The Canberra Times published a story on May 19, 2013 entitled “From backyard to food bowl – A burgeoning movement in Canberra is aiming to be one step ahead of the looming world food crisis”.
In it the report, Phillip Thomson, refers to the “wave of ecologically sensitive Canberra’s looking to reinvent the typical suburban existence”.
For Fusion Canberra, this was an encouraging media story for several reasons, although we should take this opportunity to correct a couple erroneous things:
1. We aren’t running a carp farm in Kambah – we have 8 European carp in one of our aquaponics systems which we used to get the system started, and;
2. Thanks goes to the generous donation by ACT Parks and Wildlife of these carp from Lake Ginninderra, not Lake Burley Griffin!
But back to why we here at Fusion Canberra were encouraged by this story.
Firstly it shows that more and more people are having a real go at trying aquaponics, which we believe is one of the most promising intensive food production technologies currently around. From a family of 5 in Bonython (see our blog story thread from a few months here and then here) to commercial operators like Simon Gemmell (Capital Aquaponics) we are continuing to hear of more and more people in and around Canberra who are having a go.
Secondly it affirms a belief we have held for several years now, that Canberra must seriously commit to developing it’s own local food production industry (see one of our media releases in 2010 here in response to the draft Murray Darling Basin Plan).
And thirdly, and possibly most importantly, it shows that our vision of a Canberra where nobody gets left behind is gradually being realised, and most encouraging of all, not just by us! We know that such a vision is a big one which we can’t see fulfilled on our own, but it must be as more and more people and organisations and businesses and government agencies come together with hope.
Thanks Phillip Thomson and the Canberra Times for your part in seeing this vision realised. Our prayer is that it may only continue.
Generations connecting to feed the Rainbow trout