Food
Transition Town extends Permaculture values and principles, and takes into account organic and other food growing techniques.
Transition Newcastle has already engaged with groups such as Beanstalk, Hunter Biodynamics Group, Hunter Organic Food, Hunter Organic Growers Society, Permaculture Hunter Region, and Purple Pear. This website is the forum for discussing the important topic of how we can grow food in a sustainable manner, and how the public can access the services or get involved.
Groups or individuals may wish to add a comment (Just register first) about how we can conserve energy using locally grown produce eg. bartering with neighbours, selling at Farmers markets, or distributing food boxes by subscription.
Please supply some details of how your system works.
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apartment
The planning department of our local council has deemed our farming land to be most valuable as a development site for the town expansion and has put our rates up to levels that are difficult to maintain.Transition Newcastle has already engaged with groups such as Beanstalk, Hunter Biodynamics Group, Hunter Organic Food, Hunter Organic Growers Society, Permaculture Hunter Region, and Purple Pea.
apartment
Newcastle's Food supply in an oil deprived world
Is there any one that would have a go at working out how to feed a city of about 485,000 people, just Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, if it had to be grown locally. Imagine that mass produced fertilisers normally made with oil or gas were too expensive and in very short supply. Also shortages of oil & LPG make transport of goods over 100km out of the question.
Once we work that out then we can apply the same thinking to the big Cities eg:
Sydney about 4,000,000
Brisbane about 4,000,000
New York 19,000,000
Parris (Greater) 10,000,000
London (Greater) 12,000,000
Tokyo (Greater) 35,000,000
It seem it’s going to be a big problem to do the job using back yards and Permaculture.
Bruce
Lets start in Maitland.
Hey Bruce that is a serious question but in permaculture we strive for solutions and looking to Maitland as a lead in to Newcastle then on to world domination lets look at getting the model being developed at Purple Pear Biodynamic farm and then introduce the concept to (say) turf farmers at Pheonix Park and show that they can make similar profits from food as sr Walter lawn then get local council to agree that zoning should include allowences for food production as Maitland council is starting to think about and you will start to see that it is not at all impossible to feed Newcastle and beyond.
I think we should start soon though - don't you?
Bruce, Havana in Cuba is a good example
Bruce,
Havana in Cuba has done pretty well with some Permaculture help, and it has around 3 million inhabitants and is between 50-90% food independent (depending on the source you read, and the extent of how far the food is grown from the centre of the city - see previously posted article "Why grow food locally, when it magically comes to supermarkets?") and refs:
Documentary on "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" (article about the movie )
Permaculture in Cuba - many Australian Conservation Foundation links to lots of info,
Permaculture Projects in Cuba - from Robyn Francis' site
Cuba - Beyond Peak Oil - many links
Also, the June 09 issue of Urban Agriculture "Building Resilient Cities" (which can be downloaded as a pdf) contains great organic food-growing articles, including one from Australia, such as:
John
Vice-Chair,
Permaculture Hunter Region
You Can't eat Concrete
The planning department of our local council has deemed our farming land to be most valuable as a development site for the town expansion and has put our rates up to levels that are difficult to maintain. Will it mean that we will have to sell and then organic food production will again be moved away from town and transport needed to get it to consumers. When will the local government see sense and support food producers close to town and not do things to drive them away?
Why grow food locally, when it magically comes to supermarkets?
As Cuba found out, when oil became scarce with the USSR implosion in the early 90s, it took them 3 years of hard times to ramp up their local food production.
The government was instrumental in inventoring and setting aside all spare land for food growing and setting up seed and agriculture advice for anyone who wanted to be a local farmer (and who didn't).
Shortly after, some international permaculturalists pitched in and helped, including some Australians, and now it is a great example of organic farming techniques with few greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable soil practices.
Havana , with a population of almost 3 million, currently produces around 90% of its food in and around the city, and is widely regarded as a best practice example of a sustainable city from a food, and health, point of view.
Given the global Peak Oil issue that is just around the corner (with varying estimates from 2007, 2010, 2025 to at most 2040) and the fact that it takes 5 years to get your fruit trees producing, why not save some money as food prices rise with oil prices (which is needed to make farm equipment, run the farm equipment, pesticides (&fertilisers if you include gas), refrigeration & transportto and from the shelves).
This would even save the oil greenhouse gases, as well as some caused by land clearing, dairy cows and beef cattle (Livestock's Long Shadow).
So lets lobby our councils to inventory and establish special areas to grow food ie. have a Community Food Policy (including Community Gardens, Community Supported Agriculture, Native strip species with rights and responsibilities for locals and government).
Connecting Beanstalk into Transition Framework??
I am thinking it would be good if beanstalk was connected into this web..i will approach committee...i am also really want to buy food in bulk so my daughter doesn't think food only comes from plastic bags from a shop shelf..newcastle needs a bulk food shop like the kukula bros and sisters in Perth and freemantle. Anyone want to start one up?
Food markets
The Hunter biodynamic group is trialing a idea at the monthly market at the Linuwel Steiner school at East Maitland. We are taking a stall site and inviting members (big and small) to contribute to the produce there. We are hoping that it will provide an opportunity for backyard producers to make their excesses available to the public. Members of the Hunter Biodynamic Group wishing to participate can contact Mark Brown at info@purplepear.net.au We hope this develops into flying markets several days a week in various locations for short duration (A couple of hours only) People will be able to come get their food and go and the farmers can get back to work. Wish us luck.
Food Markets
Sounds like a wonderful idea, purplepear. I have often wondered how to deal with excesses from my garden - apart from putting the kids to work with a stall on the verge! Is this plan just for biodynamic growers or for organic growers in general? How is it all coming along?
BD marketing
The plan at this stage is for members of the Hunter Biodynamic group but lets hope it can be expanded or other opportunities created.
Food
It is perhaps self apparent that the best option for food is to grow it yourself in the back yard or in a community garden where you can share resources and skills.
Not all people have access to these resources or skills and to get groups of families together in the local area and teach the skills needed and set up a framework for obtaining and shareing the resources necessary would be a worthwhile endeavour.
10 families - LETS - 1 instructor - 10 weeks (1 garden a week) - this is what would facilitate the process. Create food gardens, set up seed banks and a register of resources. Groups of 10 can be linked to other groups through PHR, HOGS etc.
Isn't it great how relationships come in to this? Perhaps I should have posted in "education" or community.
Food Groups - growing from neighbour exchanges
Great idea purplepear. It may start as simply as 2 neighbours beginning to exchange food and veges and fruit etc and share ideas. From there the groups might grow to become part of a larger exchange network. This web site and this idea was first introduced to me this afternoon by a neighbour under such circumstances. Is this already happening all accross the community perhaps? I have a massive vege garden and would be happy to share produce and effort. Let me know.