WITH a State Government slating great chunks of north-west and south-west Sydney for urban development, we are in trouble. How do we feed ourselves when the farmland is gone? There is an assumption upon which such development relies that there will always be food available from somewhere, even from abroad. Many are beginning to question the wisdom of basing our future food security on imported foods, however action may not come quickly enough to achieve any meaningful response.

Local governments in western Sydney are concerned about urban development across local farmland but State and Federal governments have been rather slower to acknowledge the problem. A spread of articles on the issue, published by the Sun Herald in 2010, includes an interactive map that demonstrates clearly the importance of the Sydney basin to various crops.

Many of Granny Smith Natural Food Market’s favourite suppliers feel pressure from such land development. Where will our beautiful tomatoes come from if they need to be brought in from more than 1000 kilometres away? Could they possibly be as fresh or taste as good as Alf and Lee Sorbello’s from just up the road? What about Michael Champion’s magnificent salad greens? Peter Clinch’s chickens? With more and more housing covering the Sydney basin and ever greater urban run-off, how long can we expect clean local oysters and fish to hold out?

Please take a few minutes to email Senator the Honourable Joe Ludwig, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, about your concerns.

To bring the matter to wider public attention, you can email the letters editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and email the letters editors of the Sun Herald.

Alternatively, please cut and paste the following if you prefer to not write your own email:

I write to you to express my concern about the disappearance of farmland around Sydney. Many of the products that are now grown locally, such as fresh fruits and vegetables and chicken, appear on my dinner table regularly. Where will they come from if farming in the Sydney Basin disappears?

We already have water issues in other parts of the country and transport costs are rising. I do not wish to have fresh vegetables grown overseas as my only option and with dietary-related health issues costing more each year, how does this protect our long-term health and food security?

I look to you to take action to protect Sydney’s remaining urban farmland in perpetuity. We cannot afford to lose this vital source of food to urban sprawl.

Please keep me appraised of the action you are taking.

Sincerely,

Your name

Links
Hawkesbury Harvest

Some of you may remember our offering of magnificently-flavoured heirloom apples at the end of our first summer way back in 2003.

Having only been open for a few months, we were reviewed by ‘Good Living’ in The Sydney Morning Herald. The review was seen by Borry and Gaye Gartrell, heirloom fruit orchardists and winemakers who farm the slopes of Mt Canobolas outside Orange at an altitude of 1000 metres. My experience of community-supported agriculture, mentioned in the article, encouraged them to bring us some of their fabulous apple varieties and everyone raved about the beautiful, varying flavours of the fruit.

The vineyards running down the slopes of Mt Canobolas towards the lake

Nowadays, most apples are picked as early as possible. This gets them to market when the prices are higher and minimises potential for damage: the longer they hang on the trees, the more chances they’ll be eaten by birds and bats or made worthless by inclement weather. The trouble with the early harvesting approach though is that it doesn’t allow the fruit to develop its best flavour. Apples won’t ripen further once picked so leaving them on the tree is the only way to allow the fruit to develop its full potential.

In addition, like most fruits and vegetables, true heirloom varieties rarely make it to market. They were not bred with transport and cold storage uppermost in mind. While many, including the Granny Smith, were valued for their ability to be shipped long distances (sending apples to the UK out of season went on even a hundred years and more ago), their essential values were flavour. But when they’re picked under-ripe, that flavour profile is seriously compromised. In spite of the name of this business, Granny Smith apples were never my favourite apple variety, often being tart with a pale green, under-ripe flesh. But many years ago I tried a honey-core Granny Smith apple. Allowed to remain on the tree until early May, this was sensational. The core had turned an almost amber colour and was dripping when the apple was cut. The sweetness in the centre was balanced by the famous tartness nearer the skin, making a perfect balance. This was an apple that deserved a podium position. Unfortunately, with premiums generally only available for new season, as opposed to late season fruit, producing such standouts is not commercially viable.

I’ve been intending to go to Orange each year to get some more of this amazing fruit but being so busy, it never happened. That is, until last week, when I drove to Borry and Gaye’s specifically to get some of these apples for you. Though the main apple season is now mostly behind us, the last of the late season fruit is still on the trees, having grown slowly through the warmer months and now fully flavoured. I helped Borry pick three late season varieties: Democrats, Roman Beauties and King Davids. While the plums have all lost their leaves, the apples and cherries were still dressed in their summer outfits and a few of the apple trees stood out like Christmas trees, weighed down with great, red clusters of fruit. We headed along the row to these trees and picked them in the golden light of late afternoon, quickly filling a dozen or more boxes. Borry was a lot more judicious in discarding any apples that appeared “already visited” while I thought that any with just a small worm-hole or two could be used for cooking. When you’re getting these at the shop, blame me for any of these and remember that even a small hole or two indicates a desirable apple.

Almost the last of the season's apples

Borry and Gaye now focus on wine grapes. The apples and plums are just left to look after themselves, receiving no chemicals and only a prune every couple of years. Even so, Borry’s knowledge of apple and plum growing is extraordinary and while he’s maintaining the varieties, others, who should know better, have given up. When the Department of Agriculture decided to sell off some of the agricultural research station land at Bathurst a few years ago, on which a huge collection of heirloom plums had been established, Borry rescued as many as he could. Alas the department’s urgency meant that because of the time of the year, only cuttings from late season varieties could be rescued and many others were lost. In all the haste “to save taxpayers’ money”, some of our fruit heritage is now gone. Seems almost criminal to me. In countries like the US and the UK, heirloom fruits and vegetables are making a comeback but here in Australia, there is little apparent respect and demand for varieties that were cherished for generations.

While on the subject of the modern fruit supply and in an aside, let me tell you something about the things done to make fruit more available, in this example NSW cherries. Extending the cherry season, exporting the largest cherries possible and getting fruit to market first have encouraged the development of a cherry industry around Narromine in NSW.  This would traditionally be seen as a marginal cherry landscape. As the region is so warm, the trees need to be fooled into dormancy by spraying them with a defoliant so they drop their leaves in May and then spraying the trees with a white coating to reflect the winter warmth and keep the trees cooler. Then come end of winter they’re given another chemical dousing to encourage budding. It’s a very risky business but the rewards are great. Just when the planes stop flying from Los Angeles to Sydney laden with Washington and Oregon cherries, they start going back in the other direction laden with our fruit. As Borry said, “Get 31 mm cherries to Dubai and the world’s your oyster.”

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be heading back up to Orange for the last of Borrodell on the Mount’s Granny Smiths. By then, with any luck and a few frosts, they should have developed a honey core. I’ll be sure to let you know when they come in.