TROPO's Organic Info Library

Lismore Challenge City Farm

Showing the way with Community Supported Agriculture.

At Challenge City Farm, in the residential area of East Lismore on a half hectare block, a remarkable transformation is taking place. Walking on to the block you are struck by the great profusion and variety of food plants. Vines smother the boundary fence and pumpkin vines and ground covers blanket the perimeter. Splashes of colour are created by the multi-coloured chillis. Running down the block is row upon row of raised, boxed vegetable beds, intensively planted with a mixture of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. At the western end of the site is a good size dam for irrigation and there is an extensive drainage system. Wheelchair access around the site is good. The overall impression is of a well-designed and very attractive food garden. The middle of the site is not planted out but awaits funding for the building of a greenhouse, which will incorporate an aquaculture system and henhouse, and a windpowered irrigation and water filtration system.

The achievement is particularly significant because 18 months ago the site was a pug soil quagmire in which little grew. TROPO members would remember it as the TOPCO site. The shed is now being used for worm farming and the surrounding land is a fully functioning organic food garden producing about 15 boxes of vegetables a week for sale.

The basic aim of the project, Andrew Bodlovich explained, is to demonstrate that approaches like Permaculture and sustainable agriculture can be commercially viable and suitable for mainstream agriculture. City Farm was the idea of Stephen Gill and John Corcoran of Lismore Challenge who wanted to set up an agriculture project to provide training and employment for people with disabilities. They became excited about the ideas of sustainability and Permaculture. They couldn't find people doing it in a commercially viable manner and so decided a project needed to be set up for this purpose.

The vegetables are sold through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a scheme based on a number of models of CSA in mid-east USA which arose out of community concerns about land degradation and food quality amongst other things. The growers learn from the community what they want grown and negotiate prices for the produce grown. The capital the growers need comes from the community not the banks. At City Farm the price of the vegetables has been calculated on an average of the fluctuating retail market prices, so prices are stable. This assists both customers and the farm. City Farm knows what budget it has available and has an extra margin to spend on sustainable practices because it sells produce at predetermined prices directly to its customers.

The number of subscribers will have increased to 120 by the end of the year as there is a long waiting list and the demonstration farm should be under full production by then, producing about 30 to 40 boxes of vegetables a week, supplemented by the produce from satellite farms out of Lismore. Thus, City Farm will act as co-ordinator for several other small organic growers. These growers, maintaining the same high organic standards as City Farm, would work cooperatively to provide for the CSA subscribers and in return would receive a fair and reliable price for their produce. The Farm is also now selling open-pollinated, non-hybrid, traditional variety seedlings in bulk quantities to commercial growers.

The plan for the site is to have 1/3 with vegetable beds, 1/3 with perennial trees and ground covers and 1/3 with pathways, greenhouse, a dam and drainage. It will be a very intensive site with an integrated system developed in the greenhouse. It will be a solar structure with fish tanks, seedlings grown on top of the tanks and a chook house. Fresh water aquaculture will be sustainable, the worm farm providing food. Organic waste from Lismore CBD will be taken through the worm farm, which in return will provide high protein food for fish and chooks. Water supply is augmented by collection of rainwater off the roofs of neighbouring houses, which is filtered and the nutrients used.

Funding to date has been provided through the sponsership of Lismore Challenge and corporate sponsership. Lismore Challenge has subsidised the wages of two supervisors Andrew Bodlovich, the Project Co-ordinator and Kevin ( Hogan) Gleeson, the Works Supervisor. The design team consists of Andrew, Hogan, architect Eddie Houghton-Ward who planned the site and whose work here is finished and Maggie Roden, working in the design office, who is a Permaculture designer and offers architectural drafting for alternative-style projects. The production team is made up of Sandy Tiffen, doing promotional and desk-top publishing work, formerly a bio-dynamic farmer with extensive involvement in the conservation movement, Neil Morrison, Nursery Manager, employed under Jobskills and working towards full-time employment, and four New Work Opportunities workers. Two Lismore Challenge clients with support needs are employed, one full-time throughout the project and the other recently employed part-time. The team members stress that they all work co-operatively and there is no rigid delineation of tasks.

Hogan talked about the philosophy behind community farming. Earlier this century in small rural communities in Australia, there was a sense of mutual dependence and support between farmers and townspeople. The community valued and relied on the food grown locally and offered a fair price for this produce which enabled small-scale growers to make a living. Then commodity prices dropped and so did the viability of these small growers.

Australia is basically an urban culture with a fear and disgust of farms, asserts Hogan. Australians like to buy cheap vegies and applaud prices being kept low. However, this is at the expense of our children and their children. Instead of caring for our thin, fragile soils we are exhausting them by poor farming practices and over-planting in order to make a living. Rural communities are now falling apart.

Urban people need to take responsibility for the food they are eating. We are mining our farms and selling vast quantities of grain etc far too cheaply. In countries like France, communities value and take interest in what their farmers produce and support them by a preparedness to pay subsidies to maintain a fair return, enabling the farmers to make a reasonable living and continue to provide high quality food. Community Supported Agriculture provides a way to achieve this responsibility for food production and care for the environment.

Andrew considers an important practical aspect is the way we distribute food. In the conventional system a product may be sustainable at the farm gate, say organically grown carrots, but may have to travel to Sydney Melbourne etc Tbefore they return to a shop in Lismore. Food may have travelled halfway around Australia before it arrives on someone's table. So production may be sustainable but marketing and distribution is not.

Another advantage of placing production right beside the market is that direct marketing is possible. By dealing directly with the customers, food is on their tables within hours of picking, so it is fresh and healthy and it has been delivered to them in an environmentally sustainable way. The central marketing system tends to discourage diversity of production. It says to growers, grow on a big scale and grow a small variety. It is hard to be diverse as there is no point in sending relatively small quantities of a variety of vegetables to the Brisbane market, as it will not bring a reasonable return. This is why you don't see many commercially viable permaculture farms. Diverse production has to be linked in with a marketing system that can handle diverse production. Subscription farming or community supported agriculture fits in beautifully with diverse production.

The Northern Rivers district is an incredibly abundant area in terms of soil, water, sunshine etc, yet we don't feed ourselves. Over 70% of the food eaten in our region is brought from outside. We do export macadamias and other products, but there is a great deal of good land available that we are not using to feed ourselves with. There is a big potential market but not enough suitable avenues of distribution. Apart from a few marketing co-ops and local organic shops, there is no connection between grower and consumer. City Farm employs local people and an expansion of local food production would further assist our unemployment problem.

Andrew emphasises that the few outlets for the sale of local organic food and City Farm's efforts are just part of the answer. While many people are still not aware of the damage to the environment and to their own health by eating food that has travelled around the country for days and sat in cold rooms etc, there are increasing numbers of people who want high quality fresh food that has been produced and delivered to them in a way that is environmentally sustainable.

He estimates that they are probably about half-way through setting the site up. The main vegetable area is up and running. Most of the pathways and sub-surface drainage is set up. Partially completed is the irrigation water and area for growing water chestnuts and water filtration system. By Spring it is hoped that all works will be completed to create the public facility. City Farm will provide access to schools, farmers and gardeners, eco-tourists, and the general public interested in a sustainable future.

The Lismore Challenge City Farm is offering us a project which can demonstrate to the whole community a viable aproach to involving us all more closely in our food production, getting people back on the land , providing worthwhile employment for the unemployed and those with disabilities and assisting the rural community. It offers an integrated approach to solving serious problems related to pollution of our environment and the need for sustainable farming and environmental practices.

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