Why grow your own food locally?

Why grow your own food locally?
Jacqui van Heerden

In the future, changed rainfall patterns, droughts, storms, floods and cyclones could put many crops at risk and potentially destroy crops.   

The increased occurrence of these extreme weather events will have a big impact on the availability of food.   

As well our current industrial food production system generates 58 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with much of this attributed to the production of meat. Co2 emissions from plant-based products are as much as 10 to 50 times lower.

Growing our own food is the single most beneficial thing we can do for the health of the planet.  

As city dwellers we are at greater risk of food insecurity due to these crop failures because of our proximity to them and reliance. Increasingly we see our food source moving further from us as farmers sell off their land to developers creating greater food miles between our food sources and us. We can wait and rely on a “crisis” response or we can start taking responsibility by relocalising and decarbonising our food system.

 

We can no longer bury our head in the sands about where our food comes from and remove our responsibilities for caring for the earth.

 

Apart from reducing the obvious environmental damage of the way our food system currently operates – there are a number of benefits of growing our own food locally.  

We can pick it when we are ready to eat it, when it’s most fresh and full of nutrients. Food in its rawest, freshest form is not only tastier, but also most nutritious. Food grown elsewhere takes longer to get to us and at each point in the distribution chain it loses its nutritional value.  

By growing our own produce, we will tend to eat seasonally, which means food is naturally ready for harvesting and, according to nutritionist’s, seasonal food is designed to supply our bodies with exactly what they need at that time.

Keep chemicals off our plate

We control what goes in and on our food. Pesticides used in agricultural production have been linked to detrimental effects on humans and wildlife.  Some pesticides used in Australia are not registered for use in the EU and other countries. It is evident from this that Australia’s pesticide regulatory system is failing to keep people and the environment safe from dangerous pesticides.

There is considerable work done to determine maximum allowable pesticide residue levels in food. The concern is that the residue limits that may be acceptable to a healthy adult may be different than for those already compromised. 

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) strawberries may contain as much as 40 different pesticides, celery more than 60 different pesticides and cucumbers more than 86.

The EWG have compiled a list of the clean 15 and dirty dozen lists to help you reduce exposure to toxic pesticides. Visit ewg.org.   

Gardening is exercise and getting out in the sun gives us important exposure to vitamin D. Recent work highlights how exposure to environmental microbes helps protect against allergies and other inflammatory diseases. So, by getting our hands in the soil, increasing diverse plant life in our environment, which attracts insects, soil life and wildlife increases our immune systems strength. It’s called the biodiversity hypothesis. We can also build our skills and knowledge in this area and collect our own seeds.

When it comes to growing food, the obvious first deterrent for most urban people is a lack of space. Due to density development, residents are lucky if they have a patch of land or even a balcony.  Also, high density creates shadowing and wind tunnels, which put plants under stress.

A plot in a community garden is hard to come by with some residents waiting well over a decade. Residents have taken to verge and nature strip growing – alas the council charges residents a permit for this.   

Food can be grown indoors and on balconies – the main ingredients are sunlight four to six hours, good fertile soil, water. There are many techniques for increasing your growing space such as vertical stacking.

When you have limited space, you may choose to grow food based on what food is treated with the most chemicals that you would like to avoid, what’s easiest for you to grow, what you like and/or what gives you a long yield.  

In the small space gardening workshops I have conducted I encourage people to start with key foods such as herbs. Fill your salad bowl, greens, flowers, small fruits, then move on to staple crops which provide most calories for the largest part of the year, and store well e.g. potatoes, onions, garlic, beetroot, carrots, brassicas, pumpkins and squash, beans then must have fruits – apples, tomatoes.

Fertile soil is paramount if you want to grow healthy food •

New homes open in North Melbourne 

New homes open in North Melbourne 

March 13th, 2024 - Brendan Rees
Like us on Facebook