Category Archives: advocate

advocate, Corporate control of food, Local and regional food economies

Real Food for Real Kids

Real Food for Real Kids

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 12th January 2013

It’s no secret that this country is facing a public health crisis of truly large proportions, much of it linked to diets based on so-called ‘energy-dense, nutrient-poor’ foods – aka junk foods. Anyone who’s watched the cricket over the Xmas-New Year break – and your kids, if they were watching too – will have been subjected to an extraordinary barrage of ads promoting these foods.

And now one company, the biggest of them all, is courting controversy by shamelessly wrapping itself in the national flag, not to mention utes, ambos and kids soccer teams, in the lead-up to Australia Day.

But the biggest scandal of all is that Maccas and the rest have carte blanche to promote their products to our kids, including in the most insidious ways. Last year my 7-year old son played soccer in Sawtell, and because the team was sponsored by Maccas, all the goals carried the logos, as did the adult volunteers and umpires on their backs. Why do even such wholesome activities like junior sports on weekends have to be commercialised in this way? Simple answer: because it promotes brand recognition amongst the kids, and increases sales.

This is no laughing matter – it’s a national crisis. We have gone beyond the stage of an obesity epidemic, and moved into the sphere of a pandemic. Latest figures show that a quarter of all our children are overweight and obese, with the numbers of obese children more than tripling. If current trends are maintained, two-thirds of our children and youth will be overweight or obese by 2020.

The current generation of children already have a reduced life expectancy compared to the previous generation, and the way things are going, that gap can only widen, This is a shocking legacy to pass on to future generations.

Because the food system is globalised and these companies operate everywhere, the problem is similarly globalised. But so too is consciousness of the problems, and actions to address it.

Real Food for Real Kids
Real Food for Real Kids

Toronto parents Lulu and David Cohen-Farnell didn’t want their son Max eating processed and frozen foods at his day-care centre, so they began packing him healthy lunches. The daycare director asked Lulu if she might help with getting healthier food for the other kids, and so the company Real Food for Real Kids was born in 2004.

The Farnell’s were motivated by the health of their own child and his peers, but they also tapped into a major business opportunity. From humble beginnings in their own home, they now run a highly professional and efficiency catering company, that serves over 8,000 children in daycare centres, schools and YMCAs around Toronto. In 2012, their sales reached $C7.5 million.

Last year, grants made available through Coffs Council saw edible gardens established at several schools and daycare centres in Coffs Harbour, Sawtell and Toormina, most recently with the community and school citrus orchards in Sawtell. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an enterprising, woman, man, couple and / or team decided to take this process of connecting our kids with healthy living and eating one stage further, and followed in the footsteps of the Farnells in Toronto?

After all, there’s no shortage of wonderful fresh foods, produced right on our doorstep. All it will take are some visionary and committed individuals, and some organisations willing to take a risk and partner with them.

For more information about Real Food for Real Kids, visit www.rfrk.com

advocate, Community gardening, Self-sufficiency

Community Garden Road Trip, North from Coffs Harbour

Community garden road-trip

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 22nd December 2012

Last month, Steve McGrane, President of the Coffs Harbour Regional Community Gardens Association, and a team of fellow gardeners headed north for a few days’ exploration.

They were on a mission, to visit half a dozen community gardens between here and Brisbane, in order to see what others were doing, learn from their experiences, and lay down a vision and goals for the Coffs garden at Combine St over the next few years.

The trip exceeded all expectations. “It was amazing to visit so many community gardens in such a short space of time. There were such big contrasts”, said Matt Downie, co-cordinator of the Combine St garden.

Among the lasting impressions the team took home, the presence of garden art, such as murals, sculptures, ceramic displays and decorative signage, was especially striking. Clear notice boards introducing the garden and its key people, as well as tasks, projects and how to get involved, are also now on the Coffs ‘to-do’ list.

Ceramic artwork Northey St
Ceramic artwork Northey St

Even though most of the gardens were thriving sites of diverse food production, the team felt that it was the social aspects that were most important. Community gardens are all about building community, and activities like ‘swap meets’, where gardeners exchange surplus produce, is just one way in which this happens. They are also multi-functional sites with a strong educational focus, places where gardeners and visitors alike can get to know where their food comes from, and rediscover their connection to it.

The team visited gardens in Lismore, Nimbin, Tuntable Falls, Mullumbimby, Northey St City Farm in Brisbane, the Seed Savers’ Network in Byron Bay (run by Michel and Jude Fenton), and Yamba. They also briefly stopped by the combined market and community garden run by Gold Coast Permaculture in Ferry Rd, Southport.

Yamba Community Garden

The gardens varied in longevity, with Northey St, now in its 20th year, the oldest. So one of its most attractive features, which makes it a great place to spend time, are the well-established fruit trees, such as large mangoes, that provide excellent shade areas, for meeting and socialising.

Most of the gardens were considerably younger. The garden in Lismore, like Coffs, had been set up in the last couple of years, while Nimbin’s garden, located in a church on the main street, had been going for about 10 years.

But, according to the team, Nimbin’s garden appeared to be on its last legs. The garden looked dilapidated and un-cared for. Through talking to some locals, the team discovered the reason for the decline: political in-fighting. Things had gotten so bad that a virtual state of civil war had broken out, with one group actively sabotaging the garden projects and efforts of the other.

There was a very clear lesson here for the Coffs garden – and any community garden, for that matter: the need to maintain open channels of communication at all times, allow complaints to be aired and dealt with, and have good procedures for mediating conflict.

While in Nimbin, the team learnt of the community garden in the nearby intentional community of Tuntable Falls, which was not on their original itinerary. But it was a moment of serendipity. Not only was the Tuntable Falls garden a beautiful contrast to Nimbin, with abundant art and creative design; it was the passionate and strong community that had built it, as well as a food co-op and a huge common hall, that most impressed the team.

 

Mullumbimby Community Garden

The Mullumbimby garden also stood out, for its wonderful art, excellent signage and paths, and strong volunteer core, self-organised in 20 different ‘pods’. As well as smaller plots, the Mullum garden had larger spaces, up to 400m2, which were being leased on a semi-commercial basis, as a market garden.

Mullumbimby Community Garden Mural
Mullumbimby Community Garden Mural

 

All the gardens, the team noted, had started with some form of public grants. The most successful ones had built a strong and collaborative relationship with their local councils, and had also developed ways of becoming more self-sustaining financially. Northey St, for example, had a consultancy and design service, available to local schools and private householders; and they also ran permaculture design certificate courses several times a year. It also had a large and successful nursery.

Northey St signage
Northey St signage

 

As the Coffs team plan their priorities for 2013 and beyond, this trip has provided fertile material for inspiration.

To find about more information about the the Coffs Community garden and to join, visit http://www.coffscommunitygardens.org.au/.

advocate, Uncategorized

Communal gardening in aged-care homes

Project Eden spreads its wings

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 8th December, 2012

“I love to see things grow, and to eat what grows. We’ve eaten radishes and lettuces, that’s all we’ve got so far. But we’ve planted beetroots, shallots, garlic, lots of herbs, and lots of tomatoes – they’re beautiful.”

These are the words of Joan, a resident at St Joseph’s Aged Care residential facility, operated by Catholic Healthcare Limited, in Azalea Avenue, Coffs Harbour. Joan is one of a dozen residents participating in a new initiative, launched in September this year, to establish a raised vegie garden in one of the facility’s interior courtyards. It’s a collaboration between the staff and management of St Joseph’s, and local permaculturalist Steve McGrane, who is also the President of the Coffs Community Garden at Combine St.

Joan and a fellow gardener
Joan and a fellow gardener

“[All the members of the gardening group] had vegie gardens in our own homes. I’ve grown vegies since I was about 10, and I’m nearly 80 now. I loved growing cabbages, I always had a good crop of them”, Joan told me.

Once a week for the past 10 weeks, Steve has spent a couple of hours with the gardening group, working with them using his special layered method of raised bed edible garden design, planting the garden with 20 different species, discussing the techniques and practice of companion planting and pest control, making compost teas, and trialling seed germination and seed saving.

The project is very multifunctional. It’s highly educational, with Steve sharing his deep and growing knowledge of organic gardening principles and techniques with the group. When I visited, for example, he was putting together a compost mix, including some active compost and many worms. I learned that compost worms, once put in the soil, ‘can travel up to a kilometre or two each night. So if you don’t have compost, and your neighbour does, they’ll do and find it”, said Steve. And the big garden worms, he told us, can live for up to an amazing five years.

The St Joseph's garden group
The St Joseph’s garden group

They’re having a few minor issues with cabbage moths at St Joseph’s, which they’re treating with a homemade garlic and chilli spray. But the main method of pest control is Joan herself.

“Joan has been exceptionally vigilant in seeing what pests are around and taking them off. It goes back to the older processes – more observation”, said Steve.  “With Joan doing individual removal of pests here, that’s the perfect solution. It’s always important to have a good custodian of a garden, especially one like this”, he added.

The main pests, says Joan, are slugs. And how does she deal with them? Simple. “Drop them on the ground and stomp on them!”

After 10 weeks of intensive love and care, and Steve’s specially activated raised bed mix, the garden is thriving, and residents – both gardeners and non-gardeners – are enjoying its fruits.

“The residents and picking and eating the vegies”, said Meredith David, Leisure and Health Manager. “There’s no problem with them doing that, it’s out of our jurisdiction. To use the produce in the kitchen  – which we are doing as well – all of it has to be sterilised first.”

And the garden has brought wider benefits to St Joseph’s, in addition to the direct enjoyment and educational aspects of the gardening group, and the satisfaction of those nibbling on the lettuce leaves, tomatoes and basil.

“It’s been a very positive addition to our facility”, said Meredith. “It’s a real point of interest – even if someone isn’t actually a gardener, they can see that it’s happening, and they’re taking an interest in it.”

“We’ve got one person who used to sit out in the carpark to sun himself. Now he much rather sits in that courtyard, because he loves gardens. He can’t do gardening anymore, but he gets the benefits of enjoying this garden. It gives him a lot of pleasure”, Meredith said.

“It’s been great for the morale of the residents”, added Elaine, who has also been inspired to build her own no-dig vegie garden after being so impressed with what’s happened at St Joseph’s.

If permissions and funding are available, there are plans to expand the project next year, involving residents from the dementia wing and elsewhere in the facility. The first step will be a rockmelon rack, and there is talk of citrus tree plantings and some berries.

Steve sees this as a model that can be embraced by other aged care facilities and similar institutions. “It will only work provided the benefits can be realised, and the organisation supports it”, he said.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Community gardening, Fruit growing, Land sharing, Permablitzes, Resilience, Self-sufficiency

Community-run edible streetscapes

Community Spirit alive and well in Sawtell

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 24th November, 2012

A quiet revolution is underway in Coffs Harbour and its nearby towns.

Supported by small grants from Coffs Council, first under the Local Food Futures Project and now via the ‘Our Living Coast’ Regional Sustainability Program, several primary schools and child care centres have established productive gardens for their children over the past year.

These intiatives build on longer-established school veggie gardens, such as those at Toormina Primary School and Casuarina Steiner School.

And now school veggie gardens are becoming edible streetscapes, with the planting of around 30 ctirus trees in two locations in Sawtell. First, on Friday 16th November, kindergarted and class 5 students from Sawtell Public School planted trees on the school’s boundary. Then, on Sunday 18th November, over 30 local residents of all ages worked for an hour and a half to plant lemonades, oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, cumquats, grapefruits and blood oranges on the road verge off 18th Avenue, adjacent to the Richardson’s Park sporting oval. Thus was born the very first ‘Sawtell Community Citrus Grove’.

The Sawtell Citrus Orchard team!
The Sawtell Citrus Orchard team!

Both these initiatives were spearheaded by the Sawtell Healthy Homes community group, with the organising energy provided by Peter and Erika van Schellebeck. Advice on species selection and soil preparation came from Juliet Thomas, of the Coffs Harbour Regional Community Garden. Over the past year Juliet has worked with the school principal, Michael Cheers, as well as staff, students and parents, to set up a beautiful fruit and veggie garden inside the school.

 

 

Erika highlighted the social and community-building aspects of the citrus tree plantings. “The project has been a great opportunity for us to get to know our neighbours, and I hope that the grove will become a community space where neighbours meet and walkers and cyclists stop for a rest and some shade”, said Erika. “This pathway is very popular, and so we designed a pathway through the grove to encourage people to move through it and enjoy the space. We also designed a small circular space in the middle that hopefully will one day have a seat and table to encourage neighbours to meet up in the space – maybe for Friday night drinks.”

 

Sawtell Public School kids planting citrus trees
Sawtell Public School kids planting citrus trees

Planting and caring for fruit trees also brings clear health and educational benefits for children. “I hope that the nature strip planting at the school will build on all the work the school is already doing to educate the students about healthy eating, and growing fresh fruit and vegies”, said Erika. This is part of raising levels of food literacy amongst children – an understanding where food comes from, how it’s grown (and raised), what healthy eating involves, and the importance of composting food scraps, so that soil fertility can be maintained and enhanced.

Erika hopes that these initiatives in Sawtell will help inspire other groups of residents in other parts of Coffs Harbour and its surrounds to also get behind the push to make this region ‘edible’ – and for the Council to support them with small grants and making the paperwork easy.

“The grove already looks great – it has turned an unloved and unused piece of swampy land into a space for the whole community to enjoy, and, in a few years, to enjoy a wide variety of free citrus. I hope that the grove and school nature strip planting will encourage Council to consider the merits of growing food in public spaces.”

This work in Sawtell builds on the Bellingen Edible Streetsacpes project begun in 2011, as a collaboration of Northbank Rd Community Garden, the Bellingen Chamber of Commerce, Transition Bellingen, and with funding from the Local Food Futures Project. Bellingen Council has also embraced the spirit, with a raised veggie garden at the entrance to Council Chambers.

Further afield, the trail has been well and truly blazed by Yorkshire café owner Pam Warhurst and her army of volunteers in the market town of Todmorden, with the Incredible Edible Todmorden project.  In Pam’s words, “I wondered if it was possible to take a town like Todmorden and focus on local food to re-engage people with the planet we live on, create the sort of shifts in behaviour we need to live within the resources we have, stop us thinking like disempowered victims and to start taking responsibility for our own futures.”

Amazing things have been achieved in Todmorden, and they’re just getting started. Makes you wonder what’s possible for Coffs Harbour, with our climate, water and soils.

For more info on Incredible Edible Todmorden, search for Pam Warhurst’s TED talk on www.ted.com.

advocate, Alternatives, Co-operatives, Democratic food systems, Growth paradigm

Prospects for co-ops in Australia

The Co-operative Revolution – can it happen in Australia?

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 24th November, 2012

The National Co-operatives conference, held in Port Macquarie at the end of October, had two goals: to celebrate the successes of co-operatives in Australia, and internationally; and to identify opportunities for the sector to strengthen and expand.

A centrepiece of the conference was the release of new research mapping the extent of the co-operative sector in Australia by the Australia Institute. This research revealed that while most Australians (79%) are members of at least one co-operative or mutual financial institution – are you a member of the NRMA, for example? –  a small minority (16%) were aware of that fact. The report’s authors suggested that this low level of awareness of co-operatives – amongst both their own members, and the public generally – could be due to the fact that, unlike corporations, co-operatives spend relatively little on advertising and promoting themselves.

The take-out message was one of opportunity for the sector. Because co-operatives don’t have large advertising budgets, they deliver good value for money to their members; the report stated that an average mortgage with a building society or credit union, for example, costs around $75,000 less over the life of the loan than if it was taken out with a commercial bank. The challenge, it seems, lies mainly in better communicating the benefits of belonging to a co-operative.

From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference
From the Port Macquarie Co-op conference

Yet more is at stake than just brushing up marketing strategies. In my previous column I described the extraordinary revival of the co-operative movement in the UK, and how this had been built on a long process of internal reflection and a return to the basic core values of the movement.

This process of critical self-reflection is desperately needed in the co-operative movement in Australia. In his 2006 book, The Democracy Principle,  co-operative historian Gary Lewis (who was not present at Port Macquarie, unfortunately), delivered a scathing assessment of the many and continual failures of agricultural co-operatives to build a strong, cohesive, visionary and above all principled co-operative movement in this country.

While Lewis identified a strong confluence of external factors – geographical distance, parochialism and states rights, epochal shifts in global trade, ideological opponents, and a lack of supportive political leadership at the federal level, amongst others – it was the factors internal to individual co-operatives, and the movement as a whole, that have probably done most to stifle its potential. These internal factors include:

  • A marked preference for competition over co-operation – a failure of co-operatives to co-operate with each other
  • A first allegiance to commercial industries, and industry associations, rather than to the co-operative movement
  • A failure to invest in co-operative research and development, and co-operative extension services
  • A failure to invest in co-operative education, and thus a failure to capture the imagination of younger generations
  • A failure to invest in building umbrella institutions, and effective policy advocacy at the federal government level
  • The inability to establish a co-operative bank to finance co-operative ventures – a sine qua non of a vibrant ‘self-help’ movement

Cumulatively and collectively, these failures reflected ‘a triumph of the pragmatists over the idealists’, as well as the pursuit of ‘market share, competitiveness and growth for growth’s sake’, thus resulting in a ‘degrading of co-operative consciousness’ and ultimately a ‘short-sighted and stingy movement’.

In Port Macquarie, the process of critical reflection was beginning, albeit slowly. There was clear recognition of the need for a national council to advocate for the sector’s needs, and a commitment to bring this into existence was the conference’s most concrete outcome.

Achieving such an outcome will be testament to the extent to which the sector can truly ‘co-operate’. But the most exciting proposals came out of the the Youth Summit , where 30 delegates spent 2.5 hours engaged in asset mapping, brainstorming and dotmocracy to agree on a series of strategic initiatives to raise awareness of co-operatives amongst young people, and begin building a co-operative consciousness and sense of a movement. The brainstormed initiatives include a national road-trip, a youth festival, and getting co-operatives on the curricula of university business courses.

Co-operatives have a strong story to tell: Norco’s recent announcement of its $5.7 million profit for 2012, in difficult market conditions, is just one success among many. But the potential of the movement to be a powerful force for decent employment and strong economic development, in turbulent economic times, is yet to be realised in this country.

advocate, Co-operatives, Uncategorized

The ‘flight to trust’

Co-operatives on the march

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 27th October

2012 has been the International Year of Co-operatives, the first time that the United Nations has designated a year especially for this sector. According to Dame Pauline Green, President of the Internationa Co-operative Alliance, this decision was made in recognition of the ‘relevance of co-operatives as a sustainable and recession-resistant [business] model in times of continued international economic turbulence.’

So 2012 has been the year for ‘co-operatives to shine’, and that was the theme of the inaugural National Conference of Australian co-operatives, which took place this week in Port Macquarie’s Glasshouse centre. Over 300 delegates, representing co-operatives of all shapes and sizes from around Australia, some over 100 years old, some newly forming, participates in two days of talks and business clinics, celebrating the successes of co-operatives and the challenges ahead. I was lucky enough to be among them.

The co-operative story is indeed an impressive one. As it’s usually told, the story dates from 1844, when the famous ‘Rochdale pioneers’ agreed to work together, on a set of core principles and for their own mutual benefit, with the goal of providing unadulterated and fairly-priced food to their communities.

The co-operative revolution
The co-operative revolution

However, as Dr Chris Cooper, of the Co-operative College in the UK told us (quoting historian AM Carr-Saunders), ‘the co-operative ideal is as old as human society’. It is, rather, ‘the idea of conflict and competition as a principle of economic progress that is new’, with the foundational co-operative principles being ‘forgotten in the turmoil and disintegration of rapid economic change’.

Those words were written in 1938, but they are hardly less relevant today. In his closing address Professor Bob Morgan, Executive Director of Tranby Aboriginal College, observed that ‘we live in a society where common good and decency has been replaced by common greed and indecency.’ Professor Morgan reminded us that many of the core co-operative principles and values – self-help, self responsibility, equity, respect, concern for community, education and training, autonomy and independence, solidarity (co-operation among co-operatives)  – had been practiced by Aboriginal nations for tens of thousands of years, prior to the European colonisation of Australia.

The last forty years have not been easy for the co-operative sector, but there was a palpable sense at the conference that we may be on the cusp of a revival and renewal of co-ops in Australia. If the experience in the UK over the last few years is anything to go by, we can expect dramatic results.

Dr Cooper documented what he termed a ‘flight to trust’ that had taken place in the wake of two key events: the GFC (which started in the UK in 2006-7), and a sophisticated re-branding and re-launching of the Co-operative group of affiliated businesses (banking, retail, housing, manufacturing, travel, legal services, agriculture, funerals, schools and child care centres) in 2005. This re-launch followed an extended period of reflection in which the movement achieved real internal clarity about its own identity and its core message.

The Co-operative group alone now has 6 million members and 6000 retail outlets across the UK. The sector as a whole has 10.5 million members, a phenomenal increase on the 3.5 million members it had in 2007 ; and has set itself the ambitious target of reaching 20 million members by 2020. Its turnover rose by 20% in 2011 alone. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, and of the pattern in Australia in recent decades, the movement is growing via the acquisition of non-co-operative, or de-mutualised, businesses.

For example, the Co-operative Bank, which had 109 branches in 2009, now has nearly 1100. Two-thirds of the new branches are formerly de-mutualised branches that belonged to Lloyd’s Bank. In the 10 months since January this year, the Co-op Bank has 61% more personal accounts, and 21% more business accounts.

In a very important lesson for Australian co-operatives, Dr Cooper said that what has driven this extraordinary business success is the return to core values and principles, and their effective communication amongst members and the wider public. The co-op movement in the UK is aiming at nothing less than ‘transforming the economic system’, because ‘it’s a very old idea whose time has come once more.’

Next time I’ll look at some new research mapping the sector in Australia, the challenges it faces, and the opportunities before it.

advocate, Coffs Coast, Community gardening, Resilience, Self-sufficiency, Uncategorized

Garden of Eden at Coffs Jetty

Garden of Eden – Garden by the Sea

A version of this article was first published in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday 13th October, 2012

For the past 21 years, Wayne Kirkland and Mary-Ann Crowther have been living with as low an environmental footprint as it’s possible to have – on a yacht, travelling up and down the east coast of Australia.

For the last few years they’ve been coming back to Coffs, and now they’ve so fallen in love with the place, that they’ve taken over the lease for the Galley café and burger bar at Coffs Harbour jetty.

Wayne and Mary-Ann are passionate about sustainability and treading lightly on the earth, but it’s not about preaching to people. As Wayne told me, ‘I live by the philosophy of just show people how to do it’.

And now, with the help of Steve McGrane, Matt Downie and some willing volunteers from the Combine St community garden, Wayne and Mary-Ann are showing their customers, and the people who work, live near and visit the Jetty, just how amazingly productive a 6m2 veggie garden can be.

Steve McGrane (left) and Wayne Kirkland

 

This wasn’t a case of turning the first sod. Rather, it involved clearing out some pretty massive rocks, on the café side of the breakwater. Underneath was some gravel and fairly barren soil, laced with salt spray.

But Wayne wasn’t deterred, because he knew Steve had a very cunning plan. After years of research and trial and error in his own gardens, Steve has developed a special no-dig garden, layered lasagne-like with ’17 secret herbs and spices’, as he likes to say.

Actually, they’re not so secret. They include lucerne; sugar cane mulch; blood and bone; bags of comfrey, tansy and other leaves;  various manures; molasses (‘very important for the microbial action’); wood chip; and mineral rocks (calcium and phosphate). With the exception of the lucerne, everything’s organic.

The Garden by the Sea – early stages

The results are truly impressive. The garden is barely six weeks old, and Wayne and Mary-Ann have been eating out of it for three weeks. As Steve explains, the porosity of the mix, and the rapid action of the microbes in breaking everything down and making the nutrients available, allows the roots to grow very fast, producing very rapid growth above the ground. More than that,  the nutrients ‘aren’t leached out of the system, because the microbes hold them in suspension’.

The end result is both a super-healthy and productive garden right now; and even better, it ‘will be more fertile at the end of this growing season that it was at the beginning.’ That’s something, because what’s already growing is impressive enough: rows of broccoli, beetroot, kolrabi, lebanese cress, leeks, onions, chillies, tomatoes, a pumpkin vine, two varieties of sweet potato, several types of basil, parsley, lettuce, chinese greens, choko, taro, kumara, and flowers for companions.

The Garden - up close and personal!
The Garden – up close and personal!

The food tastes sensational, and because it’s so rich in minerals, it is very nutrient-dense.

In the next phase, Wayne will put in native wildflowers and grasses, ‘to attract the birds and bees’. He’s already got a resident blue tongue.

As for the salt, everyone told Wayne he could never have a veggie garden by the sea. He’s proved the doubters wrong, through ‘a bit of love and care, and keeping the salt spray off it – I just come and gently hose the plants down when there’s been a bit of spray, and that keeps them fresh.’

Wayne and Mary-Ann are delighted with the garden, and so are their customers. ‘People love it, they sit here and look at the plants, and talk about it.’ Some people have even anonymously put in plants after closing time: Wayne has arrived in the morning to find chillies and tomatoes that weren’t there before. And in the few short weeks of its existence, it’s already creating a web of relationships, so that it can truly be regarded as a ‘community garden’ in its own right.

One of the most satisfying things for Wayne is that he can now send all the green waste from the café to the community garden, where Matt has established an extra worm farm to cope with it all. In return, Matt takes plants to the ‘garden by the sea’, and Wayne now gives him extra seedlings. Community garden volunteers will help out with extensions to the café garden. And Wayne is even getting donations of plants from other yacht owners; and encouraging people to pick parsley.

For Wayne and Steve, this garden is about living their vision: ‘We both have the philosophy that we should be planting every square inch that’s available. Food is essential to life, and if people got more involved in the backyard garden…That’s what stitched communities together, a generation ago. But today, you buy everything from the supermarket. A lot of young people don’t know what fresh food is, they’ve never seen it”, says Wayne.

“This is trying to show people that fast food doesn’t come from MacDonalds. This is fast food. I can take this out of the garden and put it on your plate in five minutes. That was the essence of the project, to shift people’s understanding, and thinking, of what you can do with a garden.”

If the last few weeks are anything to go by, Wayne and the team behind this garden have already achieved a lot.

advocate, Backyard Gardening, Local and regional food economies, Self-sufficiency, Uncategorized

The Homemade Food Act

The Homemade Food Act

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 29th September, 2012.

At the end of August, the Californian State Assembly passed the California Homemade Food Act, and it was signed into law by the Governor of California on 21st September. This law aims to support home-based and cottage food industries, by exempting them from onerous regulatory food safety, packaging  and planning requirements.

The types of foods that the Act is aimed at are what it terms ‘non-hazardous’ foods, which excludes dairy and meat products, but includes a wide list of preserved and value-added items, that you would typically associate with home kitchens: fruit pies; dried fruit and dried pasta; granola and cereals; honey; jams and preserves; vinegar and mustard; biscuits, breads and pastries; and roasted coffee and dried tea, amongst others.

Homemade Food Act

Recognising the role that micro-food enterprises play in local economic development, as well as poverty and hunger prevention, the Act aims to create a permissive and enabling environment for such enterprises, rather than a prohibitive one. Local authorities are expressly forbidden by the legislation to prohibit a cottage food operation. Rather, they can either classify such operations as a permitted use of residential premises, or alternatively require such operations to apply for a permit to use a residence for that purpose, with any fees charged to be kept to a minimum.

The Act’s philosophy, and the societal ills it seeks to address, are set out clearly in Section 1. Foremost among those ills is the obesity epidemic, which as the Act notes ‘affects virtually all Californians’. Section 1(b)(3) notes that obesity-related diseases ‘are preventable and curable through lifestyle choices that include consumption of healthy foods’. Section 1(c) acknowledges the existence of so-called ‘food deserts’, which have condemned car-less low income communities to reliance on ‘expensive, fatty [and] processed foods’.

Section 1(d) recognises the existence in California of ‘a growingmovement to support community-based food production, [which] seeks to connect food to local communities, small businesses, and environmental sustainability’. Section 1(e) states that ‘[i]ncreased opportunities for entrepreneur development through microenterprises can help to supplement household incomes, prevent poverty and hunger, and strengthen local economies’.

These are the sorts of things that many of us in the local food movement have been saying for years. So it’s somewhat astonishing, and not a little gratifying, to see them now enshrined in legislation, in the world’s eighth-largest economy. And California is hardly alone in this initiative; if anything, it’s catching up. With this Act, California joins 32 other US states that have passed similar legislation.

Clearly in the US micro-food enterprises are now achieving the recognition and support they deserve, as powerful motors of economic and social development. There are a number of reasons for this.

In the first place, despite all the spin to the contrary, the US economy is very much mired in the stagnation of a ‘job-less’ recovery. Indicators of poverty and inequality continue to be broken, with a report earlier this month showing that a record 46.7 million Americans were receving food stamps (the US equivalent of emergency food vouchers in Australia), 50 million ran out of money to buy food at some point in 2011, and 17 million regularly ran short of food last year. These are shocking figures for the world’s richest economy. So it’s not surprising that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, with food-growing and associated micro-enterprises leading the way.

Secondly, there has been institutional support and resourcing of local food in the US for many years. The US Department of Agriculture has operated a multi-million dollar annual grants program that has seen the numbers of farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture initiatives rise exponentially since 1990.

Thirdly, farming, and urban agriculture in particular, is seen as the ‘new cool’ in the US. A friend just returning from there told me that being a farmer is now ‘one of the coolest things a young person can do’. And part of this wave of ‘cool’ is a new generation of enterpreneurs and new economy types who are putting in place the local markets and distribution networks to support the new generation of young farmers.

So when can we expect NSW to legislate for a Homemade Food Act? Not any time soon, if the lead being given by the Federal government in its National Food Plan is any guide.

advocate, Democratic food systems, Food policy, Food sovereignty

The People’s Food Plan, first appearance

The People’s Food Plan

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday, 15th September, 2012

I’ve mentioned a number of times previously that the Federal Government is currently working on Australia’s first-ever National Food Plan. The green paper is out for consultation until 30 September, and the white paper is expected to be released in the first few months of 2013.

I’ve also mentioned that the Government’s agenda on food and agriculture, as revealed in the green paper and elsewhere, has provoked a lot of disquiet amongst members of what we might term ‘the fair food movement’ in Australia. This would include non-corporate family farmers, small-to-medium sized food processors and manufacturers, independent and local food retailers and grocers, farmers’ markets, community gardeners and other local food groups, and the many millions of Australians who grow or raise some of their own food.

Yes, there are millions of Australians who grow or raise some of their own food. And it’s a growing trend – pun intended. A national survey carried out for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) – of which I am the national coordinator – by the Australia Institute in July this year, found that more than half (53 %) of the adult population was growing or rearing some of their own food. Two-thirds of those had started doing so in the last five years, and a fifth in the last 12 months.

This trend towards some measure of food self-provisioning cuts across age and gender barriers, as well as the rural-urban and party political divides. It’s truly a national phenomenon. There are any number of reasons to explain why it’s occurring – from a concern about taste, quality and health, to the sheer joys and many benefits of gardening – but we’d also have to include a rising awareness that all is not well with the globalised food system, which the government so heavily promotes.

People's Food Plan Cover
People’s Food Plan Cover

But domestic food growing – and the fair food movement more generally – gets absolutely no recognition whatsoever in the green paper for a National Food Plan.

That’s why the AFSA has decided that there is a need, and an opportunity, for a more inclusive, and broad-ranging, conversation about our national food system. In launching this week our process for a People’s Food Plan, we’ve been inspired by the dedicated work of hundreds of Canadians who, for more than two years, held 350 kitchen table talks around that country, to produce a People’s Food Policy for Canada. Released during the Canadian federal election of 2011, this document had a major impact, being endorsed by the two principal opposition parties.

Food Sovereignty - Nyeleni Declaration
Food Sovereignty – Nyeleni Declaration

The first of around three dozen public meetings around the country scheduled to be held during September and October was held earlier this week in Bondi. Thirty people spent two hours discussing their concerns about the food system in Australia, and put forward their ideas and proposals for priority policy action. These included ‘education and policy to promote local food’, ‘restrictions on harmful foods like soft drinks’, ‘prevent contamination of farmland by GMOs’, ‘prioritise food production over coal-seam gas’, ‘challenge the power of companies like Monsanto’, and ‘no sponsorship of schools and sporting programs by Coles and Woolworths’.

The AFSA has produced a draft discussion paper for a ‘values, principles and best practice’ document, which will be available online next week. All the ideas we are hearing will feed into a revised document, which we aim to launch before the end of the year.

In his foreword to our discussion paper, SBS garden guru Costa Giorgiadis writes:

“Now is the time to repurpose and refocus as a community. Now is the time to build an economy where growth is valued in annual soil depth and fertility that in turn promotes a health industry, not based on sickness but on living food. Let’s cover the fences and boundaries of a divided world with edible vines and plants that produce new visions and innovations worthy of the potential we have around us. Creativity to drive a world fuelled on regenerative and renewable sources requires new industries, new thinking and less baggage from a world paradigm whose time is passed.

Change requires courage and strength. Changes requires fuel, and food is the fuel of our future. The People’s Food Plan is the fuel of the future. Food Freedom begins in the soil that feeds seed freedom.

Now is the time to plant and nuture the seeds of change. I am excited.”

Public forums and / or kitchen table talks are planned for the Coffs Harbour region. If you are interested in participating, please email nick@foodsovereigntyalliance.org

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advocate, Coffs Coast, Permablitzes, Self-sufficiency

Kids and vegies

Permablitz in Perry St

A version of this article first appeared in the Coffs Coast Advocate on Saturday  1st September, 2012

Last month, the Coffs Coast Local Food Futures Project, funded by the NSW Environmental Trust, concluded after three years.

The centrepiece of this project was the establishment of two wonderful community gardens, in Coffs Habour (Combine St) and Bellingen (Bellingen High School). Both very different, each of these gardens has already made an important contribution to community education and cohesion in their respective localities, and will continue to do so for years to come.

The Local Food Futures Project has left many other legacies, and many great stories to tell. One of the most recent is the holding of a permablitz at the Gumnut Cottage Child Care Centre in Perry Drive, Coffs Harbour.

Gumnut Cottage is a community-based, not-for-profit centre, run by the parents of the approximately 70 families who use it.

Recently a key focus for centre has been the promotion of sustainability, says Director, Donna Easey, with the installation of water tanks and a solar system.

Because the Centre supplies all the childrens’ meals and cooks for them, they have been wanting to to ‘get the kids a lot more involved, by growing [their own food], and getting them to pick and eat it themselves’, says Donna.

‘So that’s why we applied for the green grant from the Council. We’ve had gardens before, but they didn’t work, so we thought, how can we improve on this. When the grant became available, we thought, this is an opportunity to do it bigger and better, to optimise our resources, get more garden space up and running.

With a $1600 green grant from Coffs Council, and a further $1000 of their own funds, they decided that the time was right to build a great edible garden for the kids in their care.

The key ingredient  was knowledge and expertise, and that was provided by the Local Food Futures grant, in the form of a stipend for permaculture designer Matt Downie, who is an active member of both the Combine St and Bellingen High School community gardens.

Matt’s design was put out to consultation amongst the Centre’s families, and attracted a lot of interest and enthusiastic comment. Not only did it involve the construction of a highly diverse edible garden, but it also addressed some long-term structural problems the Centre had been experiencing, such as the formation of mudpits due to the slope and heavy rain.

Donna was surprised by Matt’s knowledge of species and varieties, like chocolate sapote, ice cream bean and taro, that now form part of the edible garden for the Centre.

Twenty people rolled their sleeves up and worked from 9 am to 3 pm to build six 2.2m x 1.3m corrugated steel beds, as well as extensive trellising and a further railway sleeper raised bed.

 

Vegie bed construction at Gumnut childcare centre
Vegie bed construction at Gumnut childcare centre

 

 The garden has already got the children inspired and engaged. ‘On a daily basis, the children can’t wait to come in and water the plants, and see how they’re going. It’s very exciting.

Many parents who weren’t able to attend the blitz itself have been coming in to help out. ‘The kids are very excited when mum or dad comes to pick them up in the afternoon, and they say, come and look at the garden, look at what we’ve planted’, says Donna.

There have been many donations of plants from families, and grandparents have come in to share their gardening skills with the children.

Donna is very excited about the potential the garden brings to the Centre: ‘I think it’s going to be great, for children to go and pick things for themselves. But also looking at what’s in our garden, and how we can use it – for older kids, thinking about recipes, and then cooking and eating the food themselves.’  

As well as healthy eating, just being involved in the garden has a calming effect, especially for those children who are quite active.

And it’s inspired several families to start growing food in their own homes.

Donna sees a return to previous values and practices with this sort of local food growing. ‘When I grew up, we had big vegie gardens, and you had things that you don’t see anymore, like marrows, and big squashes. They’re hard to come by these days, but we had them on our table every night’, she says.

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