Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change - weADAPT

coast without any problems whatsoever, if we just had some developers saying,‘Well, I've got 2,000 square metres here and I'm not going to do anything with itfor 12 months. Come and garden it.’ A; it's going to save them money to maintainit and B; people get a lot of benefit out of it. Space is there and even if it was onlyused for 12 months, it's still worth the time put in, to get in there and do thegardens [Micro farmer, Gold Coast].A proposed solution to facilitate the usage of private lands on a mutually beneficialbasis is through the temporary donation of a piece of land to a community organisation,something that Gold Coast permaculture is also starting to pursue:In order to start locking away some of this private land, we are trying to aim forDGR [deductible gift recipient] status, so we can go to these corporations whoare not going to use these lands for years, and we can say ‘how about you take atax break by donating that to us’ [Micro farmer, Gold Coast].Lastly, funding was always on the agenda of interviewees as a major barrier to thedevelopment and expansion of urban agriculture, in particular to the creation andmanagement of community gardens. To reduce this financial burden on localgovernment, the approach taken by Gold Coast Permaculture is worthy of widerconsideration: in addition to community garden beds, micro-enterprises generateenough funds through the sale of vegetables, honey and compost to keep the wholesite solvent, without the need for subsidies from the Council.We are not reliant on the council so much. If we can get a grant, that's great. Itmeans, okay, we can buy this and that - we can buy some more hives. [But theimportant thing is that] we understand that the council has to identify and cutcosts to put the budget in line, and we think that we can identify savings, inparticular through diverting waste streams, so that means that system can get upand running again [Micro farmer, Gold Coast].A major obstacle for many community gardens in Australia is that in most localgovernment areas community gardens are not allowed to sell any of their produce,which significantly impedes their economic viability and independence. A simplesolution would see Councils allowing community gardens to sell some of their producefor fund raising purposes.The other thing is that you cannot sell anything from community gardens so youare instantly keeping it on the tip, you know, so if you make them independentyou allow them to rent their space out, to rent their shed out to make 20 dollars.You don’t need much to run a community garden, make it ok for them to sell plantor excess produce. Simple! [Community gardener, Gold Coast].Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change 146