Garden to Plate: A community development approach to facilitating Aboriginal householders growing, harvesting and preparing their own food in Central Australia. — Agentur Pty Ltd

Garden to Plate: A community development approach to facilitating Aboriginal householders growing, harvesting and preparing their own food in Central Australia. (77)

David de Vries 1 , Veronica Johnson 1
  1. Australian Red Cross, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Background:

Against a backdrop of food insecurity and diet driven disease in Central Australia and despite numerous examples of productive food gardens in the region, it remains a rarity to find an Aboriginal household with one fruit tree. Using a community development strategy, this project supported householders with a declared interest in growing food to start gardening and raising chickens in their homes through the steps of design, care, harvesting and cooking their produce.

Methods:

The site was two Town Camps within Alice Springs. Households entered the project by requesting a garden they had seen at the Community Centre or a neighbours. Participants were consulted about fruit tree preferences and the locations for two wicking barrel gardens featuring a tree plus vegetables and flowers. Successful gardeners requested additional resources – beds and chicken systems. Care, harvesting and food preparation sessions were coordinated one-on-one or in small groups.

Results/Discussions:

 Of approximately 70 occupied houses, since March 2013, 35 have requested gardens and 29 are actively growing. Of these, 10 have gone on to request larger beds and 6 have chicken systems. We suggest these are strong take-up and retention rates. This is a health intervention that participants not only invite in, but put in considerable time, from watering to chasing chooks to cutting up salads.

Conclusions/implications:This project has proven very welcome. In an informal way we are seeing the knowhow, plants and animals spread outside our project sites. This is a time honoured method for distribution of food knowledge. Our vision is that, through informal paths together with other ‘cells’ of intensive Garden to Plate support access to fresh, nutritious food may be promoted across the region.

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