Kerbside farming

There is strong evidence demonstrating the links between chronic disease and lifestyles characterised by car-dominated transport, reduced opportunities for exercise, increased fast food availability and lack of social connection. The built environment comprises physical design patterns of land use, and the transport system; each influencing: physical activity opportunities, healthy food access and opportunities for social and community interactions. Therefore, the built environment has a key role to play in supporting human health as part of everyday living (NSW Health 2015). Regarding to healthy food access, kerbside farms or edible street gardens are a very interesting alternative to be considered.

Firstly, in physical and economic terms, they are easy to implement and no special gardening abilities are needed. In Sydney, when they were first implemented, some councils were reluctant about this initiative, but nowadays, most of them have shown a proactive response creating policy for their implementation, like for example, the City of Sydney Community Garden Policy. Secondly, they provide local healthy food, free from pesticides or other type of pollution. Access to it is easy since most of the time you can have them in front of the entrance door of your house. We have to keep in mind that about one-third of the average Australian resident’s ecological footprint is based on the production and transportation of their food. So when growing our own food we can reduce our impact on the planet. Thirdly, street edible gardens meet different well-being needs like physical activity and social interaction which of course may be associated with good mental health.

I think that the social interaction with a sense of community is one of he best features of street edible gardens, at least, several initiatives have demonstrated the positive effects they have. Some of these projects across Australia are:

• Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network.

• Sustainable Chippendale.

• Ultimo community garden.

To sum up, it would be gratifying to see more of this gardens through all the city and in different countries. If we want to make changes, we as citizens have to take the initiative and not always wait for the authorities to do everything. Collaborative work including all stakeholders will lead us to achieve sustainability.