Terrific discussion this morning with David Gregor from Bunya. Part of the discussion was about community farms. David lived in Germany for a while and is very enthusiastic about their model of community farms.
Right throughout Germany they have community vegetable plots where you lease a site to grow your own vegetables something along the lines of community gardens.
But they also have cooperative farms operated by a group of people who lease the farm and produce crops to sell in the village. These would typically be 80-100 acre properties.
Around SE QLD our farming units were subdivided in the 1950s-60s into family farming units which are no longer economical to operate. There isn’t enough government action to support amalgamating these into larger economic units so they drop out of production.
Do we have a last chance to retain some of the farms in The Grove? It may well be too late but if there is any chance this is the time to explore it.
I’d love a share in a cow or to own a cow that is agisted on a local farm. Having a share in a local farm (?rented share) would be wonderful.
With modern innovative food production methods there would be great opportunities to try out things locally and work with local food outlets to market truly locally grown food and build local food security.
Peter suggests that what we should be looking at immediately are the Brisbane City Council planning (investigation areas) especially in Upper Kedron to find out what is being planned for all the farming land there.
Would you be interested in working on this project?