Green Connect's Rod Logan calls for council to help grow community garden network

Nearly all the fruit and vegetables consumed in the Illawarra are trucked in via large distributions centres from rural NSW and interstate, straight to our major supermarkets. We grow very little fresh produce locally, certainly not enough to supply the places where most people shop.

Rod Logan is an experienced grower and local food systems advocate. Rod is the market garden co-ordinator at Green Connect and has been instrumental in the establishment of Woonona Community Garden (WCG) in 2021 and its ongoing management. He and the rest of the volunteers at WCG practise some of the sustainable principles that Rod has employed after years of trial and error and learning from other growers. Rod would like to see a stronger network of community gardens in the Illawarra.

“So many people want to do stuff like this [grow their own food] but don’t know where to start," he said. "It took the group five years for the WCG to come to fruition, including negotiations with Wollongong Council for a suitable site, the conditions of its use and to make happen something as simple as planting some vegetables and fruit trees on public land."

Rod talks about the garden being an example of a “small-scale sustainable food system” and extols the social, economic and climate benefits. He talks about a "whole of landscape" approach to growing. Rod has had a long association with Southern Rivers Landcare, the movement that actively restores, enhances and protects the natural environment, including our agricultural land.

Rod is concerned that Wollongong City Council makes no mention of sustainable food systems as part of its climate action planning.

“Green Connect, Dapto Community Farm and Mullet Creek [also at Dapto] are the main growers of local food in Wollongong, but they are there by ‘accident’," he said.

"Council needs to make local food systems a priority and identify suitable land for a network of community gardens and commercial agriculture.

"The amount of food coming into Wollongong is enormous and none of it is grown here and that is not sustainable with changing climate and inequitable access to healthy food.”

There is hope. People like Rod and other growers and advocates will continue to fight for sustainable local food systems.

Professor Karen Charlton from the University of Wollongong is leading a team to develop a “whole-of-food system approach to inform the development of a regional food strategy in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven". Follow the progress of Professor Charlton’s work here.

Find your local community garden in Food Fairness Illawarra's fair food directory.