Community Kai Maps are available on Our Food Network’s website. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSONThe future of food in Otago is front and centre at Dunedin’s Our Food Network, Rebecca Fox finds. Response to a call-out for households to take part in a pilot food co-operative has been overwhelming. The future of food Our Food Network project manager Angela Howell says over 300 expressions of interest have been lodged for 100 places on the trial after a story in the Otago Daily Times. ‘‘It’s so exciting.’’ The response meant the pilot would almost certainly go ahead once suppliers have been contacted and confirmed. ‘‘I feel very positive about this. We’re hoping it’s a sustainable path to improving the region’s food resilience.’’ Howell is contacting as many different food producers as she can so a wide variety of local foods can be offered. ‘‘So the only criterion for being accepted is that the food is produced locally and that is a challenge because a lot of food isn’t from here.’’ The co-operative is a ‘‘grassroots practical application’’ to trying to ensure food is produced locally as small growers struggle with the vagaries of supplying supermarket chains. With consumers guaranteed to take their produce, growers can plan and sow crops with confidence. ‘‘This is good old-fashioned supply arrangements the way it used to be.’’ So far she had seven growers, some are established and others are small but wanting to upscale, interested in taking part and has other products such as flour, oats, split peas, lentils and quinoa produced in Canterbury and Otago in her sights. ‘‘We’re going to have, I’m estimating, around 30 producers to start with. So we’re looking for eggs, we’re looking for dairy, we’re looking for meat, hunted meat, farmed meat, poultry, eggs, nuts, all sorts of things.’’ She believes the recent fuel crisis has put issues around food into focus for people as they realise the long supply chains of much of the country’s food. ‘‘If we want to improve our region’s resilience, we need to shorten them.’’ Long term she hopes the co-op will prove there is a viable career in producing food locally as there is a market and demand for it. ‘‘So we mature and develop, then it’ll be more like a food box where you can pause and substitute, but we just don’t have the ability to be that flexible to start with, because we’re running it on the smell of an oily rag, let’s be honest.’’ As one project is getting going though, another is under threat. Funding has dried up meaning next season’s community fruit harvest is under threat, she says. ‘‘Last year we rescued nearly 3000kg of fruit from gardens around the city that would have gone to waste and we redeploy it, we give it to community pantries, food banks, the Bowling Club and people who can use it.’’ Our Food Network has also just launched its Community Kai Maps on it’s website giving easier access to information about community food projects in the city. ‘‘So it’s things like community gardens, community orchards, community pantries, food banks, meal services, all sorts of foraging, that kind of thing. So that’s a resource that people can use.’’ She believes food security and resilience is an issue that needs to go on the political agenda this election. ‘‘I would just encourage people to ask their MPs and their candidates about it.’’
