Local Food Launchpad participants ‘The Veggie Empire’ share their project

We are ‘The Veggie Empire’, a collective of six people who have come together because of our shared passion for growing fresh local food.

Some of you know some of us from our many years working as volunteers at Edendale or from our current project: Beales Road Farm @ Hayden Mclean’s place.

Team members Rachel and Kat recently had the privilege to have taken part in the City of Melbourne’s Local Food Launchpad for 2018 on behalf of our Greensborough-based urban agriculture team.

The Local Food Launchpad program helps local food start-ups to work on their business model including how to attract funding to move their enterprise forward.

We’d like to share our story so far with the local food connect community.

You know that it takes hard work and dedication to become an urban agriculturalist, you have to study at a University, TAFE or do an Apprenticeship before you find employment. This can be an even greater challenge when you have intellectual disability as a couple of our team do.

You would no doubt have heard of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. People funded under this new scheme now have the power to choose how their funding is used to further their skills and participate more fully in social and economic life.

Our model offers a tailored strengths-based approach that grows with team members as they move towards paid roles as urban agriculturalists.

We have developed a way of working on the land together where people can share their skills and resources that equals:

• More employment in the local food production sector.
• A new way of supporting people with disability to develop urban agriculture skills and community connections through a vocational buddy system.
• More locally grown food and food plants available to our local community.

As a collective, The Veggie Empire have established and operate a community food system known as Beales Road Farm on an under-utilised piece of land in Greensborough in Melbourne’s north.

The two NDIS funded participants in our team are matched with horticulture professionals in order to learn and maintain food production and other work skills.

So where are things at for us?

Thanks to the generosity of Greensborough man Hayden Mclean, we have a land-share farm from which to operate.

We have strong relationships with the local food community and we have some passionate supporters who want to get their hands on our yummy goodness.

We are currently taking the next steps towards officially establishing our sustainable local food enterprise in order to get more locally grown food out into our community through farm gate and farmer’s market stalls.

By contributing to our current crowd funding campaign you would be helping with our irrigation set up costs.

Drop by our market garden at 260 Beales Road Farm on Mondays between 9am and 3pm and buy some fresh produce. Also, check in on our Facebook page – The Veggie Empire to see what we’re up to and what’s growing and available.

We are also seeking community members to vote for our Pick My Project grant application ‘The Veggie Empire’ Community Food Plant Nursery to set up a propagation nursery.

This project, if successful, would be auspiced by Local Food Connect.

Best regards and lots of local food to all.

Rachel, Scott, Josh, Veronica, May and Kat (The Veggie Empire)