FOOD FUTURES

THE URGENT NEED FOR CHANGE

There is increasing awareness that Australia has a growing food security problem. The Federal Government’s recent Feeding Australia discussion paper outlines systemic issues such as supply chain resilience, productivity, and how the cost of living crisis is creating food poverty in low income and remote households. The Sydney Resilience Strategy echoes these concerns. 

Government processes to understand underlying drivers, map stakeholders’ needs and identify innovation seek to inform sound policy. Methods such as Mission-Oriented Innovation seek similar outcomes, while following a highly participatory, action-oriented, place-based process that involves prototyping the most fruitful solutions with the community of stakeholders. Regen Sydney is developing a program that uses methods such as these to co-create local pathways to food security in Sydney.

We have been convening a local food network through our Food Chats series, which has allowed us to sense the system, and this informs our future work in food. The purpose of the program is to provide a collaboration platform for those who live, breathe and dream about the future of food. Through a phased process, designed to create coherence, we seek to find the most fertile ideas, and provide a scaffold so they can be prototyped and brought to life in the relevant government, commercial and community settings.

OUR threefold MISSION

We seek to enable >5% of Sydneysiders participating in a more regenerative food system by 2030. Our aim is simple: help Sydney shift from an extractive food system to a regenerative one – a food system that restores soil, strengthens communities, and keeps us all healthy. We’re building a mission-led smorgasbord of action through our threefold strategy.

ENGAGEMENT

Bringing people together – communities, councils, growers, innovators and everyday eaters – to build a shared vision for a regenerative food future.

  • Convening ‘Regen Food Chats’

  • Participating in community gatherings

  • Hosting a Food Futures Network that sparks connection, knowledge-sharing and collaboration

DEMONSTRATORS

Prototyping what good looks like through real-world demonstrations.

  • Activating urban farms

  • Promoting co-operatives and share-farming models

  • “Growing the Growers” pathways

  • Data mapping and baselining that help us better understand and define a more regenerative food system

ADVOCACY

Supporting the positive conditions for change. 

  • Contributing to local food security strategies

  • Participating in forums that aim to shift food policy to advocate for more space for local growing, fairer access to land, and better food distribution pathways.

  • Advocating for more community-led spaces within the city, to grow food, value-add and develop distribution pathways

CROSS-SECTOR ENGAGEMENT