Grown Local Food Network: the Kimberley’s real food web

We are pleased to present a report on local food availability. The report is now available for comment. We are calling on our community to review the report and work with us to determine the next steps. We hope this report can help bring us better accessibility of local food.

Please take a look and let us know what you think. You can find the report here.

IEB commissioned interviews with 20 local buyers and suppliers. This report describes the findings and makes 11 recommendations for a local fresh food model. The results have highlighted the complexity of the local situation. It also suggests a multi-pronged approach is necessary to improve local accessibility. A working model will need to involve government, the public, suppliers, buyers and online platforms. In addition, it should be applicable for the whole Kimberley region.

The interview questions and project approach was based on, and adapted from the Mapping Local Food Webs Toolkit developed by The Countryside Charity, United Kingdom. We used the toolkit because of its ability to map our local “food web”. The toolkit helps map the connections between producers, retailers, as well as consumers. It also highlighted the importance of these relationships to the local economy and community. When it came to applying the toolkit to the Grown Local Food Network: the Kimberley’s real food web project, we focused on mapping our local producers, as a first step. We propose to discuss the findings of the report at the June Fresh Food Share (Saturday 4th June 2022 @ 8.30am) as well as talk about what next.

Thanks to the 20 interviewees for providing their time and contributions and Belinda Colson for delivering the “Grown Local Food Network: the Kimberley’s real food web” report, funded through the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.