Farmers Markets and Community Gardens in Melbourne
This case study examines the role of farmers markets and community gardens in the improvement of dietary diversity and nutrition. It is found that while farmers markets cater largely to middle-class consumers, community gardens have the potential to improve access to fresh fruit and vegetables for low-income households.
The Problem
Over the course of the past five years, the threats that climate change and petrochemical dependency pose to food production in Australia have become more acute. Agricultural production in the state of Victoria has been especially affected by natural disasters such as droughts, bushfires, and floods. These natural disasters increase the cost of food for low-income households in Melbourne and regional areas alike. While the state and federal government have dedicated resources to supporting the economic sustainability of the agricultural sector and developing preventative health initiatives to encourage the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, there is a dearth of ‘policy approaches that link fruit and vegetable consumption to production, either in Victoria or internationally’ (Carey et al., 2011).
Agrobiodiversity
Animal genetic diversity is not recognized as a national priority in fostering food security in the National Food Plan, nor is there government support for monitoring or protecting rare breeds in Australia. Given that 75 per cent of the world’s plant genetic diversity has been lost in the last century, community gardens may have broader implications for preserving agricultural biodiversity on farm and fostering food security by protecting plant varieties that have no commercial value. Galluzzi et al. (2010) describe home gardens ‘as neglected hotspots of agrobiodiversity and cultural diversity’. The authors suggest that traditional crops or varieties are often ‘maintained in cultivation because of personal affection and commitment of single gardeners, resulting in maintenance of a greater portion of intra-specific diversity than a market exposure permits’.
The Project
Research was carried out in order to explore farmers markets and community gardens as localized food systems that offer potential for improving dietary diversity and nutrition, supporting biological diversity and linking production to consumption. Data were collected using a GIS-based description of land use in Melbourne, as well as interviews carried out between 2009 and 2010 with local producers at farmers markets.
Lessons Learned
The project was able to demonstrate that currently marginalized crops can be successfully used to create self-sustainable, agricultural-based enterprises that can support income generation in marginal areas of India, while strengthening food and nutrition security through the better use of culturally-adequate, nutritious crops. Furthermore, considering the high incidence of marginal land, poor soils, and scarcity of water in many regions of India, the suitability of minor millets to grow in difficult edaphic and climatic conditions compared with other commodity crops make them ideal candidates to be used in climate change adaptation strategies in agriculture.
Barriers to the greater promotion of millets are mostly of a policy nature, with heavy subsidies still being allocated to other commodity cereals, such as rice. Greater efforts are thus needed in order to convince policy makers to integrate minor millets into India’s subsidized public distribution system (PDS). Such policies would not only move in the direction of enhanced food security, but would also support more resilient production systems in view of the global changes that are predicted to seriously affect the Indian continent in the coming decades.
Continued lobbying for the inclusion of minor millets in school-feeding programs is also advocated, as children could greatly benefit from the nutrients that are mobilized through a greater consumption of these crops and their products. Although the IFAD NUS project has been successful in demonstrating the value of certain interventions, more work is needed to scale-up approaches, methods, and tools in wider areas of India. Greater government investment is also needed to continue developing superior varieties of minor millets as well as processing technologies that can satisfy increased demands for millet-based products across India, along with enabling policies to support their dissemination and adoption by consumers.