The Queensland OpenIDEO Challenge asks the question:
“How might we better connect food production and food consumption?”
Message from the Premier:
Hello. As Premier of Australia’s most innovative state, Queensland, I’m excited to welcome you to this OpenIDEO challenge that will help us all face a better future. My passionate vision for Queensland is to lead a state that is strong, green, smart, healthy and fair.
It is this passion which has led me to ask you to take part in this challenge – to discover how we can better connect the way we produce and consume food to improve wellbeing and sustainability. We want fresh thinking and ideas around the topic of food: ideas that are local, regional and global.
Ideas that consider how rural and urban communities can work better together to ensure a future where healthy food is available to all. Food is an industry and a source of livelihood for many, but it is also a fundamental need, something that forms the basis of our health, wellbeing and sense of self.
Our relationship with food is a thread that runs through our lives and communities. But with world population expected to hit 9 billion by 2050 it is vital that we prepare ourselves well so there is enough food for all and that food production is efficient and sustainable.
The challenge I put to you today is to help us find the solution to this problem – we want practical ideas that consider issues such as energy use, transportation, biodiversity, food security, nutrition, obesity. We also need to consider the health of rural economies and the value of sharing between cultures as well as the old and the young. Together, small steps can have a big impact on the future. I look forward to the solutions you put forward.
Working with the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, the Department of Environment and Resource Management and the Department of Justice and Attorney-General, OpenIDEO will provide a platform for everyone to contribute and be heard.
In early May, the OpenIDEO team, in partnership with the Queensland Government, will select the most inspiring and relevant ideas. These ideas will be brought to Queensland during the Ideas Festival for further consideration by teams of policy makers, industry and community representatives.
Be a part of the conversation, submit your ideas through the OpenIDEO website today.
After the flooding across the State and in south east Queensland, may I suggest that the Government give consideration to buying back some of the low-lying homes that are subject to flood, and coverting these to community gardens – places where the community can grow fruit, vegetables, and enjoy mini-park green spaces. Thanks.
Check Food Connect – they have been successfully addressing this problem for many years now – and give them more support instead of trying to reinvent the wheel? http://www.foodconnect.com.au
SUPPORT the farmers, the farming culture MUST be preserved, which also means we dont mine our INVALUABLE farming land. Food before coal.
REDUCE our food miles by offering incentives to make consumers choices a sustainable, viable option when purchasing – reduce reliance on an unhealthy, unseasonal purchasing culture where we purchase overseas fruit and vege – it is simply not necessary. Create an environment that encourages innovative distribution opportunities for producers that eliminate the the reliance on duopoly created distribution systems that are so brittle – this became apparent in the floods with major roads flooded.
Finally, change and educate the farming system to reduce reliance on broadacre farming (again a brittle system, vulnerable to climate extremes – remember the Bananas up north in the cyclone) . Our reliance on artificial farming environments to produce more at any cost – including animal welfare is frightening, let offer incentives for change.
Yes, Food Connect is a brilliant example of Community Supported Agriculture adapted to the Australian context. Another wonderful example based on a community-driven enterprise model is Organic Farmshare http://www.organicfarmshare.com which is currently being established in the Wollumbin Bioregion (Gold Coast, Brisbane, Scenic Rim, north east NSW) in a 200km radius of Mt Warning (Wollumbin). Some 250 households are investing in the purchase and creation of an organic farm in NNSW which will sustainably and regeneratively produce and distribute organic food to this community of families in a way that is also financially sustainable as an enterprise. The enterprise model has been developed and launched, the farm has been purchased, the community of families is well underway, the first crop is being planted now, and conversation, discussion and education about this elegant form of regional food production, community and enterprise is increasingly widespread. It is a brilliant example of Wendell Berry’s “solving for pattern” in our own backyard.
Thanks for all your thoughtful contributions – don’t forget to also post to the OpenIDEO challenge page to have your ideas captured in the discussions.
http://openideo.com/open/localfood/brief.html
Innovation doesn’t cost money only creative energy.
As a proud Queenslander and a Brisbane Local. One of the most rewarding things I have commenced in 2011 is to grow the majority of my own fruit and vegetables on my own house block 6km from the CBD. My wife and daughter love it and our own home grown organic produce taste great and feels good for the soul.
Growing our own food for our family has raised our awareness for just how challenging it would be for our farmers to mass produce fruit and vegetables without pesticides and without ubiquitous water supplies.
With this awareness and a strong belief that organic is the healthier option for my family. I believe the solution in know small part has to be driven by a drive towards the decentralisation of farming into the community and to the individual. Community farms (Northey St Markets) are fantastic but should be supplemented by an individuals own contribution to alleviate / participate into the community.
Large centralised farms are only part of solution for feeding the world, eventually the onus like many things in life needs to be placed back on the individual to provide for themselves, and besides it is actually fun to garden and get out in the sunshine!
I believe government can provide an important role in assisting in providing basic education on permaculture principles to the community, this combined with potential workshops in local parks will provide the much needed stimulus to enable the individual to help themselves.
The benefits of this approach is that an individual will
Lower their cost on living by buying less fruit and vegetables.
Potentially trade or swap produce with other members of the community.
Encourage healthier eating habits for the individual.
Raise awareness of the challenges our farmers may face
Assist in achieving a community shift toward a more sustainable long term solution.
Currently Australians eat fewer than 300 of the world’s 23,000 edible plants – including a minuscule fraction of Australia’s own 6000 edible plants.
Here is an absolutely superb opportunity to:
- diversify our diets
- lead the word in designing several entirely new cuisines
- save land, water, nutrients, energy and other scarce items required for food production
- create new rural and urban industries with high employment requirements which reward farmers better
- reduce the current death rate from heart disease,cancer, diabetes, stroke and obesity which now kill 1 Australian in every 2
- reduce taxation by lowering the biggest single line item in all government budgets: healthcare.
The only astonishing thing is why we don’t do it…..
If we are to have a sustainable food supply for our region in the future then how can we consider putting at risk our table water in food producing regions!
We need to develop a program in ALL shools similar to that of Stephanies Garden Project. It would be money wisely invested in our future. Through this all children will grow up learning to respect the land and the benefit of good food, diet and exercise…..maybe it could help teach some of their parents too. There is nothing quite like planting, nurturing, picking, cooking and eating to make someone appreciate the importance of the land and the pleasure of food.
What about a “SLIP SLOP SLAP” kind of campaign that is catchy enough to send a message to buy local and support your immediate community (not the duopoly that we are witnessing now)….let people know that this important to maintain quality, price and choice for years to come.
Lets encourage community gardens and release plots in local areas for neighborhoods to develop – this will assist in strengthening the cause. Lets make this process simple not full of ridiculous red tape.
Lets continue to support and promote our local farmers markets and encourage small neighborhood markets…..idealic yes but not impossible.
Lets look after our farmers we have left – they are our life blood and they should be our heroes not ignored and left to fend for themselves in the bush. Milk, chicken ….what producers will be targeted next in a ridiculous supermarket price war that has no winners. Farmers can not be expected to run a farm and fight corporate battles. We all are running around buying fair trade coffee – we need to keep our own back yard fair. To steal a lovely Body Shop quote “Lets put the unity back into Community”.
Food solution
Here´s the only solution.
We use our desire to share and organize free ecological best quality food: 1. the food 2. food basics 3. meals 4. drinks
That way we control the consumption letting it go through the Globalfirm filter: ecological best quality, no artificial additions and healthy.
The work that has to be done gets done by willing workers on a voluntary basis or through rotation of this social work.
The people can still get much more free time then before, because of the Globalfirm reduction of free mass produced ecological best quality basics which comes along with the free highest standard support to realize own ideas. This is Globalfirm.
On Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/globalfirm
CSA has already been mentioned, so have community gardens, both great systems that bring community, farmers/growing and seasonal produce closer together.
As a single mum in a (now semi-)rural setting I have been growing a wide range of vegetables and fruits for years. Variety makes me more weather-proof as I don’t rely on one particular crop to survive a heatwave, drought or the recent (very) wet season.
This would also apply to small urban and rural farms which supply the surrounding community. More flexibility in choosing crops.
I would also welcome an initiative that supports those who would like to set themselves up as local producers, small or larger scale (but not mega-scale), by adjusting the land rates for producers in urbanised areas to offset high/rising rates and make urban/small scale farming viable again. Local government can also make it easier for communities to hold local produce markets which are currently limited to a few times a year by my local council.
I support my monthly local market, yet regret it doesn’t happen more often.
Especially in my, as well as many other areas, there could also be a benefit for local businesses (local restaurants/supermarkets/etc) to align themselves with local growers and purchase their produce, therefore avoiding the food to travel to markets in Brisbane and back out again. Basically a decentralisation and diversification of food growing and crops to buffer against adverse weather, climate or supply influences and make us more food secure.
Protecting agricultural land and underground water from mining are prerequisites to this.
To put more emphasis on food production one must raise the demand for it. This can be done in two ways: either reduce its purchase price (possibly by subsidies) or provide the consumer-population with more money, by taxing their personal incomes less.
Since the government still needs to have an income this last statement would be better expressed if I were to say: arrange the tax system so that it bears more fairly and justly on the whole population. The best kind of a tax is one on land values because it takes from the community what the land owners are holding and imperfectly using for themselves, namely the ground rents.
Land Value Tax is comparatively easy to determine and less easy to escape from payment compared to other tax forms. It is also likely to need less supervision that income tax and this means more people will be free to use the resulting freed-up land, which is currentlly being held out of used for purposes of speculation in its value. Remember the most valuable and productive land is in the population centers not on the farms and ranches!
Now as Queeslanders I know that you have had experience of this tax system and that the land owners have rejected it politically for selfish reasons. Never-the-less, if other kinds of taxation is partly replaced by a tax on ALL the land sites (in use or otherwise) which is charged in proportion to their true values (which might be quite small) then in general the whole population will benefit and the greater demand will result in the food being grown in places where it is most economical to do so.
TAX LAND NOT PEOPLE; TAX TAKINGS NOT MAKINGS!
I find it hard to believe Premier Bligh is asking how to feed a growing population when she and her government, support and encourage the mining industry, an industry that is now invading and destroying our agricultural land.
The people of the Darling Downs asked this government to change legislation to protect our farms, farmers and people living in rural residential areas from this destruction, they have refused to do so.
FOOD BEFORE COAL!
Local councils should be investing in community market gardens, to supply food to their own municipalities, this would reduce transport costs and eliminate the need to truck food all around the nation. It would also ensure the food was fresh.
Fresh food should not be imported from other countries, this damages our own market and farmers.
The Coles /Woolworths price war on milk should not be allowed. If these practices are allowed to continue there will be no dairy farmers left to produce milk.
There needs to be certainty for farmers and for the mining industry as to what areas are farmland and what areas can be mined. At present the system that allowed exploration rights for mining companies to be granted haphazardly over rural/residential areas and prime agricultural land is a system that leaves our communities divided and distressed. The move towards strategic cropping legislation is a step in the right direction but it has taken years to get to even talking about it and still it means only about 2% of farming land is protected which does not guarantee food security for our growing population. Australia’s legislation for mining is archaic and does not meet international standards. If we are to be “strong, green, smart, healthy and fair” we need to have clear legislation governing which areas are too nutrient-rich and fertile to be mined and which areas are too close to communities and as such have the potential to cause unacceptably high physical and mental health impacts for residents. These areas then need to be set aside from mining. If QLD politicians continue to favour short-term monetary gain over long-term sustainability and health we will not manage even one of Anna’s goals- strong, green, smart, healthy and fair. You can’t eat coal.
This is a propaganda page. Governments have to actually protect the environment and the farmers. It looks like the people will have to protect them selves from this Government. Not a localized issue it is spreading, the madness of officials around the world getting on the Coal Seam Gas destruction of this precious Earth.
We welcome your comments and discussion – to ensure your opinions are captured and considered as part of the challenge, don’t forget to join in the discussion on our OpenIDEO page:
http://openideo.com/open/localfood/brief.html
I just posted something to the OpenIDEO site about Permablitz Brisbane. We are helping communities transform backyards and schools into productive and functional edible food gardens. There are other active groups throughout Queensland including Bundaberg, Townsville, Sunshine and Gold Coasts.
http://openideo.com/open/localfood/inspiration/permablitz-brisbane/
Thanks for sharing through the OpenIDEO platform Ben
I think it is awesome to see how passionate people are about this issue (or issues).
We received over 500 initial inspirations onto the OpenIDEO site at http://www.openideo.com/open/localfood – heaps of stuff to trawl through and get you thinking.
The next phase is to develop and submit concepts for real projects that could be adopted or implemented.
It would be great if some of these projects were submitted by people with local connections and networks – so this all ties into the community.
We will be running a workshop in May at the Ideas Festival and will have the OpenIDEO team here for that – so if you get a good concept in the mix maybe we can invite you to join us.
make sure you check out paul bennett and Tom Hulme’s public talks as well.
Post comments, tweets etc at the OpenIDEO site also as this is the main archive for the challenge.
Thanks.
Ewan McEoin
http://www.studiopropeller.com
UPADS (being developed at Bond Uni) offers the optimum criteria for future self-sufficient developments; however, restrictive ULDA protocols are seemingly written in stone by vested interests.
It is difficult not to make this political but the reality is that although the vast majority of urban planning theories and practices are failures, they are the rule of thumb – i.e. high density housing -and the future planned for us all; and this, just another hollow gesture …
It is incomprehensible to understand a politician not wanting to leave a positive legacy, but rather a liability for future generations …
I find Anna Bligh’s comments the height of hypocrisy. Labours record of sacrificing our Primary Production to mining is scandalous. Why do Governments allow farmers and fishermen to receive decades old prices for their product and the shops profiteer? Why should the farmers and fishermen suffer from depression and struggle to survive the increasing costs and small returns? Does she care? I think not. How come some farms and their produce belong to overseas interests (ie milk sent to China)? Why is there very little Australian food on the shelves at the supermarket, with dodgy labelling (made from Australian and imported ingredients). Why is it New Zealand and Japan provide far more seafood than Australia when we have the 4th largest waters in the world?
How about introducing some Queensland Food Awards for:
innovative and sustainable produce/businesses?
Qld produce based recipes?
Collaborative partnerships for sustainability – both economically and environmentally – at the local level, that sustain our rural communities?
Food processing and manufacturing, using locally produced food?
There are heaps of examples overseas we could learn from.
Fiona
I hope that the QLD Government is committed to reaching this objective and not undertaking it as a “ticking the box” excercise in response to a Federal Sustainabilty edict.
So Anna; the steps you need to take are:
* to preserve arable land from mining and housing developments
* impose financial penalties for high water use monocultural farming practices
* increase import duty on overseas food items
Queensland currently has a multitude of localised efficient and sustainable practices that consider issues such as energy use, transportation, biodiversity, food security, nutrition, obesity.
The challenge they face in building resilient communities is the multitude of contraindicative local and state regulations and lack of government financial support.
I recently completed research into Urban Agriculture and City Farms and their role in Community Engagement, you can read about it on my blog http://www.brisbanetobogota.com or go to this link: http://www.brisbanetobogota.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/UACFReport.pdf
The answer lies in connecting the producers of those food items with the people who ultimately eat them. The connection is made when the consumer recognises the land management of the producer and chooses the product. It’s done through certified land management.
Landholders with certification implement an environmental management plan that complies with the international management standard, takes account of regional catchment priorities and supports biodiversity conservation and which includes other landholder-identified priorities. This is then verified.
Sounds a lot to do but this has been made easy by the ALM Group – see http://www.almg.org.au – which has successfully trialled it with over 150 landholders. Soon there will be a readily identifiable symbol so consumers can connect with land, knowing their product choice is recognising good Australian land managers.
Phase 1 is complete and the ALM Group is hoping to move to Phase 2 of certified land management.
Phase 2 would see a wider uptake of certified land management to reinvigorate Landcare; strengthen Australian farmers in their domestic markets and position well for export markets. It is designed to do this and more while providing a sound basis for sustainable production through systematically reducing on-farm environmental impacts.
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