implements such practices on her own farm, sharing her land with First Nations-led local market garden enterprise Tumpinyeri Growers.
"Land prices are too high and we don't know how to solve that in the short term, except by having people share land," she said.
"That way if other people can farm, we can grow, which then actually builds your networks of farmers as well, so that they're supporting each other... with skills and knowledge and labor.
"What that also does is it collectivises farmers so that we can lobby for the reforms we need to deal with things like land prices or other legislative barriers to small scale farming."
Ms Jonas also cites other farmers like Lauren Mathers, who is the director of the Murray Plains Meat Cooperative and runs a free range pig and chicken farm in Barham, NSW.
The collective of 30 local farmers built their own micro-abattoir, which is due to be open in July, where livestock ranging from cattle to turkeys will be processed in a micro abattoir on site.
Ms Jonas is aiming for a similar facility on her farm, as she's concerned about the impacts of the closure of larger-scale abattoirs and increased concentration of abattoir ownership over the decade.
"We've been here 12 years farming, and in that time, I've seen at least half a dozen abattoirs close in Victoria," she said.
"When the Giles abattoir closed in Gippsland, a whole bunch of small scale farms had nowhere to go, and instead of hauling animals an hour, they have to go four hours to all the way for their nearest abattoir."
"For poultry, we are down to two small scale poultry abattoirs that will process for smallholders, and one of them stopped taking anyone new about four years ago.
"How can you grow small scale poultry if there's nowhere to slaughter them?"
Jonai Farms are also investigating ways to also start up local micro-abattoir on their own farm to process mainly pigs and cattle, but they have had interest from sheep and alpaca farmers as well.
The farm is currently waiting on planning approvals, and while there have been some community objections over issues like effluent from the slaughter process, the farm has responded to those concerns saying wastewater won't be pumped onto surrounding paddocks in a submission to Hepburn council.
Ms Jonas hopes to begin operations by December 2024 and asserts that she is not arguing for lower standards, but that that micro-abattoirs actually have lower risks.
Her model will be run as a non-for-profit, where she will own the facility, but the group of farmers who will use the abattoir will be involved in decision making over broader operations, like fees, slaughter scheduling and even stunning methods.
"When you're going to kill up to six cattle in a day, butcher it there, and then sell all of that meat directly, the risks in the system are much lower than in an industrial abattoir," she said.
"[Industrial] processes are 4000 pigs in a shift and they shouldn't be compared and yet, in both food safety regulation and planning legislation, they're treated the same."
