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From BYO to Grow Your Own at TEDxSydney

Inga Ting

Growing interest … Justine Williams and her children, Asher, 5, and Jada, 7.
Growing interest … Justine Williams and her children, Asher, 5, and Jada, 7.Edwina Pickles

IT BEGAN WITH A COUPLE OF POTS of tomato, basil and parsley. Seven years later, Justine Williams' backyard in Drummoyne is a sprawling haven for more than 100 varieties of edible plant, including some 25 dwarf fruit trees and 30 square metres of raised vegetable beds. She also has fish and a native beehive.

''I grew up in northern NSW on a farm and I thought it's really important for children to have a connection to nature,'' Williams says. ''If they don't have that connection, how will they have empathy or feeling or caring for the Earth?''

Williams and her children, Jada, 7, and Asher, 5, are among more than 2000 growers and foragers taking part in Grow It Local for TEDxSydney, an event celebrating locally grown food sourced through ''crowd-farming''. Just as crowd-sourcing invites a large number of people to contribute to a project or cause, Grow It Local's crowd-farming initiative invites people to grow food to be served at the TEDxSydney event on May 4.

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Williams is hoping to show other city dwellers that it is possible to grow food in an urban environment.

''I think a lot of people have that idea that it can only be grown out in the country in large open spaces,'' she says.

TEDxSydney food curator Jill Dupleix says the event taps into a rapidly expanding grassroots movement that recognises the critical role of food in politics, economics and security.

''This is something I really believe in - that a bunch of troublemakers who question the status quo can change things,'' she says. ''And what is more fundamental and needs more change than the current food system?

''Taking the production and sourcing for food into our own hands - it's people power.''

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But for the urban food revolution to gain momentum, more people need to understand and appreciate how much effort goes into food production, Grow It Local's Jess Miller says.

''The point of the day is to make the farmers and the growers the heroes,'' she says.

The project does this by asking urban folk to grow food in their backyards and balconies as part of the Grow It Local community.

''[The organisers] are all great big greenies at heart but have learnt over time that it doesn't really work to scare people about climate change or talk about food security,'' Miller says.

''What works better is to give people an opportunity to come together as a community and do something fun.''

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And what could be more fun than sharing the fruits of your labour with 2200 TEDxSydney attendees? Perhaps just one thing: having a celebrity chef cook it up.

''Closer to the event, produce will be transported to ARIA Catering at the Opera House, where chefs [Matt Moran and Simon Sandall] will prepare it and serve it on the day,'' Miller says.

Among the larger producers contributing to the event is Mudgee's Milkwood Permaculture, a farm that teaches skills in market gardening, permaculture and small animal farming.

''In Australia there's a growing interest in people getting seriously involved in farming,'' Milkwood farm manager Kirsten Bradley says. ''They're discovering that there are lots of ways to be small and ethical and productive and profitable.''

Associate professor Robyn Alder from the University of Sydney says community-based initiatives like Grow It Local are a “wonderful opportunity for people to think about where their food comes from … and engage with what keeps us alive”.

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Professor Alder has been working to promote food security in African and Asia for more than 20 years.

“The further people are from being able to produce their own food, the more susceptible they are to increases in food prices,” she says.

“With more than 50 per cent of people living in cities today, it’s even more important that people are able to provide their own food.”

See growitlocal.com.au.

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