As the first year of Growing Change draws to a close the Backyard Pharmacy at Maison Bleue is bursting with summer growth.
Mr Quin’s garlic has just been harvested and will make a tasty addition in many and varied styles of cooking. The girls have been faithful in their supply of gorgeous googs and the first Toolangi Delights were savoured for Xmas. It has been a year of garden experimentation and much learning. Growing veg successfully from seed has been a momentous achievement. Much exercise has been had chasing chooks off productive gardens and building structures to enclose the growing goodies. The first attempt at bottling olives shows there is an art to olive preservation and pickles and ferments and preserving seasonal bounty are now firmly on the calendar. There has been the acquisition of a canning outfit and now a food dehydrator, which will provide the solution to keeping summer harvests for winter use.
2013 will see some new activities, including ‘Preserving the Neighbourhood’ – more about that in the New Year. Involvement with Incredible Edible Eaglehawk has seen the fledgling idea receive fertilisation in the form of a small grant to kick off activities next year and the Bendigo Community Food Network is alive with small projects, initiatives and interests, all of which add up to a new and resilient food culture in Bendigo and surrounds.
Meanwhile further afield it has been a busy time for the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and the national round of community consultations that have informed the soon to be released draft People’s Food Plan. Participatory democracy is looking strong for those who see the importance of the food system and its relevance to climate change in the future and are keen to get their hands dirty. Around Australia people are turning not only to home grown produce, but sharing backyards, joining community groups to grow food in available spaces, learn how to preserve abundance, keep chooks or bees, save and swap seeds, compost kitchen waste to create healthy soils, and are growing surplus intentionally for preserving for those who lack access to healthy food and in the process learning to savour a slower, fairer, cleaner food culture.
All of this is presupposed on a climate that will be kind to those producing food, which is not always the case. The environment and diversity of plant and animal species are of paramount importance as the impacts of a changing climate are being reckoned with. The Climate and Health Alliance is leading the way in Australia in providing a vehicle for closer examination of the health impacts of climate change. Conservation of our life support systems needs our help. In 2013 this will be a focus, along with one on the blending of food production issues with long-term biodiversity conservation as a true reflection of the quadruple bottom line, that is inclusive of health and wellbeing.
