EDIBLE ESTATES

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (15:46): I rise today to speak about edible estates. This is a concept or program that has arisen out of the United States to make use of front lawns for the purpose of growing vegetables. I have eaten vegetables, but I do not eat as many as I should and I am a negligent gardener, so I do not propose to lead the way in this regard. The use of vast swathes of lawn, particularly in the front yard, is a rather anomalous thing to do, particularly with our climate and the lack of sufficient water resources with which we are currently grappling.

The lawn as we know it has its roots in England and English society, and it spread throughout the areas that were colonised, including the United States and Australia. The cultivation of a patch of lawn, particularly out the front of your house, was a symbol of the wealth you enjoy. You were able to demonstrate that you were so well off and had so much land that you did not even have to use productive and fertile land for the growing of food but could use it for purely an ornamental purpose. Over time it has become an integral part of our culture, particularly in Australia where people are very attached to the quarter acre block and the idea of having significant lawn spaces.

The edible estates movement's goal is to use that space more productively, a goal that makes a lot of sense, particularly in Australia where we do not have the climate and rainfall enjoyed in Europe where these lawns began. Fritz Haeg is the founder of this group known as edible estates, and he wrote a book called Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn from Metropolis Books. He looks at the historical context and says that, by the end of World War Two, over 80 per cent of American households were actually growing some of their own food, but when the strictures and rations imposed by war time ended that activity subsided and we went back to having an expanse of lawn.

I am not suggesting that all lawn should be ditched and turned into vegetable gardens, but the edible estates program is designed to assist and enable people to set up productive and edible organic gardens in their front yards. There are movements in Australia that look at similar proposals. If you go into your average suburb, particularly some of the newer housing developments that are designed with large lawn spaces, and get out your shovel, dig up your front yard and start planting carrots, you may find people being rather aggrieved and thinking that you are ruining the streetscape.

This project is proposing to take those front lawns and turn them into a semi-public area and, while they are still retained by the owners, they are used for a public purpose, namely, the organic growing of vegetables, herbs or other foodstuffs, and so on, which means the lawns go from being a purely decorative area, which requires chemical treatments to keep them running, to a productive area. This obviously has advantages, because it means that more food is being produced, and that is of assistance for the people who are doing it, and it means that land is being used more productively.

We know that there is a looming shortage of farmland and land available for cultivation across the world. The expansion of urban boundaries, the growth of golf courses and other land-intensive hobbies has meant that less fertile land is available for cultivation, and that is a problem—perhaps not so much in Australia but, certainly, it is becoming a problem across the world. So, the idea of using front lawn spaces to grow food is one that would address that problem.

The other advantage it has is that it becomes a tool for social networking, because what tends to happen is that people spend a bit of time in the morning, or perhaps after work at night, working on their front garden, as are other people in the community, and it becomes an opportunity for social interaction as well.