How to Feed a City

Urban Agriculture and Urban Food Accessibility

Today, over half of the world's population lives in cities. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to nearly 70 percent.

As this is happening, multiple challenges are coalescing around our urban food environments: For many of us, the food that is healthy is rarely the same food that is affordable and easily accessible. Even when they are within our means, making wise food choices is made difficult by the barrage of marketing for ultra-processed foods that we face on the daily. On top of this, the impacts of the climate crisis pose multiple threats to our food system and the resources on which it depends.

With these factors in mind, it's important to ask the question: How can we feed our cities well?

In this informal networking event, we bring together people who are interested in answering this question in practice. Presentations by our panel of speakers will be accompanied by drinks and a chance to network, to give guests the opportunity to mingle and exchange ideas.

Slots for this event are limited and registration is required.

Speakers

Conor Hickey, Collingwood Children's Farm

Conor Hickey is the General Manager at Collingwood Children’s Farm – Her background is Inclusive Education through Community Connections with a passion for hands-on learning in nature. Established in 1979 the Collingwood Children's Farm is a not-for-profit community resource providing country experiences for city people.

Julia Laidlaw, Farmer Incubator and Sporadical City Mushrooms

Julia lives in Melbourne with her two top kids and has volunteered her time and skills with the fantastic Farmer Incubator team for about 3 years. She has a family farming background and has worked with many great people on fair food research, ag projects and farming ventures around in Australia, Vanuatu and Latin America and is generally happier if she is outside.

In 2018 Julia founded Sporadical City Mushrooms, an urban mushroom farm that started in a carport in Carlton and is now based at Alphington in Melbourne.

Dr. Charlie Brennan, Garden Juju Collective

Charlie has for 30+ years been weaving together consulting, project design and management, research, teaching and hands-on work. He offers skills in ecological landscaping, Permaculture, conservation, edible streetscapes design, forest regeneration, ecopsychology and supporting traditional ecological knowledges. Charlie completed his Doctorate in Social Ecology at Western Sydney University in 201 and has lectured in ethics and sense of place and worked as a facilitator for a range of conservation and sustainability alliances. For more information visit charliebrennan.info

Charlie, Bridget O’Brien and the Garden Juju Collective team travel the world visiting projects, offering design, consultation and a range of innovative workshops. He is the co-creative developer of Adapt, the creative process game.

Moderator: Nichole Foster, Melbourne Food Hub

Nichole is a driven and knowledgable champion of food justice. Having joined Sustain from Austin, Texas, where she coordinated numerous hunger relief events, she has overseen the Grow/ Source / Eat food distribution program as well as food relief efforts at the Melbourne Food Hub as Project Manager. Since her involvement, Grow / Source / Eat has grown from 9 subscribers to around 100, distributing over 12 tonnes of locally sourced, sustainable produce to households in Melbourne each week.