Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

the north and the west, where it won’t have such a big impact on farming [farmer,Melbourne].A current peri-urban farmer appeared to have lost hope and saw urban expansion asinevitable:It’s silly for anyone to try to stop urban growth…The infrastructure’s there, andthey’ve got to build continually to expand the city…That’s a given, you can’t reallystop that [Market gardener, Melbourne].This concern is justifiable given the current school of thought within state governments:They [politicians and senior bureaucrats] place zero importance [on peri-urbanand urban agriculture]. It’s totally disregarded…That’s a reflection of a marketorientation that also applies across Victoria. The focus, and the concern, is withreturns to the private sector…for years, the ‘dry economists’ in [the] policy groupshave only ever wanted to include statements which say that ‘the marketdetermines the land uses’. It wasn’t written, but it was the practice. You can tracethat to ideology. It’s clearly a conservative ideology…we now have a situation inVictoria, and the same is true across Australia, in which there are less and lessclearly stated policies and regulations, and decisions are taken on theassumption that if you don’t allow a particular development to go ahead, you’repreventing economic development, job creation and so on. [State governmentemployee, Melbourne].Additionally, the impact of increasing foreign acquisition and ownership ofagricultural land was also raised by some growers, as a threat and a barrier to thefurther expansion of urban and peri-urban agriculture:I think it needs addressing that overseas interests are buying up huge chunks ofland in Australia. I know they can't take it anywhere, but they are certainlysecuring their future agricultural industries for their own countries. I certainly seethis as detrimental to our future generations [Market gardener, Melbourne].Another interviewee elaborated on the impact that foreign acquisition of farms is havingon Melbourne’s periphery:There is a gulf between the discourse of trade-based food security which is whatthe DPI and the Federal government work with; and community food securitywhich we work with. But even at the macro level, there’s a not a greatunderstanding because the Federal government is allowing the Chinese to comein and buy all our best agricultural land, which in Australia is in short supply…TheFederal government is allowing other countries to come in and buy our bestagricultural land, on the edge of Melbourne, so they can export food to their ownpeople. Not only that, but the [state] government is allowing the Green Wedgearound Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane… allowing all that lovely fertile land tobe planted with cement. The government doesn’t get it! [Independent researcher,Melbourne].Interviewees also pointed to the issue of corporate domination of the food system, andits impact on farmers, suppliers and consumers. The so called ‘cost-price squeeze’ onfarmers was mentioned numerous times as a matter of concern, which makes farmingunviable, especially for smaller operators, and impacts on the long term viability of peri-Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 136