[final] MLA Design Thesis Edition 2 - November 2011

FARM//EVENT Regeneration of rural production systems in relation to socioeconomic change.

CONTENTS

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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FRAMEWORK

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PROJECT

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ANOMALY

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CONCLUSION

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REFERENCES

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Declaration

I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of this document is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; and, any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged.

Justin Walsh November 2011

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FARM//EVENT Regeneration of rural production systems in relation to socioeconomic change.

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ABSTRACT. How can landscape architecture, approached through the event, develop food sovereignty in rural communities?

Farm//Event explores the regeneration of diverse local food production systems in Central Victoria by approaching agriculture as a series of ‘processes’. The research distributes agricultural processes throughout the public realm and intertwines them with recreational processes, in order to generate a multiplicity of latent events. The intention of my research is to create a framework for smallholding and to integrate community with agricultural production.

Central Victoria is a region in the midst of profound social and economic change. The change is driven in part by decreasing viability of farming enterprise, subdivision of farming land and increasing amenity migration otherwise known as ‘tree change’. My research engages with this current paradigm and considers landscape design, co-operative small hold farming, tourism and off-farm income as essential to viable food production at a local scale.

Events are actualised on the precise point of encounter between a person and a process. The properties of an event are defined by the embodied ideas of the process, the preconception of the person and the conditions of site. At the scale of node, town and district, the design process distributes necessary agriculture and community infrastructure that is currently lacking. As an integral driver of the design process, the act of distribution and juxtaposition challenges land use preconceptions, generating a series of hybrid relationships and a crossflow of activity. The traverse of a person at each scale generates a time, site and communityspecific narrative that engages them with local food production.

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The research.

FRAMEWORK

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The aim of my research is to develop a modus operandi, by which I may intervene as a landscape architect in small regional communities. In the immediate future I intend to develop a practice in regional Victoria that allows me to simultaneously engage with issues of food sovereignty, community development and population growth. This record is the foundation of my practice.

My research reacts to large-scale industrial food production and inconsiderate, high density development of productive regional areas.

Farm//Event is about regenerating small scale local food production in regional Victoria by considering recreational and agricultural programs as catalysts that generate sequences of events. When agricultural program is fused with recreational program, hybrid events occur whereby the composition of an agricultural event is altered or augmented by a recreational event and vice versa.

Farm//Event seeks opportunities for encouraging farming as a viable income stream for small-scale properties surrounding Trentham, and also to integrate agriculture with the community rather than existing as a separate industry, subordinate to tourism. If farming infrastructures and events are distributed and woven into the public realm, they begin to form an intrinsic part of the character of a rural town and its surrounding district, contributing to the way rural communities position themselves in relation to tourism and development.

The production and consumption of food then becomes not just a routine part of life, necessary for survival, but an experience that enriches life itself.

My research is aimed at everyday rural consumers, rural planners, community groups and landholders with small scale, arable properties that aren’t currently productive. I am not specifically focusing on tourism or tourists as a benefactor of the propositions developed through this research, although the typology generated through this type of intervention would alter the experiences a tourist would encounter upon visiting this region.

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We are all part of a community of some description, although people contribute to their communities to varying degrees. Community is most commonly referred to as a group of people living in close proximity to one another and sharing common interests, values or beliefs. The concept of community features heavily in my design process and I believe that active participation in one or several communities is hugely beneficial to personal and collective development. There is, however, a distinction to be made between community and local.

The act of residing in a particular town of suburb renders a person part of that community to a degree, but without active social engagement with others in the same locality they are a latent community member. Conversely, a person can become a strong part of a community without living anywhere near others in the community, for example as part of an online community. As a landscape architect I argue that it is beneficial to engage with others in the public realm. While virtual and global communities achieve amazing things, face-to-face collaboration in the public realm is ideal.

Once again the paradigm shift of tree change and online business activity twists the traditional view of country towns as inherently ‘local’, and raises new questions about the locale of rural towns. An influx of residents from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds and increased mobility of the non-metropolitan population has extended the locale of rural towns, in the process transforming the ‘character’ of the town (Hugo 2001).

It is with this interpretation that I intervene as a designer in a rural town. My approach meshes long term demographics with emerging ones and consolidates town character by drawing on the spatial history of the place whilst hybridising new land uses with old, on a foundation of social enterprise and recreation.

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Properties larger than 80 hectares

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Properties between 40 and 80 hectares

The area of settlement surrounding rural towns is known as a district. This is mostly for administrative purposes because very small communities of less than 500 people often rely on facilities in towns nearby. Also, the classification of district allows settlement to disperse among farms outside the boundaries of a town and still play a role in the administration of that town.

Thus, a landscape architect or planner should not intervene in rural towns without also considering the surrounding district.

For the purposes of this research, I am investigating the communities of Little Hampton and Fern Hill. Little Hampton is 5km north-west of Trentham and Fern Hill is 6km north-east. Both of these communities have a high concentration of small hold farm properties and both present opportunities to engage with current and future tourism traffic

Properties smaller than 40 hectares

Farming properties surrounding Trentham

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Intervention at the district scale is formed by 3 key components: Hubs within production areas, transit arteries that link the hubs to Trentham and each other, and nodes that occur along the arteries. The hubs are located on an existing block of public space or on land adjacent to existing retail, hospitality or civic facilities. Rather than open up a Greenfield site, I prefer to re-purpose land that has a history of public use in order to harness intrigue and nostalgia with the aim of engaging people with the space. With these considerations in mind, the Little Hampton hub is situated in an old primary school facility and the Fern Hill hub in a railway station reserve.

The purpose of the hub is dual. The hub is a civic space designed in such a way that encourages recreational activity at a range of scales and also an agribusiness facility that hosts shared infrastructure and encourages agricultural extension. Hubs are facilitated and maintained by a co-operative of farmers and a committee of non-farming residents. The arteries are paths shared between walking, cycling and slow moving agricultural traffic. Two paths run side-by-side with the first 1.5m wide and finely graded to allow for ease of cycling and walking. The second path is graded roughly at points to discourage cars from using it and potentially causing a safety hazard.

There are two types of nodes that occur along the transit arteries. The first is infrastructural and occurs at intersections between an artery and a major road. This type of node is at once a cautionary marker and a marker of agricultural activity. The second is recreational and occurs at intersections between an artery and creeks or farm tracks. This type of node is essentially a pocket park that breaks up a walk or ride along an artery and promotes a more intimate engagement between people and the productive landscape.

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While food security has long been a challenge for third world countries, this concern is now gathering a lot of momentum in developed nations. With predictions of an increase in global population of 2 billion people within the next 40 years (PMSEIC 2010), governments are increasingly concerned about how they will keep their food systems viable and resilient, and of course how they will keep supply ahead of demand. The foundation of international food production is no longer sovereignty and community resilience, but corporate profit and global competition. The number of companies in control of key global commodities is growing smaller by the year. Four processing companies have controlled over 80% of American beef production since 2005 and five companies control a staggering 90% of the global grain supply (Steel 2008). Locally it is well known that Coles and Woolworths represent a duopoly in Australian food distribution, with up to 80% market share, up from 30% in 1975 (White 2008).

Economy of scale allows large companies to control the base price of products they produce, forcing smaller operators to fall in line. The

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recent ‘price wars’ between Australia’s two major supermarkets raised the interest of the Australian senate and drew media attention to the impacts of competitive pricing on farmers and independent retailers. Through the media and senate inquiry, it has become evident to the general public that many farmers run at a loss or very marginal profit (Australia, Senate 2010).

Within 50 years, Trentham’s primary economy has shifted from small scale, locally-driven agriculture and forestry to large scale globallydriven agriculture and manufacturing, and now to tourism and hospitality. This shift is part of a trend in Australia whereby a substantial portion of the next generation of young farmers have left the agriculture industry in favour of more secure options, resulting in an ageing farming population (Hugo, 2001). As many commercial farms run substantial debt and few have succession plans, most properties are sold once the owner reaches retirement. Increasingly, these properties are being purchased by nonfarming investors as lifestyle properties or

potential subdivisions. Regional governments within a 90 minute commute to Melbourne are under increased pressure to increase their housing stock and are gradually increasing their residential zones with each planning scheme review.

The current combination of residual farming infrastructure and expertise, along with greater social diversity and a renewed interest in local food provides an opportunity to regenerate small-hold, low input farming. As Carolyn Steel points out in Hungry City, “We have yet to discover what a strong, local, post-industrial food culture could be like, but there has never been a better time to find out” (Steel, 2008).

In 2008, the residents of Trentham initiated a community plan, which is now in its final draft. Many other small communities in Victoria are working towards community plans, illustrating a desire for a greater level of autonomy with regard to policy decisions and strategies concerning them. The community plan, especially in the case of Trentham, is a

useful tool for both the community and local government, as it lays out the concerns and desires of local residents in a structured, itemised fashion. It is also constructed and largely enacted by the residents, building a culture of initiative and empowerment, and reducing the need for lengthy and expensive consultation.

Aside from its importance as a stimulator for rural initiative and development, the community plan is an invaluable tool for gaining a ‘bottom up’ understanding of small communities. My project is strongly based on the Trentham community plan, I have used it as a reference throughout my design process and, through the continuation of my research in Project B, I intend to develop a refined methodology for approaching and interpreting community plans as part of my further practice. The Trentham community plan clearly identifies the district as a growth area, and future development features heavily.

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This research project is grounded in a continuum of informal dialogue between designer and community. This dialogue has allowed me to control my research and keep it relevant to the subject communities and stakeholders. Concurrently, the design process evolves through alternated stages of theory development, drawing, discussion and evaluation, not necessarily in this order.

Development and comprehension of event theory has allowed me to approach the issue of food sovereignty from an alternative perspective.

Continuous drawing at a range of scales and detail has allowed me to translate the theory into design propositions and reconcile the outcomes with pragmatic considerations. Discussion with local government, practitioners, farmers and community members has prompted me to further ground my work and build practical credibility where possible.

Given my fervent desire to practice landscape architecture in a rural context and engage with local governments, landholders and communities, I have felt a need to communicate my research in a way that is accessible to these groups. Achieving this task whilst simultaneously incorporating what I would consider complex theory and an unorthodox approach to land use has proved difficult. As such, I have resorted to underpinning my interventions with an interpretation of the concept of the event and event sequences, whilst communicating design interventions in a largely conventional way that renders them easy to interpret.

I will further unpack my design interventions and approach throughout this document.

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Every occurrence in the world is an event. Those which we have not encountered are latent events, which are ‘actualised’, or become real upon our encounter with them. The composition of an event is contingent on space, time and movement, as well as the embodied ideas in the embodied ideas in what is happening, and the ideas which the subject brings to the encounter (Whitehead 1967, Deleuze 1992).

As we encounter one event after another, sequences are generated that describe our experience of the world. Each event that we encounter is also part of its own sequence or process, and our movement through space and time determines the point at which we engage with a process and therefore the resulting event (Livesey 2007). All events project to future events (Frichot 2005), with the effect of cumulative experience. Our memory function allows us to recall elements of previous events that then contribute to future actions and decisions.

Viewing agriculture through the lens of process and event makes it very interesting, especially from a design perspective. This view provides a way for landscape architects to approach rural design that enriches day-to-day life by intimately engaging people with the drama and wonder of food production. Introducing a multiplicity of farming events into the public realm has the potential to change attitudes towards food production and consumption, and may contribute to the development of new local food systems.

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It is now widely recognised that the world is potentially facing a food crisis as a result of unprecedented population growth and the pitfalls of industrialised global farming.

Concerns of food security are commanding the focus of governments at all levels and becoming prolific in mainstream media; In October 2010 the Australian Government released the report, Australia and Food Security in a Changing World, recommending a national food security agency, improvement of low input farming, incentives to recruit future generations of farmers and “Better engagement of the community and partner organisations to elevate the status of food in Australia and build cooperative commitment to an improved food value chain” (PMSEIC 2010).

Purely discussing food system challenges in terms of security misses the greater challenge of the sovereignty of food. Since the green 17

revolution of the mid-twentieth century, agricultural food production has been an economy of scale, increasingly dependent on global forces far from the control of the everyday farmer and consumer (Food Inc. 2008).

In 2001, Australia had ‘the highest concentration of supermarket retailing of any OECD country’ (Witherby 2001). The proliferation of supermarkets from 1960 onwards has led to an overwhelming array of choice for the consumer, with only the cheapest and most consistently available products making it to the kitchen table. At the same time supermarkets, and the enormous supply and logistics systems that support them, have systematically scaledup the western food system and reduced the ability of small hold operators to play a role in it (Steel 2008)

Many country towns have a substantial inventory of under-utilised open space. The first stage in the implementation of this research is the formation of a Community Land Trust (CLT) and a Committee of Management (CoM) for public space. Concurrently, co-operatives of practicing and emerging farmers are established in order to consolidate a plan for required primary and secondary production infrastructure. Once these structures are formed with a view to establishing a fabric of mixed-use public space, suitable sites can be defined and local government approached with a plan of action for their under-utilised space.

The community land trust establishes a program of fundraising based on community gatherings in public space. In situations where there is no available public space for a hub, or a privately-owned site is more suitable, the CLT may approach the land owner with an offer to lease or purchase the site.

The CoM undertakes maintenance and landscape works in conjunction with DSE and Landcare, funded through the CLT and state grants. At the same time, the farming co-ops undertake joint funding efforts, through subscription fees of members, state grants and community fundraising activities, in order to invest in primary infrastructure.

No modern community can or should be completely self-sustaining. It is not viable, or perhaps even possible, for a community the size of Trentham to produce everything they need for a comfortable existence. Furthermore, the establishment of strong relationships between small communities builds regional stability and flexibility.

Expansion through networking is a key part of the ultimate research outcome because it mainains a fine-grain intervention scale while spreading a fabric of local production infrastructure and events across multiple regions. Because each intervention harnesses the character of each specific site and community, subtle vernacular changes occur in program and spatiality throughout various districts and regions.

Hubs and arteries become linking devices between towns and the major farming typology changes from one town to the next relative to mictoclimate and geomorphology. As many hubs are mid-way between towns, co-ops may contribute produce to multiple towns depending on what secondary infrastructure is available.

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A package of propositions testing the research.

PROJECT

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The Farm//Event design process emphasises ‘relationship’, ‘efficiency’ and potential for ‘encounter’. Relationship refers to both the suitability of a use for a given site and also the relevance of that use to other uses in the immediate context. There is a disjunction between efficiency and potential for encounter as the most efficient route between two sites is not necessarily the one that presents the greatest potential for encounter. Thus a tradeoff occurs and the design intervention occupies the edge of efficiency and encounter.

The distribution of agricultural events throughout the public realm, and the extension of the public realm into farmed land blurs land use classification and generates a new set of spatial adjacencies between the existing conditions and the inserted infrastructure.

New adjacencies also occur between the demographics that utilise or service the various programs and facilities. For instance, a shearer or rouse-about may socially engage with a textile artisan because they are operating in the same locale and part of the same production stream. The interaction between demographics is even more acute when seemingly unrelated programs are overlaid on the same site, such as a livestock sale yards and a BMX track.

Essentially this cross-programming tactic is intended to eliminate segregation between programs and demographics, and draw new relationships between seemingly unrelated events.

Schematically, intervention is defined by 3 key components: Hubs within production areas and the town, transit arteries that link the hubs to Trentham and each other, and threads that extend from the arteries into farming land. The hubs are located on an existing block of public space or on land adjacent to existing retail, hospitality or civic facilities. Rather than open up a Greenfield site, I prefer to re-purpose land that has a history of public use in order to harness intrigue and nostalgia with the aim of engaging people with the space. With these considerations in mind, the Little Hampton hub is situated in an old primary school facility and the Fern Hill hub in a railway station reserve.

recreational activity at a range of scales and also an agribusiness facility that hosts shared infrastructure and encourages agricultural extension. Hubs are facilitated and maintained by a co-operative of farmers and a committee of non-farming residents.

The arteries are paths shared between walking, cycling and slow moving agricultural traffic.

Two paths run side-by-side with the first 1.5m wide and finely graded to allow for ease of cycling and walking. The second path is graded roughly at points to discourage cars from using it and potentially causing a safety hazard.¬Threads are the settings for direct interaction between people occupying public space and farming events occurring on-farm, such as harvesting and irrigating. This project promotes the development of permissive access easements and public rights of way in regional farming areas and the design approach encourages this by inserting public landscape elements and explicitly communicating the dramatic landscape alterations that occur as a result of these farming events.

At the conclusion of my major project, my research is funnelled into six design interventions throughout the Trentham district, adjacent to primary arteries. The six interventions reference six major agricultural event sequences that occur throughout the duration of a year.

Through these interventions I have explored ways in which communal farming infrastructures could be established to the benefit of novice small hold farmers. The ‘event’ is fore grounded in my approach to each intervention and each strives toward a more intimate interaction between consumer, product and producer.

The six event sequences I will explore through my interventions are: -Irrigation -Shearing -Potato Harvest -Livestock -Grain Harvest -Hay Making.

The purpose of the hub is dual. The hub is a civic space designed in such a way that encourages 22

LITTLE HAMPTON, SUMMER.

IRRIGATION

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Irrigation of crops occurs throughout summer and early autumn. There are a range of irrigation setups available but I am modelling my intervention on the travelling gun irrigator because it is easy to transport and share between neighbouring farmers.

The proposition is to align irrigated crops to the road reserve, offset the irrigator path towards the road, install a 1 metre high steel wall 6m from the farm fence and establish a crushed rock track and pasture strip between the fence and the steel wall.

Travelling irrigators are positioned at one end of the crop and anchored to a tractor at the other; the irrigator is then pulled through the crop along a cable. When a crop is aligned perpendicular to a road reserve, those travelling along or beside the road only

encounter the irrigator once it reaches the end of the row. If the irrigator is aligned with the road and operates for a duration of 2 hours, anyone passing by within that period will see and hear the irrigator, potentially even getting wet.

As the irrigator path is offset towards the road reserve, the overspray from the irrigator waters the strip of pasture on the road reserve, making it more palatable to livestock. The metal wall rusts over time and irrigated fields are registered with a greater degree of rust.

It also serves to contain livestock as they are moved between properties and infrastructure.

The even ground plane and sweet fodder makes it far easier to humanely move livestock from one place to another, eliminating the need for a semi-trailer in many cases. Livestock may also graze along this strip and it may be ploughed as a fire break if the need arises, whilst maintaining access for fire services.

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LITTLE HAMPTON, LATE SUMMER.

SHEARING

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Shearing occurs in late summer. Depending on property condition, optimum stocking rates for sheep are around 2 per acre. This means a property of 30 acres could comfortable run 50 sheep, but would likely not have the justification to build a shearing shed as it is only used once a year and 50 sheep can be shorn in less than a day.

A shearing shed also requires a substantial financial outlay and maintenance, to a degree that many part-time novice farmers may not be able to meet. As a result, many small properties that could produce lamb, wool and lanolin are currently unproductive because of a lack of infrastructure and knowledge.

The proposition is to install a modified shearing shed on the site of the disused Little Hampton Primary School and develop the site as a community and agriculture hub. The shearing shed has a long raised board and a large wool room with sliding doors on three sides that allow the building to open and host arts, performance and community discussions, using the shearing board as a stage. A 6 metre wide

compacted crushed rock path bisects the site and is raised to the east of the shed to create an amphitheatre and enclosed grass area suitable for performances and markets.

The raised path also increases the perceived scale of semi-trailers that collect wool and the width of the path suggests that such an event occurs, even when trucks and sheep aren’t present on the site. A number of permanent and temporary fences are erected on site to hold large numbers of sheep during the shearing season, when the site becomes enveloped in the smell of lanolin, sheep shit and the constant bleating of hundreds of animals. Once the shearing has finished, temporary fences are removed to allow programs such as sports, picnics and markets to occur on the open lawns and the sheep manure is spread across the site with a tractor to encourage even pasture growth. The composition of the stockyard walls, large shearing shed, existing school house, vegetation arrangement and ground plane alterations generates spaces of enclosure, and linear movement, as well as a large open space suitable for large-scale occupation.

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TRENTHAM, AUTUMN.

POTATO HARVEST

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Potatoes are harvested in autumn. Currently many farmers in the area grow potatoes on a contract basis for McCain in Ballarat, although McCain have minimum tonnage requirements that essentially lock out any property less than 300 acres in size and their contract negotiation tactics are questionable. Trentham has a long history of potato growing due to its fertile young volcanic soil and proud Irish heritage.

The proposition is to establish a potato packing and grading facility in Trentham on the site of a disused foundry, adjacent to the agricultural transit artery. Under this proposal, small hold farmers could grow 5 acres of potatoes each in a co-operative scheme, the co-op could hire a contractor to harvest them then the potatoes would be transported to town by tractor or small truck where they are then graded and packed for sale to secondary producers, hotels,

restaurants, and the general public.

For the purposes of my final examination I positioned the proposal in relation to the potato harvest, although the broader proposition is to develop the large post-industrial site as a diverse community hub that promotes enterprise and interaction between a range of demographics. The huge building is broken up into a number of uses ranging from industrial to recreational and better circulation through the site is established to allow more efficient and dynamic occupation of the site.

Once the site is opened up and accessible, infrastructure is retrofitted to support a wool mill, a flour mill, studio spaces, an exhibition space, cold storage for fresh produce, the potato shed, picnic and market areas, and a men’s shed.

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TRENTHAM, SPRING.

LIVESTOCK

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Lambing and calving usually occurs in late winter to early spring. During spring, livestock management operations intensify because lambs and calves need to be drenched, marked, castrated and drafted. Cows also produce more milk during this time because it is their natural lactating period, thus cows are milked twice a day instead of once.

As is the case with shearing, many novice small hold farmers lack the infrastructure and/or knowledge to efficiently and humanely carry out these operations, thus, many smaller properties to not run livestock at all.

stockyards are land uses often relegated to the edge of rural towns. The combination of these 2 land uses generates an interplay of levels, surface treatments and movement that intensifies the spatiality of the site and generates a dynamic and eclectic public space.

Through the BMX track, youth are introduced to the space and engage with farmers and stock auctioneers who may even be their parents, friends’ parents or family friends. The site is designed in such a way that a stock auction and BMX race could happen at the same time.

The proposition is to install stockyards in the centre of town on the site of the disused Trentham Railway Station, on either side of the agricultural transit artery. To make things more interesting, a BMX track is meshed with the stockyards. The establishment of a BMX track is a key item mentioned in the Trentham community plan, and both BMX tracks and

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FERN HILL, EARLY SUMMER.

GRAIN HARVEST

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Grain crops are harvested in early summer, usually before Christmas. The combine harvester enacts a dramatic change on the landscape and the process of harvesting grain is a spectacular event.

The proposition is to extend ‘threads’ or pathways from the main arteries into farm land adjacent to grain crops, re-align fencing and remove sections of fence to allow grain to be sown on both sides of the farm fence. Once the grain is harvested, a temporary fence is erected next to the path, clover and weeping grass is sown between the stubble rows and cows are allowed to graze, removing stubble and producing manure. The manure is then spread across the site, the fence is moved 10 metres away from the path and cows continue to graze the field but a strip of public public lawn is generated which can support a range of

uses. The resulting condition on this particular site is a public park in an agricultural context comprising a lawn area, light woodland, grassland and riparian environment, a dam or lake and a path connecting everything to the main artery.

This condition can occur a number of times throughout the district, generating a series of low maintenance public spaces in the middle of farming areas.

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FERN HILL, SUMMER.

HAY MAKING

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After the grain is harvested the straw is raked, baled and stored for use as feed, animal bedding or mulch. At this point grass and Lucerne hay is also cut and baled. On properties smaller than 20 acres, people often don’t bother raking and baling their grass as they don’t have a baler or hay shed, therefore it isn’t worth the inconvenience.

The proposition is to construct a rather large shed on the site of the disused Fern Hill Railway Station, utilising the remaining railway platform as a loading and unloading deck for hay. The building is broken into thirds along its length, with hay storage in the middle, machinery storage and agricultural services on the northern side and community meeting spaces on the southern side.

The site is already raised on the southern side and this is emphasised to create an amphitheatre and allow people to watch the comings and goings of hay trucks throughout the year. The amphitheatre also becomes a large gathering space and the railway platform can be used as a stage.

This proposal activates a site that was once the heart of a vibrant community but is currently completely fenced off, overgrown and unused despite being public space. Once the site becomes functional and useful to the multiplicity of small properties that surround it, it can support activities ranging from picnics, barbecues, resource sharing and community discussions to field days, concerts and festivals.

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An appendix of assorted drawings and images generated through the design process but outlying the final propositions.

ANOMALY

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What does it all mean?

CONCLUSION

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Farm//Event represents a landscape architectural approach to the development of food sovereignty in small regional communities.

The approach foregrounds events that occur in farming and public activity and develops pragmatic interventions that generate communal infrastructure and engage consumers with food production.

My work this year has provided me with a solid foundation on which to build a lifetime of research and practice in the juncture of landscape architecture, agriculture and rural development.

Rural communities are filled with challenges and opportunities that are exciting and fulfilling to engage with. The current and future population mix in many rural communities marks a turning point in attitudes towards food, sustainability and design. If these changing attitudes are augmented by a zealous community focused on ‘doing’ and focused individuals that are able to consolidate an approach, swift and intelligent progress can take place.

I will continue this research, whilst collaborating with local government, land holders and community groups in order to translate the research into practice. It is my intention to break new ground for the practice of landscape architecture in rural communities; a public practice that is grounded in community development and food sovereignty. This may not be an entirely lucrative practice but it is entirely necessary, challenging and rewarding.

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2010, ‘Australia and Food Security in a BIBLIOGRAPHY PMSEIC, Changing World’, The Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, Canberra, Australia.

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