Sustainable food advocates are calling for the amount of locally grown produce supplied to Brisbane to increase by 30% by the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games to strengthen the city’s “fragile” supply chains.
But first, they have to figure out how much of Brisbane’s food is currently grown locally.
The “moonshot” goal will be discussed at the inaugural south-east Queensland food summit later this month.
Emma-Kate Rose, the event organiser and director of the Food Connect Foundation, said the target is aimed at addressing a laundry list of systemic issues threatening the reliability of national food distribution system, including increasing extreme weather events which can cut off elongated supply lines.
“Our question is, how do we create a more resilient food system in the long term?” Rose said. “We’re using the Olympics as a way to catalyse that conservation.”
Sourcing food locally reduces transportation costs and emissions, makes for fresher and more nutritious food, and means supply chains are shorter and less vulnerable to shocks like natural disasters or pandemics.
Like Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane’s peri-urban fringes contain highly productive agricultural land suitable for intensive cropping and horticulture.
These regions historically produced much of the food consumed in the cities. But figuring out how much food they produce now – or where the produce ends up – is “near impossible”, Rose said.
“There’s different numbers floating around depending on who you talk to, but we don’t have that baseline,” she said.
Even if a baseline is determined, meeting the ambitious goal will be an uphill battle.
A 2016 report by Foodprint Melbourne estimated that the Melbourne food bowl had the capacity to produce 41% of the city’s total food needs. But that land is shrinking. By 2040, the report predicted, the fertile plains would produce just 18% of the city’s food needs as prime agricultural land is consumed by the construction of sprawling housing estates.
“It’s very concerning, there’s good reasons why we want to be growing food around cities in the future,” the report’s lead author, Dr Rachel Carey, said.
Sydney is faring even worse. Another study found the farmland remaining around the city is only capable of meeting 20% of the city’s overall food needs, with more losses expected if urban sprawl continues unabated. “Sydney is kind of where Melbourne could be heading if we don’t change our policies,” Carey said.
Last year, a New South Wales inquiry into food production and supply found productive agricultural land in peri-urban areas was under increasing threat from development.
A federal inquiry had similar findings, recommending the protection of agricultural land from urban sprawl. It recommended the government ascertain the optimal location of food distribution centres and develop a national food supply chain map to better understand the journey of food from paddock to plate.
Associate Prof Andrea Gaynor, an environmental historian from the University of Western Australia, said that while there are benefits to locally-grown food, it can still be vulnerable to supply chain shocks.
“I think the idea of bringing agriculture closer to the city is about making it smaller scale, adaptive and community focused agriculture,” she said. “That gives children the chance to see how food can be grown, for urban wastes to be used, it can encourage circular economy type behaviours and reduce waste.”
Gaynor said colonial Australia had a long history of growing fruit and vegetable in or near cities, but after the second world war, those habits began to deteriorate as large-scale commercial horticulture operations were developed and cities expanded.
A report from a food supply inquiry in Victoria, focused on the impact of population growth on the state’s food supply, is due in November.
