6. Good Organic Gardening - November-December 2016 AvxHome.in

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GARDENING COMMUNITY | Future Feeders pick up a weekly box of freshly picked, seasonal organic produce. The abundance and risks are shared, Joel explains, which is particularly apt as we tour the farm after an east coast low has brought flooding rains and drowned some of his crops. He’ll source missing vegetables from other young farmers who fared better, for his weekly boxes. According to Joel, the new breed of farmer is tackling much smaller pieces of land, using higher-production biological systems and growing a diverse range of locally suited crops. “My ideology around farming is based on ecology, as we know successful thriving ecologies depend on diversity,” he explains. “So when I look at my farm production system, I would call it an ecological system and that’s how I model it. When I look at the farm as a business enterprise, it has to carry through those ideas of ecology thriving on diversity and communities as well.” Working together, instead of the isolated and competitive way that farming has become, is what inspired Joel to establish a network of young farmers so they can benefit from the efficiencies of scale and the effectiveness of being a larger-scale operation on paper, but geographically separated, much like bringing together pieces of a jigsaw. “If young farmers can work together in a network, we can inspire each other into the social space we need,” explains Joel. “Working in isolation is a really unattractive offer to any young person thinking about starting a career in farming and committing themselves to seven days a week. That’s unreasonable, but if we can work together with models of labour sharing and time sharing it can work.” Communitysupported agriculture As with other peer-to-peer business models, Joel believes associative economies and new societies are thriving on the idea of coming back together again. “It’s actually us who’s doing it for ourselves. It’s communities owning their food production systems,” he says. Associative economies, first described by Rudolph Steiner in lectures about economics in the 1920s, are based on the conscious co-ordination between producers, distributors and consumers. The goal is an economic sector managed by associations of industry and consumers, rather than the “invisible hand” of the blind market in capitalist economies or government-owned enterprise in socialist economies. “That’s why I really look to the communitysupported agriculture model as something that’s great for our community, because it gives everybody a sense of ownership and responsibility for their food,” Joel explains. “While farmers’ markets have been a great step in the right direction, they still suffer from a pay-and-walk-away mentality where your responsibility ends at the financial transaction. That responsibility also needs to extend to the health and wellbeing of the farm and farmers because without them we all go hungry.” On trying to make a living as a farmer, Joel also points to the problem that farming models have created where they depend on free labour, leading to an enormous skills deficit because that labour is transient and no one is keeping young people or enticing them to stay in the community and become food growers. “We haven’t centred our industries on farming being a viable future and I think there’s so much opportunity for it,” says Joel. “We really need to value food security. It’s crazy not to.” “We need a complete change in the dynamic of how young people are going to access land and develop their own farming enterprises. We’ve lost what was once a family farming model where the farm got passed on generationally.” Snow peas Weekly boxes Vegetable harvest Greens 64 | Good Organic Gardening
Future Feeders | GARDENING COMMUNITY Garden visitor Joel Orchard with his insect hotel Young farmers at the end of the day Participation builds trust Another development Joel and his band of young famers have underway is the Farm Endorsement Ecological Development (FEED) program. This quality-assurance scheme is based on IFOAM Organics International’s Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS). Unlike national certifying bodies, PGS is a locally focused quality-assurance scheme especially suited to small organic farmers and their consumers. It’s a far cheaper scheme based on the active participation of stakeholders who build on a foundation of trust, social networks and knowledge exchange. Joel explains, “PGS offers the community an opportunity to drive their own local certification system outside of the commercial organic agencies, so it gives the freedom to define what it is we want it to be and it gives farmers the freedom to access a level of reward for their integrity that doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg. “The fact that it is peer reviewed allows farmers to develop around good practice and enhances their capacity to communicate, develop skills and find out what other people are doing. It’s a tool to get farmers to work together as a community again because we’ve forgotten how to do that. “The grandest vision for me is to use the agriculture industry to preserve what we love about the natural identity of an area. If we can preserve the green rolling hills and use farming to develop healthier ecologies, then that’s triple bottom line. We get locally available organic food and we get to provide livelihoods for young people and keep them in a community. If young people can’t afford to stay in a community, essentially we are losing all of the wonderful young minds because there’s no opportunity for them.” Joel predicts the next big thing after the organic wave will be this direct connection with the farmer. He sees a whole marketing trend towards produce grown by humans, not robots. I know which one I prefer. Resources Future Feeders, futurefeeders.org International Federation of Organic Movements (IFOAM), ifoam.bio Good Organic Gardening | 65
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grow naturally, eat fresh, live sus
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CONTENTS 18 16 Contents 8 Editor’
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grow naturally, eat fresh, live sus
Page 11 and 12:
News | THE GRAPEVINE small changes
Page 13 and 14: With melissa king | THE SEASONAL GA
Page 16 and 17: CLEVER CROP | Gourd Oh my gourd Her
Page 18 and 19: PLANT PROFILE | Capsicum CanStockPh
Page 20 and 21: PLANT PROFILE | Capsicum — but so
Page 22 and 23: POWER PLANT | Rosemary wine o’clo
Page 24 and 25: FAMILY HEIRLOOMS | Zucchini Top per
Page 26 and 27: FAMILY HEIRLOOMS | Zucchini fruit t
Page 28 and 29: GARDENING FOLK | Ann & Steve Robert
Page 30 and 31: GARDENING FOLK | Ann & Steve Robert
Page 32 and 33: GARDENING FOLK | Sean Morrow wildli
Page 34 and 35: GARDENING FOLK | Sean Morrow which
Page 36 and 37: GARDENING FOLK | Frank & Anita Vell
Page 38 and 39: GARDENING FOLK | Frank & Anita Vell
Page 40 and 41: TIME TO PLANT | Celery - in the - v
Page 42 and 43: TIME TO PLANT | Parsley Words Jenni
Page 44 and 45: TIME TO PLANT | Scarlet runner bean
Page 46 and 47: TIME TO PLANT | Taro - in the - veg
Page 48 and 49: TIME TO PLANT | Honeydew melon - in
Page 50 and 51: WEEKEND GARDENING | Water wisdom WA
Page 52 and 53: WEEKEND GARDENING | Water wisdom I
Page 54 and 55: WEEKEND GARDENING | Summer shade TH
Page 56 and 57: WEEKEND GARDENING | Summer shade Su
Page 58 and 59: PEST PATROL | Beneficial insects We
Page 60 and 61: PEST PATROL | Beneficial insects Ea
Page 62 and 63: GARDENING COMMUNITY | future feeder
Page 66 and 67: ONLINE GARDENING | The Gardenettes
Page 68 and 69: THE SHED | Build a frog pond POND L
Page 70 and 71: THE SHED | Build a frog pond 5 Cutt
Page 72 and 73: FEATHERED FRIENDS | Breeding tips B
Page 74 and 75: FEATHERED FRIENDS | Breeding tips C
Page 76 and 77: SHORT SHOOTS | Earthy ideas 10 Top
Page 78 and 79: GARDEN CALENDAR | Late spring Thing
Page 81 and 82: GARDEN CALENDAR | Early summer Thin
Page 83 and 84: GARDEN TO TABLE | Seasonal edibles
Page 85 and 86: COOKING WITH JOANNA RUSHTON | Basil
Page 87 and 88: COOKING WITH JOANNA RUSHTON | Capsi
Page 89 and 90: COOKING WITH JOANNA RUSHTON | Baby
Page 91 and 92: COOKING WITH JOANNA RUSHTON | Straw
Page 93 and 94: PRESERVING WITH JOANNA RUSHTON | Ch
Page 95 and 96: PICK OF THE CROP Are weeds taking o
Page 97 and 98: HLD_OFC_FINAL.indd 3 SPRING INTO 20
Page 99 and 100: Australians all let us rejoice THE
Page 101 and 102: Spring is here. Let us look after y
Page 103 and 104: ooks | REVIEWS Cover to cover Leafi
Page 105 and 106: Directory HUNTER DISTILLERY is a ce
Page 107: Directory Buy online at ... Austral
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6. Good Organic Gardening - November-December 2016 AvxHome.in

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