[Pil-pc-oceania] Brisbane mayor encourages home garden production

[RussGrayson]

> Check out this story
> http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23473703-952,00.html

Yes, do as Robyn says and find Brisbane Lord Mayor, Cr Newman, urging
Brisbanites to grow their own veges because of food miles.

There's something significant about this story, and it has to do with
thresholds and flipping. Let me get to that shortly. First, though, a quote
from the article:

"But environmentalists questioned whether there would be enough water if the
Brisbane population turned into amateur gardeners, while others warned some
home produce could prove toxic."

Allow me a digression and an observation or two. The last statement is about
contaminated soils and it is a fair warning. The first, about water, is also
timely, but it is the source of the statement that I find intresting... what
the Courier Mail attributes to '"environmentalists".

It suggests that the environment movement, which I see as somewhat separate
to permaculture although there exist points of crossover, remains mired in
the issues of the latter two decades of the past century. There are
established environment lobbies in this city, too, which I would class as
'behind the times', though some have recognised food as the emerging issue
and are scratching about like rodents at the door, seeking a way in and a
role for themselves in the changing landscape of sustainability. Rather than
addressing the clear and present need to produce food in the city, those
quoted by the Courier Mail could only throw up objections. Perhaps it's time
for them and the 'old' environment movement to call it a day, time to hand
over to the new sustainability movement of which our design system is
becoming a more influential part. Last one out please turn off the lights
and lock the door.

Now, after that digression, may I return to the newspaper story. My comment
is not about the content of the story as much as about the appearance of the
story in a major metropolitan daily. Such stories about food and other
topics of permaculture interest are appearing in these mainstream,
conservative publications more frequently. And it is that which is
interesting, it is that which suggests something fundamental has happened
that we sense but have not, perhaps, fully realised the implications of.

Another digression, this time into systems dynamics - be patient. According
to this relatively new science, things go like this: systems (such as
cities, finance, transport, food, the Eastern Bloc pre-1989) proceed as
normal although stressors might be influencing them in varying ways. At some
point, some unpredictable point, those stressors, perhaps acting
synchronously, flip the system into a new state of behaviour. That flip
point is a threshold. It is relatively abrupt and it is usually unexpected
and unpredicted. The new state might retain some characteristics of the old
but there are new influences that make it different, perhaps radically
different, to its earlier state of business-as-usual. Got it? Flipping,
thresholds and a change of state (behaviour).

In regard to the food system, we can see stressors now - global warning,
food miles and so on. We can predict the coming of new stressors such as
peak oil. Whether they will flip the food system and how, remains
unknowable. We know that predicting the future doesn't work because there
are too many unknown variables as yet unencourtered. We can only speculate
but that shouldn't be based on a simple extrapolation of the present into
the future because that, too, does not work.

OK. Back to those stressors and my question, which is this: have those
stressors already flipped the public awareness of food into a new state?

At present, I'm entertaining the idea that they have. And this has
implications for permaculture, especially when it puts on its
relocalisation/transition towns masks.

So, what's the evidence? Well, food issues now receive more or less regular
media coverage, the Courier Mail article being a present example. Secondly,
there were two conferences (at which I spoke) which took place recently -
one in Byron Bay and the Feeding Our Future conference at Southern Cross
University. And just last night on the 47th floor of the MLC tower in
downtown Sydney, news of those stressors were delivered to an audience of
suits, business types, investors, local government and a few permatypes with
the launch of a new technology to produce food in the city (incidentally, it
was longtime permaculture people launching that tech). As you know, there
are other forums in which the stressors have received public play.

Well, what does all this mean? What do we do about this theoretical change
of state in public consciousness about the food supply?

My suggestion: urban food systems, including food gardening in permaculture,
has long existed as a 'good idea' but there has been little by way of
external forces to drive it further. Now there are, if my contention of a
change in state is real. Now, we permaculturists, whether educators,
advocates, practical practitioners, mavens, connectors and communicators can
treat food and food systems as 'serious stuff'.

To do this, we would have to talk in terms of urban food systems and situate
home and community gardening into that context along with the purchase of
food. And what tool do we have to facilitate this? That's as easy as it is
new. It's called transition towns and relocalisation, two aspects
inspearably bound together. As some prescient person on this listserv
recently said, transition towns may be our permaculture future.

I hope this makes sense as it is stream of consciousness as I write.

...Russ Grayson



On 3/4/08 1:02 PM, "Robyn Francis" <robyn at permaculture.com.au> wrote:

> 
> Check out this story
> http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23473703-952,00.html
>  
> 
> ciao
> Robyn
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