Page 640 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 9 March 2011
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One of the things we have also had reinforced as a result of the recent climatic problems is that food security and local food production are important. We have all watched the Lockyer Valley’s destruction and we have all watched the very fertile food growing areas of Australia be covered with layers and layers of mud where things are just not going to grow for a while.
We have all heard about food miles and the importance of reducing our carbon footprint in creating food. If we can grow food locally, that will reduce the environmental impact of the food. Often home growing is very water efficient—much more so than commercial large scale gardening—because often people are using grey water and often people are using water from their roofs, and almost always they are applying it very effectively.
Of course, one of the things that we can do in both home backyards and in community gardens is compost. We can compost our food waste and we can compost our other organic waste. In the context of the draft waste policy which the government has recently put out and where the Greens have major concerns about how the organic wastes are being treated, or more precisely not really being treated as part of that, I think community gardens have a real role in terms of being a hub for local scale community composting, where particularly people who are in medium density or high density housing and do not have the facilities to compost at home can go to a local community garden with their organic waste and compost it there.
We can also look at community gardens in all sorts of places. I would like to reignite the debate on public trees possibly being fruit or nut producing trees. I know this has been debated in Canberra on and off over the years and there has been concern that the trees would not be adequately looked after and there would be too many problems with fruit flies. I do recognise that is an issue, but it is a debate that we need to have with our increased need for food security.
Then there are community herbs. Why can’t we plant rosemary, oregano, thyme or lavender as small border plants? This will be particularly relevant for the debate we are going to have next on Mr Coe’s motion about lawn mowing. There are alternatives to lawns and these could be a real plus.
The second point of my motion is to point out the success of community gardens in Canberra and in particular those run by Canberra Organic Growers Society. They have been coordinating community gardens in Canberra since the 1970s. But there are of course community gardens, as I mentioned, not run by the COGS. Some are run formally by other groups and entities. Where I used to work at one stage we actually had a small-scale community garden with the compost from our kitchen. That was a great supplier of herbs and we got a few tomatoes out of it and a couple of lettuces. It was a great team building thing and a small food production thing.
I think I was wrong; I said 12 before, but there are actually only 11 community gardens operated by COGS, and they have been supported by the ACT government and the Queanbeyan City Council. The plot holders pay a small levy, which I think is $2 a square metre a year, to cover the cost of water and other running expenses. They are a wonderful part of the Canberra society.
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