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

Sat Apr 5 13:15:51 EST 2008

Thanks for the background on this Dick.

Perhaps a way to support his backyard food garden platform and push the
community garden line would be to link it directly (i.e. logically and
inevitably) to the need for community garden centres to provide
neighbourhood support services, demonstration site, training, resources etc
for the backyard growers, as well as garden space for those who don't have
access to a backyard. Somehow he needs to be persuaded that this is the best
way to achieve his vision.
Hope his encounter with Roberto helps...
Ciao
Robyn

On 5/4/08 1:07 PM, "Dick Copeman" <dcopeman at powerup.com.au> wrote:

> Russ and Robyn,
> 
> We do need to engage the environmental movement on this and other issues. I
> know the environmentalist quoted in the article and am a bit surprised at
> his quoted views. I will be contacting him to clarify that he did indeed say
> what he was quoted as saying and to invite him to the Roberto Perez function
> in Brisbane in a week or so, which, incidentally is being supported
> financially by the council.
> 
> Secondly, it is possible that the Liberal Lord Mayor has a hidden agenda in
> this, because he is opposing a Labor push for Brisbane City Council to
> provide support for more community gardens. So he may be supporting backyard
> gardening to maintain his 'green' credentials while opposing more community
> gardens on public land. And ironically, the article included a photo of 2 of
> our APT3 students in our garden at Northey Street City Farm!
> 
> However, we should accept support for our ideas from whatever quarter. And
> community gardens are mushrooming with and without support from local
> government, so eventually even our Lord Mayor will have to get on board the
> community garden bandwagon, as well as supporting backyard gardens..
> 
> Dick
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> [mailto:pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org]On
> Behalf Of RussGrayson
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:19 PM
> To: pil
> Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Brisbane mayor encourages home garden
> production
> 
> 
>> 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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