SONIA GHIGGIOLI 

I've lived on farms without electricity or running water, I've washed cloth nappies by hand, milked goats (that's Nerida the goat with my almost 2 year old son, Jakob in the pic), I've backpacked around third world countries and have grown and fermented, preserved and processed my own organic food with the belief I could attain self sufficiency. The biggest challenges for me were infrastructure and community and a level of idealism with which I approached this dream initially

I have known Mike Smith, the founder of Organic Matters Foundation for a few years now and have always been intrigued by his altruistic approach to organic farming. Mike was my lecturer in the Diploma of Organic Production through the National Environment Centre in Southern NSW and apart from my lazy map submissions, he found my assessment tasks to be easy to read and submit, no questioning of my skills. It helped that I had just aced the Soil Foodweb course and was consultin