NEWS DESK
Premier drops in to grant cash boost for charity PREMIER Daniel Andrews visited Seaford on Friday bearing a Christmas gift for charity Mums Supporting Families in Need. The Premier announced a $10,000 grant from the Premier’s Charitable Fund for the volunteerrun organisation that collects quality second hand cots, prams, food, toys and clothing to disadvantaged families. Mr Andrews, who visited the group’s Seaford warehouse with Carrum Labor MP Sonya Kilkenny and Frankston Labor MP Paul Edbrooke, said he was “humbled” by the dedication and work carried out by Mums Supporting Families in Need volunteers. “This group does wonderful work
providing quality second-hand essentials for kids to families in crisis,” Mr Andrews said. “They do it with the help of many dedicated volunteers.” Mums Supporting Families in Need supplies its collected donations to welfare agencies to pass on to the needy. See msfin.org.au for donation details. The collectors: Sue Williams, left, Melissa Webb, Premier Daniel Andrews, Jodie Harris and Donna Cartwright at Mums Supporting Families in Need’s warehouse in Seaford. Picture: Gary Sissons
Foodbowl crisis on the horizon
Neil Walker neil@baysidenews.com.au
URBAN sprawl could eat up Melbourne’s foodbowl and see future generations starved of locally produced food if governments do not protect agricultural land on the city’s fringes and outer suburbs according to an independent report released this week. The Melbourne’s Foodbowl: Now and at seven million report by Foodprint Melbourne, a collaboration between the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab, warns about 16 per cent of the farm-
land in Melbourne’s foodbowl may be lost “if current trends are maintained, including up to 77 per cent in the inner foodbowl”. Alarmingly, the report predicts the foodbowl will be able to produce just 18 per cent of the city’s food demands by 2050 when Melbourne’s population is predicted to soar to 7 million. The foodbowl currently produces enough food to meet about 41 per cent of Melbourne’s food needs. Frankston is included in Melbourne’s inner foodbowl and several market gardens in the area produce highly perishable crops that can only be consumed within Victoria due to
their perishable nature. The inner foodbowl produces 96 per cent of the state’s berry fruits, 94 per cent of its asparagus, 92 per cent of its cauliflowers, 88 per cent of its mushrooms, 66 per cent of its broccoli, 62 per cent of its lettuce and 93 per cent of its herbs. The inner foodbowl also produces 35 per cent of the state’s eggs and 59 per cent of the state’s chicken meat, according to the Melbourne’s Foodbowl report. Deakin University planning and food policy expert Dr Rachel Carey, who worked on the research project, told The Times earlier this year that it is vi-
tal to not use more farmland for urban development. “Melbourne’s market gardens are an important part of the city’s foodbowl and Melbourne’s foodbowl is made up of many smaller areas that are scattered around the city and they’re very important because there are fewer of them left,” she said. The Melbourne’s Foodbowl report notes: “The current Victorian state government has indicated that it intends to maintain the existing Urban Growth Boundary. However, Melbourne’s UGB has been moved four times since it was instituted as a permanent boundary in 2002. There is ongoing pressure for fur-
ther expansion, and the state planning policy framework currently lacks effective measures to prevent further loss of productive agricultural land”. The inner foodbowl is the metropolitan area of Greater Melbourne and includes Frankston. The inner foodbowl includes areas of food production such as the Yarra Valley and the Mornington Peninsula, as well as lesser known regions, such as Cranbourne and Koo Wee Rup and Werribee. The outer foodbowl is the next ‘ring’ of peri-urban local government areas that includes regions in the ‘Peri-Urban Group of Rural Councils’, such as Bacchus Marsh and Baw Baw Shire.
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Frankston Times 21 December 2015
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