National Context

 

Australia’s large agricultural sector is key to Australia’s and neighboring countries’ food security. Domestic agricultural production provides more than ninety percent of the domestic food supply, and Australia’s food security remains high despite the country’s long, complex supply chains, which are sensitive to volatile economic and environmental conditions. Furthermore, with the Australian population expected to double in the next forty years, and increasing threats to food security caused by climate change, there are strong incentives to adjust and expand food production in Australia. Nonetheless, during the 1980s and 1990s, Australia experienced “rollback neoliberalism,” or the dismantling of institutions and removal of public benefits. Today, the traditional agricultural sector receives little governmental financial support, and UPA is barely recognized by the national and state governments.[1] Australia’s current, neoliberal government supports “productivist agriculture,” higher imports, higher levels of foreign direct investment, and increased commoditization of resources. Food systems researchers have found that Australia’s shift to neoliberalist agricultural policies has made nation more vulnerable to shocks to long food supply chains.[2]

 

In contrast, the rise of Australian Slow Food, Youth Food, Fair Food, and permaculture movements indicates urban residents’ increasing inclination to connect with their food sources. These movements have corresponded to a rise in popularity of urban farms, community gardens, home gardens, and CSAs across the country. Furthermore, as the presence of smaller fruit and vegetables stores in Brisbane declines, these alternative food schemes are often the only alternative to buying produce from large, chain stores.

 

Queensland’s conservative government barely incorporates food policy into its political agenda. Regardless, Brisbane’s City Council (BCC) is generally supportive of local food networks and activities in the city, specifically community gardens. For example, the BCC provides a range of educational resources and grants for community gardens—despite that very few BCC employees are involved in or even aware of community garden programming throughout the city. In Brisbane, there are over thirty community gardens and city farms, along with many home gardeners and alternative food distribution schemes. Despite the presence of local food movements throughout the city, there is a lack of cohesion and communication between community, university, and political stakeholders.

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Research Intent

 

In Brisbane, I studied eight community gardens and one online local food network. Through interviews with city council employees, community garden leaders, and organizers of the Brisbane Local Food website, I evaluated home and community gardeners’ objectives, required investments, and achievements to determine their potential contributions to the city’s food security. Furthermore, after gaining a broad range of insights from other case studies of how LFS may contribute to urban food security, I focused my research in Brisbane on my third research question: How can LFS that foster food security become and remain a sustainable fixture in urban communities? Specifically, I investigated the financial and management structures of community gardens. I also considered broader LFS networks throughout Brisbane, which consist of formal and informal relationships between the city government, community organizations, urban residents, and LFS.

 

 

Brisbane Community Gardens by Management Type

 

Best-case practices of community gardens in Brisbane provide potential solutions to common management challenges faced by community-based local food organizations; however, Brisbane community gardens’ challenges reiterate the lack of any universal management and funding structures that would ensure community-based local food organizations’ long-term viability. This report section provides an overview of each garden’s organizational, management, and financial structures (see Appendix F for further details on each study site).

 

The Brisbane gardens I studied can be grouped into three main management categories: 1) community-based; 2) community-based with nonprofit support; and 3) managed by an umbrella or associated organization. Out of the eight community gardens I visited, three were managed and predominantly funded by direct governing organizations: the Burnie Brae, PCYC, and Keppera Community Gardens are run by a city-run community center, nonprofit-run community center, and a retirement community, respectively. Two gardens I visited, Jane Street Community Garden and Green P Farm, are community-based but have nonprofit auspices. Both gardens also have paid, part-time garden coordinators; Jane Street’s is paid by their auspice while Green P Farm’s is paid through revenue from market sales. The remaining community gardens I visited are community-based and have either formed an association or incorporation to govern themselves.

 

Gardens Managed by Other Organizations

 

The Burnie Brae, PCYC, and Keppera Community Gardens are each associated with an organization that provides them with land and some form of management. While their managing organizations serve a specific demographic, the Burnie Brae and Keppera community gardens are open to anybody to visit; they still serve the broader community, even though they’re not community-based. PCYC garden membership, on the other hand, is exclusively for PCYC members.

 

Community gardens run by niche organizations have benefits and drawbacks: their parent organizations’ stability may increase the gardens’ sustainability, but their organizations’ exclusivity may decrease the gardens’ community impact. Furthermore, even organization-managed gardens require dedicated founders and sufficient funding. The Keppera Community Garden, for example, was launched due to the initiative of one Keppera retirement Sanctuary Employee, Cathy Milne. Furthermore, Milne “jumped through hoops” to receive a 2,500-dollar grant from the Brisbane City Council, which funded just over twenty percent of the garden’s startup costs; Keppera covered the rest of the costs. In contrast, as a city-sponsored community center, the Burnie Brae Community Garden receives continual support from the city, as a part of its regular funding.

 

The Sandgate PCYC, or Police-Citizens Youth Club, is an independently funded nonprofit that also uses its general funds to run its community garden. There is a complicated history between the PCYC Sandgate Community Garden and Green P Farm, which used to be one garden. Today, the two gardens are located a few hundred meters apart. The original, combined community garden startup costs were funded by the Brisbane City Council (but the gardens are now each funded on their own). Furthermore, the two gardens’ divergence speaks to the potentially treacherous politics of various funding sources for community-based local food organizations. Local food organizations run by niche organizations may provide access to local food and greater food literacy for demographics of people that may otherwise be excluded from government-supported or mainstream movements; however, the inclusivity of community gardens may be dependent on their revenue sources.

 

Community-Based Gardens with Nonprofit Support

 

Green P Farms exemplifies how local food organizations can make a positive social impact by catering towards a marginalized demographic. Green P Farms is the only market-based community garden I visited; notably, it is also located in the literal center of a horse racetrack. Green P Farms makes a few hundred dollars each week selling produce from the collective half of the garden, which is run by volunteers. The other half of the garden contains plots exclusively for refugees, who grow their produce on individual plots and do not pay any fees. Green P Farms was launched by one community member, Michael Crook. Years later, Crook still runs the majority of the on-site operation; he is challenged in his efforts to pass on the garden’s management responsibilities. As a step towards Crook’s stepping down, Green P Farm recently hired one part-time employee, who is paid from market revenues. The employee manages the garden’s administrative tasks, such as communicating with the garden’s auspice, the Sandbag Community Centre, and coordinating with the landowner, Racing Queensland.

 

Jane Street Community Garden overcomes many of the management challenges that Crook—and community garden organizers in Budapest—experiences by receiving funding from the garden’s auspice, Micah Projects, to pay a garden coordinator, Melissa Smrecnik. Smrecnik’s paid position allows her to dedicate the necessary time and resources into creating the physical garden and garden programming. Originally a “guerilla garden,” Jane Street has successfully maneuvered around legislation that may restrict other community gardens’ development: the Jane Street garden is located right next to a road, which is normally not permitted, and it does not pay for its land. Furthermore, the relationship Jane Street and the BCC have fostered allows the Jane Street Garden to inform city policy and make it more conducive to community garden development.

 

Independent, Community-Based Gardens

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Beelarong Community Farm, Bethania Street Garen, Yoorola Street Garden, and Northey Street City Farm are all community-based organizations, which were founded by community members and are run by volunteers. Northey Street poses one exception, since it leads a range of environmental and educational programming, in additional to its community garden: the revenue it collects from its garden membership fees comprises just a portion of its revenue from grants, classes, and its weekly on-site farmers market. Each community garden’s revenue sources include BCC grants and membership fees. Most had startup costs in the ten-thousand-dollar range, pay just a few hundred dollars a year for their main costs—land leased from the city and insurance from a third party—, and have membership dues that cover the rest of the operating costs. Each garden is officially registered as a nonprofit association or incorporation to meet legislative guidelines. With continued support from the BCC—in terms of grants and a low land rental price—these community gardens have remained financially stable. Furthermore, while not affordable for all, most members I spoke with agreed that the approximate 100-dollar-a-year membership costs is very reasonable. Furthermore, some shared plot membership options allow community members with fewer financial resources and free-time also benefit from the garden’s social events and community.

Nevertheless, each Brisbane garden I studied faces challenges related to management and maintaining a vibrant social community. The Beelarong, Bethania Street, and Yoorola Street gardens overcome some management challenges by having retirees lead their gardens; however, holding leadership proles at these gardens is a very time-intensive task, and so the practice of depending on retirees to volunteer their time to manage the gardens is not a proper long-term solution. Furthermore, Northey Street can only afford part-time employees, which compromises the extent and impact of the organization’s programming.

 

While Beelarong, Bethania Street, and Yoorola Street each lease their land from the city at a low annual fee, Northey Street demonstrates another best-case practice through its use of marginal city land. The land Northey Street is built on floods annually, and so it is not suited for any typical urban land developments or permitting; Northey Street therefore gets its land for free from the city. However, Northey Street has experienced another considerable environmental problem: soil contamination. In fact, soil contamination is a concern for community gardens throughout Brisbane. While universal soil testing requirements for new community gardens have yet to be solidified by the BCC, Northey Street currently maintains an agreement with the BCC that requires it to administer a soil test every year, which costs approximately 5,000 dollars. Like many other community gardens in Brisbane, all of Northey Street’s produce is planted in raised beds to avoid soil contamination. So, despite Northey Street’s current challenge to afford the high cost of soil testing, the farm may ultimately serve as an exemplary urban production site: if it is able to continuously demonstrate that its produce is contamination-free, it may streamline the development of other community gardens and urban farms on previously contaminated land.

 

Addressing Food Security in Brisbane

 

My primary research intent in Brisbane was to determine how community gardens’ management and financial structures may convey best case practices of sustaining a community-based local food organization over time. However, the growing local food movement in Brisbane, which consists of community gardens, commercial UPA, farmers markets, and CSA-style food distribution schemes, also provides many opportunities to increase the city’s food security. Through conversations with researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) Global Change Institute (CGI), I learned how community gardens in Brisbane may increase their members’ food security by increasing their food literacy and increasing their access to fruits and vegetables, which may be prohibitively expensive in supermarkets. Compared to other top agricultural producing countries, Australia faces greater climate change-caused threats to its agricultural productivity. [3] Farmers throughout Australia are making technological changes to maintain their productivity amidst drier and more variable conditions.[4] However, in Queensland, nutrition security poses a more immediate threat to people’s safety, which LFS may be well-suited to prevent.[5]

 

Furthermore, the founding principle of the CGI—to address the impacts of climate change and population growth through collaborative research across themes such as food systems—demonstrates the need for transdisciplinary research and cross-sectoral collaboration to address food security challenges. My research this summer spanned the nonprofit, business, and political sectors as well as environmental, sociopolitical, and economics topics. Professor Bill Bellotti, GCI Food Systems Program Director, emphasized the need for UQ researchers to collaborate with the local government and community members to create the best-informed, environmentally and socially-just LFS. However, Bellotti admitted that the GCI Food Systems Program has yet to connect with the BCC. Furthermore, other community gardens, farmers markets, and urban farms I visited in Brisbane had minimal communication with other similar organizations. The CGI’s developing food systems research agenda is increasingly urgent due Australia’s global role as an agricultural producer along with Brisbane’s emerging local food movements but lack of cohesion between local food organizations’, university researchers’, and government agendas.

 

Brisbane Local Food: An online local food network

 

Brisbane Local Food, based at Brisbanelocalfood.ning.com, provides a creative alternative to a traditional community garden or local food organization. The website, founded six years ago, provides an online network for people who “grow, buy, make, sell and share local food.” Brisbane is the third largest city in the world by land area, which corresponds to its significant amount of stand-alone homes and thus, many residents’ ability to create home gardens. Brisbane Local Food provides a supportive network of gardeners and free, shared knowledge to support both beginner and experienced home gardeners.

 

The website includes blogs, a calendar of events, and many active forums, with titles ranging from “Bean There Done That” to “Native Bee Log Hives for Sale” to “Let Me Explain Margot Zuckerman’s Visit”…. Beyond the website, members have the opportunity to meet in person to attend monthly workshops and tour each other’s gardens. The current site administrator, Andrew Cumberland, spoke to the website’s ebbs and flows in terms of membership numbers, demographics of members, and member programming since its inception. Moreover, Cumberland described the site’s all-inclusiveness: “If you’re interested in growing food, we’re happy to have you,” he said. Brisbane Local Food transcends many of the time and financial restrictions as well as socioeconomic and political connotations of organizations that require land, funding, and a steady management structure.

 

Summary & Key Takeaways

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My research on eight community gardens plus one online local food network in Brisbane provided revealed potential solutions to management challenges faced by community-based local food organizations in other cities. Brisbane community gardens provided two main solutions to garden management challenges: one, appoint retirees to lead community gardens and two, have an external organization (nonprofit, private, or government) pay garden coordinators. Neither of these solutions is perfect, and so Brisbane’s gardens cannot provide a universal example of how to solve community-based food systems’ management challenges.

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Consider Sorado Farms in Tokyo, for example, which provide an optimal management structure at a community farm but at a high (literall) cost. Renting a plot at a Sorado Farm is very expensive, but the farms, which are run by a for-profit enterprise, hire full-time employees and therefore have no management challenges. Given the obvious lack of one perfect solution to community gardens’ management challenges, Brisbane community gardens provide an optimal contrasting context to understand the many different ways a local food organization may be sustainable.

 

Furthermore, Brisbane Local Food provides a valuable alternative to community gardens that provides participants with a supportive network of gardeners and shared knowledge base yet requires fewer land and labor resources to endure overtime. Finally, my interviews with researchers at the University of Queensland emphasized how researchers, policymakers, and local food networks organizers and participants might work together to help create the best-informed, environmentally and socially just LFS.

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[1] Bellotti, B. (2017, August 10). Personal Interview.

[2] Lawrence, G., Richards, C., & Lyons, K. (2013). Food security in Australia in an era of neoliberalism, productivism and climate change. Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 30-39. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016711001318.

[3] Costinot, A., Donaldson, D., & Smith, C. (2016). Evolving Comparative Advantage and the Impact of Climate Change in Agricultural Markets: Evidence from 1.7 Million Fields around the World. Journal of Political Economy, 124(1), 205-248.

[4] Gray, D. (2017). Australian farmers are adapting to climate change. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/australian-farmers-are-adapting-to-climate-change-76939.

[5] Bellotti, 2017

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