Paul West, who became a household name through his starring role in River Cottage Australia, is urging Weipa residents to embrace their green thumbs through the Grow It Local initiative, which launches in the western Cape York township on 15 September. Photo: Supplied.
Some well-known household names are encouraging Weipa residents to get into the garden to embrace the rewards of growing their own food from this month.
Grow It Local has partnered with Weipa Town Authority (WTA) to provide the seeds and gardening know how needed for community members to grow fruit and vegetables in their own backyard and, in doing so, address several food security and social wellbeing issues.
The organisation has more than 40,000 members across Australia and has had Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis and Paul West, best known for his starring role in River Cottage Australia, throw their weight behind the push to get more people growing their own food.
Mr West told Cape York Weekly he believed the initiative could help participants rediscover a “deep human instinct” to be self-sufficient.
“For tens of thousands of years, human beings have been growing the things that they eat, and it’s something that relatively recently, we’ve lost the knack for,” he said.
“But there’s all this great stuff that happens to you as an individual, physically, to your mental health, that flows onto your community and the environment [when you do grow your own food].
“There’s a bit of a skill gap these days; it used to be something that the grandparents taught the parents, who taught the kids, and it just was handed down the generations; but we’ve kind of lost that for a lot of people, and if they want to start growing food, which I think is like a deep human instinct, they don’t know where to start or how to how to learn – that’s where we come in.”
Grow It Local supplies seed kits as well as expert support through its website to help members taste growing success, with WTA becoming the latest of more than 30 local governments across the country to partner with the organisation.
“It’s become bigger than Ben Hur,” Mr West said.
“The good thing about growing food is I don’t think that it’s ever a bad thing to get more people out in the garden; in fact, I think if everyone in Australia was doing a bit of gardening, I think the world would be a better place.
“If you have some friends over for a barbecue or whatever, and you serve up something you’ve grown, because you know the story of the ingredient, and being able to share with people something you’ve grown yourself, it just adds a deeper meaning and a deeper connection to our human interactions.”
While launching the program in Weipa will not represent a silver bullet for the region’s food security issues, especially during the wet season, Mr West said he believed “every additional plant that is grown, every additional garden that is built, is a step in the right direction” to addressing the problem.
WTA will be offering the Grow It Local seeds and starter kits from 15 September.
For more information about the initiative, keep an eye on the WTA Facebook page or visit the Grow It Local website.
Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis checks out the fruits of the Grow It Local initiative. Photo: Supplied.
