By Phil Jarratt
Councillor Tom Wegener’s dream of a Noosa agri-hub promoting and facilitating home-grown food is not only fast becoming a reality – it’s going on the road to sell the concept this week.
Agri-hub community meetings will be held at Cooroy Community Hall on Sunday 27 March from 4-6pm, at the Black Ant Café, Kin Kin on Monday 28 March from 6-8pm, and at the Sunshine Beach Surf Club on Tuesday 29 March from 6-8pm.
The community meetings are a call to action for farmers, food producers, landowners, businessfolk and interested members of the community to help create a vibrant and productive regenerative agriculture economy envisaged by the Rural Enterprise Plan of 2019, but put on hold during Covid.
Now Cr Wegener, who is president of Permaculture Noosa and council representative and a board member of Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation, is leading from the front with his personal vision of a 10-year plan to make Noosa the good food bowl of the country, if not the world, just in time for the Brisbane/SEQ Olympics.
He’s even renamed Cooroy’s community garden the Olympic Garden (with a plaque to prove it) to prove he’s fair dinkum.
Back in December, when he first outlined the agri-hub vision to Noosa Today, Tom said: “Basically, the past mantra was go big or get out of farming. Mono-cropping, mechanisation and chemical fertilisers were the farming standard. In Noosa, small farms could not compete in the modern model, and since then, many farming lands, including hobby farms, have become idle and degraded. But now things have started to change. Farming practices are becoming more focused on micro, intensive farming where crops and animals work in harmony to produce abundance, and regenerate the land. Noosa residents are seeking out locally grown food knowing it is organic, healthy and supports the local community.
“The foundations are now being laid for a rebirth of local farming. But there are substantial obstacles. The first is that small local farming, with current organisations, is not financially viable. Noosa land is very expensive, and along with the costs of machinery, labour, fertilisers and advice, it’s uneconomic. On top of this, the land in many cases has been degraded, and climate change poses greater uncertainty.”
While Cr Wegener’s ideas on creating a local farming renaissance bubbled away, Noosa Council was in the final stages of debating its Climate Change Response Plan. He paid special attention to “Theme 6: Sustainable agriculture and food systems”, which outlines as its priorities, “Support agri-businesses and landholders to create a sustainable and regenerative food system that includes consideration and preparation for climate change risks … Promote sustainable, locally produced food and improve local food access for farmers, residents, visitors and vulnerable people.”
Cr Wegener saw that the rationale and the funding would come not from the Economic Plan but from the CCRP. He got a small grant from council and started putting the pieces in place, from the ground up.
Now, after a summer of planning exactly how this might work, Cr Wegener and the agencies backing Agri-hub, including Noosa Biosphere, Noosa and District Landcare and Country Noosa, are ready to sell it to the community.
According to the councillor, the pitch can be broken down into four basic areas:
Education – explaining what can grow sustainably in our climate and soil and how regenerative farming can improve the value of land.
Getting people on the land – creating a model for farm agreements that would facilitate returning and new farmers to increase the value of currently unused land.
Getting green waste out of landfill and into farms where it can be used for biochar and compost.
Creating an effective supply chain for distribution of the produce.
Proving that actions speak louder than words, Cr Wegener has already lobbied local restaurants in Cooroy, and the owner of Fika Café is now supplying him with a drum of green waste a day – all of it going into the Olympic Garden at Cooroy Community Garden.
