THE Greens outlined their vision for a sustainable food system and a broad transition to sustainable and regenerative agriculture practices across NSW in Bellingen last week.

Their detailed plan includes the establishment of a NSW Food Systems Council made up of a cross section of key agriculture and food industry representatives.

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The Council will develop a state-wide sustainable food strategy that will include designing and building a $300 million NSW Regenerative Agriculture Centre to provide free training and funding for farmers to shift to climate-resilient practices.

Under the plan, major supermarkets will be subject to regulations aimed at ending large scale food waste and a ‘food miles’ label for NSW produce will be introduced so consumers can easily track the history of their food.

The Greens will also create a $500 million Urban Agriculture Fund, aimed at creating a circular food economy through community-led initiatives, supporting First Nations ‘bush food’ industries and creating thousands of new jobs.

“Agriculture has huge potential to be leveraged as a key part of a sustainable future – we just need strong policy, genuine community engagement and the resourcing to bring everyone along,” Greens NSW spokesperson for agriculture Sue Higginson said.

Ms Higginson said our food supply is based on environmental degradation and contributes to the climate crisis because of factors such as the long distances food travels, the use of synthetic fertilisers, toxic pest and weed management and the large scale exploitation of arable land.

According to Ms Higginson, governments need to show leadership that resources landholders and farmers to embrace innovative technologies and transition their farming practises to ways that will be resilient to the future rather than imposing ‘top down’ climate regulations.

“We have the knowledge to achieve this, we just need political will to build community networks and work with the sector to ensure we’re climate ready and our landscapes are resilient,” she said.

The Greens candidate for Oxley, Dominic King said, “We have the farmers, community, natural assets, and climate to lead the transition into a robust, adaptable, affordable and holistic way to meet our communities needs into the future.

“The changing climate has thrown the current food system into disarray.

“We need a new way to ensure that farmers, First Nations people, environmentalists and all levels of government work together to grow food and improve our environmental outcomes,” he said.

The full policy can be found at https://greens.org.au/nsw/SustainableFoodSystem.

By Andrew VIVIAN