Key take-outs from the project:

• Resourcing co-ordination and management roles enables CFEs to scale up impact from existing models that are informed by community experience
• These roles need long-term support to build on initial collaborations and organisational development E.g. FFB would need a 1.5-2 FTE farm manager role approximately 2 years to effectively maintain reliable production, allowing for seasonal and succession planting
• Physical infrastructure is an ongoing key need which CFEs struggle to resource
• The urban farm model needs more development to effectively supply distributors focused on food security

Accessing culturally relevant fresh produce has been highlighted by food security groups as one of the most important needs of food insecure people but one of the most difficult to fulfil.

Culturally diverse foods are not widely available through the main wholesale market or food relief suppliers such as SecondBite or Foodbank. On top of that the price of fresh food generally rose by over 12% in the year prior due to Russia’s war with Ukraine, COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and interstate floods .

Merri Food Hub collaborated with local Merri-bek growers including Fawkner Food Bowls to produce culturally relevant food as identified by customers as well as sourcing culturally relevant produce from other Melbourne and Victorian producers, resulting in a range of 24 culturally relevant foods available to CALD customers.

The project saw Merri Food Hub’s customer base increase from 90 in June 2022 to 158 in March 2023, demonstrating that there is demand for the range of culturally relevant foods they supply as well as for their engagement with the community.

The Merri Food Hub co-ordinator has indicated that while the customer base has decreased again since the project, due to changes at their physical market location that reduce convenience and accessibility, and less community engagement due to the lack of continued funding for a community engagement role, 6 customers have expressed that they continue to return because of access to culturally relevant foods that MFH have been able to continue to source.

Both Merri Food Hub (MFH) and Fawkner Food Bowls (FFB) are run by the local community, for the community. They have a strong existing relationship, through a hyperlocal food supply chain from propagation, growing, harvesting through to distribution and consumption.

Paying a MFH co-ordinator through the project provided the time, skills, and coordination to increase collaboration with local organisations and engagement to assess community needs, while the FFB farm manager role allowed the co-ordination of production to increase the range of culturally appropriate food available to residents.

The two funded roles were mutually supportive, allowing MFH to meet requests for culturally relevant produce, while also providing a clear sales channel for FFB crops and supporting their production. The two roles worked together to identify availability of relevant produce, what was selling well or in demand, and plan what would be planted and harvested. This coordination supported both enterprises by providing certainty on both ends of the supply chain.

“With the correct people being resourced, Fawkner and north Merri-bek has a need for an urban farm and a hub that can coordinate and distribute produce. There are people here who want to buy the locally grown culturally relevant product and people who need that resource and otherwise have to travel long distances to get it.”

Customer feedback to MFH also highlighted that the project offered food with dignity to people facing food insecurity. MFH provides a subsidised fresh produce box for customers facing food affordability issues - these customers were able to receive produce of equal quality to paying customers rather than ‘wholesaler’s leftovers’, and which they can identify as relevant to their diet, not just ‘what can we do with this’.

The funded roles working together co-ordinated supply chain logistics to transport and store produce, using cold storage organised via the FFB farm manager, and transport organised through MFH volunteers, while enabling well-forecast schedules for produce due to effective crop planning on the production end. The workload of administration and aggregation was reduced by having a dedicated farm manager who could efficiently plan, forecast, and organise production in co-ordination with MFH, while the funded MFH co-ordinator role allowed sufficient administration and community engagement time to increase relevance of produce and overall sales through more consistent engagement with customers.

“What she did was farm management which was more than planting and harvesting, she was doing a crop planning and communications with MFH and discussing what was available and I was able to plan boxes and not have to rely on wholesalers. I could know we had stuff grown here and grown regeneratively, because of the time spent planning and collating the information. Without [the farm manager] it is proving difficult - the farmers’ aren’t as skilled as she was in the forecasting harvest timings and yields and that’s really important to me for planning boxes and markets.”

Key take-outs from the project:

• Collaborations between residents, food hubs, and producers supported local food production / supply and the sharing of expertise and infrastructure.
• The backyard land access model achieved success in engaging local farmers and providing land access and skills to improve production efficiency.
• However, it does not work reliably as a larger scale source of supply. Market gardens are a better model for local production.
• From an infrastructure perspective, FFB's are well placed to scale up production as a market garden to supply food security outlets like MFH, however their business and pricing models need greater development / clarity
• Management of relationships between land owners and farmers took focus way from scaling up production, highlighting the challenges of smaller scale networked production compared to a larger market garden.

The majority of the proposed farming network (4 of 6 farms) are located in Fawkner, which has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in Merri-bek. Access to fresh fruit and vegetables is one of the biggest challenges for people experiencing food insecurity.

5 farms were supported with mentoring, propagation and harvesting skills development, and networking for access to land and distribution channels to sell produce, which enabled the producers in the project grow and distribute 236kgs of locally produced food to FFB and MFH.

This project prioritises local supply and strengthens existing resources within the community. It aimed to help address the issue of reliance on long food supply chains which are vulnerable to disruption causing inconsistent supply and volatile prices. MFH currently sources a proportion of its fresh produce from farmers in regional Victoria. This project increased the amount of local food supplied to the MFH and which can be accessed by the community.

The Growing Farmers co-ordinator facilitated land access relationships for local farmers to access land locally via agreements with landholders on residential land, and supported producers and landholders to address issues that arose during the relationship to ensure productive relationships.

Producers were provided with a process and tools for planning crops, propagation and seedlings, and efficient harvesting and packing, addressing skills gaps identified by a co-design process, and supported to meet the crop requirements co-ordinated with FFB and MFH.

This helped to increase the efficiency and capacity of local producers to supply local food needs, using local resources through a short supply chain.

58 crops were provided from supported producers to Merri-bek distributors and customers. Growing Farmers’ producers successfully networked into distribution, mentoring and infrastructure networks with FFB and MFH, and two farms still currently supply Merri Food Hub following the end of the project.

Growing Farmers coordinated the sharing of a cool room with FFB to facilitate aggregation and distribution of supported local producers’ product and FFB produce for distribution through Merri Food Hub - a key infrastructural point for the networked short supply chain.