Michael Pollan reminds us that, “The inspiration for organic was to find a way to feed ourselves more in keeping with the logic of nature, to build a food system that looked more like an ecosystem that would draw its fertility and energy from the sun. To feed ourselves otherwise was “unsustainable,” a word that’s been so abused we’re apt to forget what it very specifically means: Sooner or later it must collapse.”

One of the great challenges for Australians over the next years and decades will be feeding ourselves, and doing it sustainably — ie. in a way that doesn’t collapse. Home gardening offers all the benefits of reduced food miles, no packaging, healthier fresher food, food security, low level excercise and the joy of gardening. But most importantly it can be sustainable and soil improving in a way broad scale industrial monocultures simply are not. The biointensive agriculture methods developed by John Jeavons and his forebears are one of the best ways of getting lots of production out of suburban sized food plots and small market gardens. Here’s a great story about one of its proponents in the US. To quote, “according to Dr. Amen, a family of four can be fed on a quarter-acre lot or a 30×30-foot plot, with enough space to rotate the crops. What makes it work are the techniques of biointensive gardening, which produce maximum yields on a minimum of land while leaving the soil better off.”

The garden beds where I’ve been staying in Hepburn are managed in a biointensive inspired method, producing all the fresh vegetables and potatoes for about four people on about a quarter acre. (Dr. Amen is refering I presume to an empty quarter acre block.) Each Australian suburban household has more like one tenth of an acre available on their house block as growing space. Directing roof and path water, we can make this smaller space a highly productive food gardens. Even in this smaller space we can provide for all of our fresh vegetable needs as long as there is good light. But the availability of this space is shrinking as documented by the Urban Research Program at Griffith University in Prof. Tony Hall’s paper, ‘Where Have All the Gardens Gone? An Investigation into the Disappearance of Backyards in the Newer Australian Suburb‘ (PDF). Hall concludes:

Within the past 10 years private amenity space has largely disappeared from the rear of new suburban houses in Australia. This is characterised by an increase in plot coverage from 30-40% to 50-60% or even more. The change appears both permanent and uniform… It appears to be confined to Australia, in other parts of the world where back gardens have been standard features, North America, New Zealand, Northwest Europe, this trend is not to be found. The outer suburban landscape in Australia has ceased to be one of large gardens with trees. Such landscapes are now confined to the inner suburbs. This trend represents a loss that has serious ecological implications. It also raises important questions about lifestyles changing for the worse, a trend rendered permanent by the changes to the housing stock.

Are these changes permanent? I’m more hopeful, of a sort. In an energy descent future these outer-suburban ‘estates’, with no public transport infrastructure, large cheaply-built and difficult-to-maintain housing, with minimal growing area, may become hugely devalued. Those communities which remain after the forclosures may scavenge materials from and eventually knock down many of the houses, using the materials for repairs, and growing food on the resulting space. The image on the left comes from a BBC story documenting the vandalism of 1000s of abandoned houses in Cleveland, part of the current US housing market crunch. History is full of examples of people reclaiming unused land (and during WW2, golf courses) for food production in times of hardship, and it’s going to happen again.

As for the relatively sustainable older suburbs, a couple of weeks ago I did a quick survey of ratio of food producing trees versus ornamentals in the front yards and public areas of Ringwood — one of the older suburbs. The ratio was roughly 1:30.

In general we can say that:

• the challenges for urban food production are gaining (not just reduced open space, but climate change and water restrictions, loss of gardening skill base, and longer work hours so less time for gardening)
• and yet the opportunities remain huge (huge existing resources being dedicated to lawns and ornamental plants)
• and the pressure is building (drought affecting crops and food prices globally, global financial recession looming, peak oil, China entering the global food market and so on).