Community Garden Stall at Bendigo Community Farmers Market
Lachie
Proposal for community gardens stall at bendigo community farmers market.
A stall is set up sourcing food grown at local community gardens and associated home gardens. Produce is priced according to current market value for a food producer selling to a food outlet. There is a transparent mark up to make the project financially sustainable, remunerate project workers according to retail award rates and to maintain a float for running costs. Funds raised go back to community gardens in order to assist with fundraising and to increase the capacity of the community gardens themselves or the community group which manages the garden. These funds are managed by individual community groups in the same way that a farmer manages their own money after being paid for produce. Equipment, seed and some other physical assets may be purchased by collectively by the project to improve value and accountability then given to the food source community. A fund is also created to promote development in the wider community food network which could be used to assist in the initial stages of new community food projects such as new community gardens, school kitchen gardens, community kitchens, social enterprises around food preparation, ‘permablitz’ groups and other urban food projects related to growing, sourcing, sharing and cooking. This fund is managed by the Bendigo Sustainability Group.
A ‘Natures Gift Card’ system is used to fairly reward community garden participants for their time and efforts in harvesting and producing the food which is to be used for the stall. The cards would resemble a coffee shop loyalty punch card with each square representing a dollar value. An agreed value of cards will be donated to the Bendigo Food Bank and participating social welfare organisations to be given to individuals and families who are identified as lacking adequate access to nutritious food. This value will be deducted from the mark up on the produce. Clients of social welfare organisations or members of community gardens who wish to gain work experience will be able to work at the stall or in the logistics of transporting food from garden to market and liaising with gardens as ‘project workers’. This work will be remunerated fairly. People who have received gift cards through a welfare organisation would not be distinguishable from other gift card holders by the general public or by stall workers, resulting in access in a non stigmatising way within a normalised shopping experience. They would also be presented with avenues to participate in the growing, sourcing, sharing and cooking of the food which they could take up when they are able or desire.
A short photocopied recipe book and stall newsletter will be produced and sold at the stall or given freely to community garden participants, paid Bendigo Sustainability Group members or with the donated gift cards. The recipe book will contain simple, nutritious, seasonal recipes using ingredients which have been grown locally and would contain short explanations of the health benefits of particular foods and general nutritional health concepts. Participants and market shoppers will be encouraged to contribute to the recipe book. A criteria of affordable, nutritious and delicious may be used. The recipe book would also contain contact information for local community gardens and community garden news.
Shoppers at the community farmers market are encouraged to donate produce they have grown at home via their local community garden or community food group. Maintaining an agreed standard of produce will be achieved by asking participants to donate through a food group. This will also improve community engagement with urban food systems. Small amounts of produce may be donated directly on the day in exchange for a ‘Natures Gift Card’ if the person donating the produce is the grower and has maintained the agreed standard, eg. not using any risky soil additives and chemicals.
This project aims to created incentives for community food projects to develop and participate in the real economy using social enterprise principles and would use the principles of the grow, source, share cook model developed in Bendigo.
Partnerships with specific community and school gardens, welfare organisations, garden supply businesses and the bendigo food bank will need to be formalised.
Guidelines will need to be developed to enable smaller neighbourhood shared food growing groups to participate. Guidelines may be developed over time to assist community gardens to implement systems to ensure food for their original community is not being taken up by this project. Gardens may raise funds to develop specific plots especially for this project. Simple guidelines on food quality will be developed for food groups eg. no kitty litter has been used in the compost, no plastic has been burnt in the fireplace where coal is made as a soil additive, has this food been sprayed with insecticide and if so how recently and was it washed.
A commitment from a small number of project worker volunteers will be sought for the role of collating the newsletter, managing the accounts, valuing the produce, ensuring food safety, staffing the stall and co-ordinating the transport of food from community gardens.
A mechanism of enabling community garden participants to be paid in cash may be developed to remunerate participants fairly in some instances.
A mechanism for purchasing gardening equipment and supplies will be formalised. A suitable marquee, table, till box and trailer will be purchased with the initial funding. An amount of physical assets such as garden tools, materials to build propagation sheds, raised beds, wicking beds and so on will be included in the initial grant proposal.