Sydney City Farm

It’s taken a while, but finally any donations and membership payments to Sydney City Farm over $2, made after 8th Dec. 2008, are a tax deduction. Help keep us going financially and it will help you too. We will be listed soon on the official website at Register of Environmental Organisations - Tax Deductible Organisations

Sydney City Farm President Andrew Jackson voiced his passion to start a City Farm at the recent Leichhhardt Council Meeting about Callan Park. If you didn’t get to go along to the meeting, you can read what he said right here:

Leichhardt Town Hall, November 3:

I have lived in Leichhardt for 15 years. For too long I have thought Callan Park was going to
become another tragic missed opportunity. Yesterday as I walked around the beautiful park I felt,
for the first time, a sense of excitement and hope.

I would like to thank FOCP for maintaining the fight and making this happen.

We talk a lot about the community, but what does it mean in our modern crowded cities where
talking to a stranger on the street is at best unusual, and at worst, treated with distrust or suspicion.

The small communities we do have are often formed around the school or childcare centre or
perhaps the local dog-walking park.

And yet, modern city dwellers need a sense of community as much as we did in the past, when life
was lived in small rural towns and villages.

We need to create this sense of community again…we need a place were it is ok to talk to
strangers.

We would like Sydney City Farm to be a place like that.

Our vision is to create a green sanctuary showcasing an eco-friendly future in the heart of Sydney.

…a place where people can be inspired to live and work in a way that uses less energy, water and
resources, and creates minimal pollution.

…a place that will attract people of all ages and cultural backgrounds.

…a place that will be an alternative to the huge air-conditioned shopping malls that have replaced
the local shops that used to be within walking distance of our homes.

…a place where you don’t need to spend money to be welcome.

…a vibrant and welcoming place where parents with young children can meet for a coffee while
their children play away from busy roads and traffic.
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I was lucky enough to have grown up on a farm. I know the joy of hearing the sound of a chicken
that has just laid an egg and collecting that still warm egg from the straw where it was laid.

We would like city kids to see where their food comes from with their own eyes. Even better, to get
involved in it’s production. We intend that the farm will develop programs with local schools that
have limited space and resources.

I think we all agreed that there is enormous therapeutic benefit from growing plants, getting our
hands in the soil and looking after animals. These are the things that keep us sane or enable us to
find a sense of peace in the crazy world we live in.

In the past we have known this. When Callan Park was devoted to mental health, there was
an extensive farm within the grounds. It would be wonderful to see it reinstated.

There is enormous potential for the City Farm to help rehabilitate and provide training for people
recovering from mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, and other related traumas.
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We at Sydney City Farm, have spent a considerable amount of time developing a possible plan for
the farm. We believe we have found the best possible place for it within the site. These plans are
available on our web site.

The farm would be a not for profit organisation that will belong to all its members and the
community as a whole. Any income generated will be reinvested in our ongoing work for the
community.

It would be managed by a core of paid staff who would organise the volunteers.
There would be no fences, simply pathways running through the farm, much like any other park.
But instead of rose gardens there might be lettuces.

In handing the use of a 4 to 6 hectare section of the park over to the farm, the council would be
saving the considerable costs of maintaining the grounds and buildings We would take
responsibility for the cost of managing the grounds and buildings we use.
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Since June we have been promoting the city farm idea at various markets and events. This has been
the most fantastic experience. We have had an almost 100% positive response and currently have
1500 supporters,  300 of which are paid members … and that’s for something that doesn’t exist yet!

Sydney is ready and waiting for a City Farm and Sustainable Living Centre.
Leichhardt Council now has the historic opportunity to meet that demand and become a leader in
local government on environmental education.

Tell us, why would you like to see a City Farm at Callan Park?

What would you like to see as part of our City Farm?

Our ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING (for financial members) will be on

SATURDAY 20 DECEMBER, 2008, 11am - 12pm in The Cane Room, Wharf St, Callan Park.

Click on map for enlargement

Park at end of Wharf St on waterfront

RSVP by reply email by Sat 13 December, 2008. <sydneycityfarm@gmail.com>

AGENDA Introduction of Committee members

Report by the Chairman

Financial statement

Questions

Any other business

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Dear City Farmers,

We are pleased to invite you to our first ever AGM! It’s been a dramatic year of growth and surging fortunes for our vision to create a vibrant City Farm and Sustainable Living Centre in Callan Park.

It’s incredible that in just a year we have generated more than 1500 supporters on our email list, and  270 financial members.

Financial membership entitles you to participate in formal meetings of Sydney City Farm & Sustainable Living Centre Inc.

So please come along on Saturday December 20th, for our first AGM, appropriately held in in The Cane Room on the site we propose would be perfect for a City Farm at Callan Park.

It’s a chance to meet our office bearers and committee members, and find out about all our activities this year. Lemonade, tea and cake will be provided or feel free to bring a coffee over from the markets.

We will also have some of our popular City Farm t-shirt for sale. A great Christmas gift.

On behalf of the Sydney City Farm Committee: Andrew Jackson, Rod Simpson, Brandon Saul, Liesje Clement, Carolin Wenzel, Anthony Sheedy and Carolin Armstrong.

In response to the charming, yet slightly misleading, article in our metropolitan rag, Carla Thackrah wrote a letter to the editor of Sydney Morning Herald (see full story below) to set the story straight. This is what she said:

Some of your readers might have grasped the wrong end of the smelly stick
from the headline in today’s report regarding the Sydney City Farm’s
proposal for a small section of Callan Park in Rozelle (”Imagine,
a cow pasture at Callan Park”).

We can reassure Inner West residents and visitors that they will not be
greeted by a vista of idly grazing cows, pigs and sheep. While the
vision includes some chooks, neither cows, pigs nor sheep, are on the
agenda!

Rather, the Sydney City Farm will be a sustainable living centre that
will showcase Sydney as a leader in eco-technologies and education.

The Sydney City Farm and Sustainable Living Centre will ultimately
leave Callan Park smelling like roses, not cow pats!

Carla Thackrah
Sydney City Farm + Sustainable Living Centre
Leichhardt

Field of dreams …
Carolyn Armstrong with her daughters, Emily, 3, and Jessica, 4,
passing time at Sydney City Farm’s favoured area of Callan Park.
Photo: Kate Geraghty

Nick Galvin 
October 27, 2008, 

Sydney Morning Herald, Page 5

WHILE politicians, developers and residents have been brawling over
the future of Rozelle's Callan Park, an alternative scheme for part
of the controversial site has been quietly gathering support.

This radical vision would see cows, pigs and sheep grazing contentedly
alongside organic veggie plots, while school groups learn about seed-
saving and composting. Theatre performances would be staged adjacent
to terraced water gardens and locals would sip fair-trade coffee in a
cafe overlooking wetlands teeming with native wildlife.

Now, after the State Government's decision to hand the park to Leichhardt
Council and squash Sydney University's development plans, supporters of
Sydney City Farm believe their utopian vision has taken a huge step
towards becoming reality.

"What it means is that now we have a site," said one of the scheme's key
supporters, the architect Rod Simpson. "It's quite clear that what the
university was doing was a land-grab."

The farm scheme is based partly on a successful project established in
Melbourne in the early 1980s. The Centre for Education and Research in
Environmental Strategies is on the site of a former rubbish tip in
inner-city Brunswick. Facilities on the 4.5-hectare site include a cafe,
nursery, organic farm and community gardens.

Proponents of a similar scheme for Sydney are seeking three to four hectares
of the 60-hectare Callan Park adjacent to Glover Street.

A horticulturist, Carolyn Armstrong, joined the city farm committee earlier
this year and is a passionate supporter of the idea. "I've got two young kids
and we live in Annandale with pretty much a concrete back garden and not much
room for growing vegetables," she said. "When you don't have much room you
need that extra bit of inspiration and I think the city farm would be a
great way to do that. It's a good alternative for Callan Park."

The Mayor of Leichhardt, Jamie Parker, said the proposal merited "serious
consideration", but it would be at least 12 months before a master plan for
the park could be prepared.

"As soon as all this was announced my phone ran hot with groups calling to
say, 'We want a sporting field here … we want the city farm … we want this
and we want that,' " he said.

"We probably had bids for 400 hectares."

Link to this story at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/26/1224955855004.html

The NSW Minister for Planning, Kristina Keneally, announced yesterday morning that the state government would hand over control and management of the site to Leichhardt Council under a 99-year lease because the Sydney University plan for the site “would not have delivered an outcome the community could support”

We at Sydney City Farm are thrilled at this outcome. The way is now clear for us to work hand in hand with Leichhardt Council and the other community interests on the site, to create a city farm at Callan Park that will showcase the Leichhardt Municipality as a leader in sustainable technologies and education.

With the recent success of environmentally aware candidates in the local council elections, we now have real reason to hope for a greener municipality, a greener Sydney and, a more sustainable world for the future.

The SCF committee will be meeting with Leichhardt Council soon and
we’ll keep you informed of further updates as they happen.