Riverina Harvest Festival organisers and community partners Olivia D’Souza (Demonstration Gardens), Annika Colenso (Murrumbidgee Landcare), Jackie Price (Yield Lot 7 and Little Bush Kitchen) Eltan Mestan (ErinEarth) and Tim Dick (Pro Patria Centre). Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
The much-anticipated inaugural Riverina Harvest Festival is expected to be the largest event held at Wagga Riverside Precinct.
The two-day event aims to connect people and promote food security by celebrating locally grown produce and supporting community gardens and producers.
With less than five days to go and around 40 stalls confirmed for the event, ErinEarth garden manager and festival organiser Eltan Mestan is experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions.
“I’m excited but also a little nervous,” Eltan told Region. “My biggest and only worry is the weather, and I’m hoping it will be great on Sunday.
“If the gods are good to us with the weather, we’ll be OK. We’ve got pretty much everything locked in, with a few tweaks here and there.
“I’m also going to be emceeing a bit on both days, and I haven’t done that before, so I’m a little nervous. I can’t write scripts, so I’m going to fly by the seat of my pants, which usually works.”
Eltan said the festival’s growing recognition as it approaches has been exciting.
“We’re getting more people wanting to have stalls, and we’d love to have them at our festival, but we don’t have room for them. They didn’t hear about it until recently, so we couldn’t fit them in,” he said.
Murrumbidgee Landcare (festival partner) coordinator Annika Colenso said the upcoming harvest festival for Australia’s food bowl was long overdue.
“We would love to see it continue into the future,” Annika said.
“We will definitely be asking for feedback from attendees, including whether they think the event should be held annually, biannually, or less frequently.”
Annika welcomed the idea of expanding the festival to other major towns in the Riverina at different times of the year.
“We definitely tried to pull from Wagga and reached out around the region. It’s harder for people to travel,” she said.
“We would love to do another one and grow the community and contacts between producers and the local community.”
Festival speaker and stallholder Jackie Price from Yield Lot 7 and Little Bush Kitchen is excited to be part of the inaugural festival.
“We have so many producers, growers, and businesses, and we don’t highlight them enough,” Jackie said.
“It’s wonderful to see this come together with like-minded people.”
As a passionate advocate for local food, producers, and sustainability, Jackie is dedicated to promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-owned businesses.
Her workshop will focus on cheese-making and how to repurpose food waste.
The Riverina Harvest Festival is set to take place on 1 and 2 March.
Day one will feature a conference at Wagga Wagga City Council from 12:30 to 6:30 pm.
The networking dinner at Mates Gully will be from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Click here to buy tickets for the conference and dinner.
Day two is the free festival at Riverside Precinct from 10 am to 4 pm.
Follow the Riverina Harvest Festival on Facebook to keep up with event updates. You can also keep an eye on the Facebook event page.
To get involved in the festival, contact Eltan at [email protected] or on 0439 702 384.
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