- Title: Pandemic sees Sydneysiders turning to urban farms for fresh produce
- Date: 29th April 2020
- Summary: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (APRIL 29, 2020) (REUTERS ) VARIOUS OF POCKET CITY FARMS FARM MANAGER JULIA MARTIGNONI PULLING OUT CARROTS FROM GROUND SYDNEY TERRACE HOUSES / MARTIGNONI CLIPPING CORIANDER VARIOUS OF MARTIGNONI CLIPPING CORIANDER ON FARM IN FRONT OF TERRACE HOUSES VARIOUS OF MARTIGNONI CLIPPING BASIL (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER OF POCKET CITY FARMS, HEATHER MCCABE, SAYING: "And all our restaurant sales dropped away completely. So we switched around and focused on selling to the local public, because local food is what we're all about and so we've built our online orders now. We have one day a week, which is Wednesdays, where we arrange for people to come and pick up their veggies or we'll deliver them free of charge, if they're in an adjoining suburb and we've now built that from maybe selling maybe two online orders a fortnight, we've got 25 to 30 a week. And so for us, that's really what we're on about here. It's selling food to our local community." VARIOUS OF SIGN READING (English): "POCKET CITY FARM" IN FRONT OF MARKET GARDEN CONVERTED FROM BOWLING GREEN VARIOUS OF MARTIGNONI PICKING SNOW PEAS (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER OF POCKET CITY FARMS, HEATHER MCCABE, SAYING: "In some cases where people are unable to work and they're looking for other things, they're able to connect with this more, they're able to spend more time that they wouldn't otherwise have had. For other people, it's about where is their food coming from, it's become really important to know that if it's not readily available from their normal sources, to think well what do I do, what other alternatives are there, where else can I get food from? So it's made people, I think, take a step back and have a really good think about it." VARIOUS OF MARTIGNONI WASHING CARROTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER OF POCKET CITY FARMS, HEATHER MCCABE, SAYING: "People growing their food in their backyards, it's just booming at the moment. We're getting lots of enquiries from people about can we please be selling seedlings, so all little back gardens and balconies around here I reckon are sprouting lettuce boxes and people are growing a lot of their own little greens and things like that so." CUSTOMER PUSHING BICYCLE TO COLLECTION POINT FOR POCKET CITY FARM PRODUCE SIGN READING (English): "POCKET CITY FARMS ORDER PICKUPS 11AM-12PM" BAGS CONTAINING PRODUCE LIST ON BAGS DETAILING PRODUCE AND PRICES CUSTOMERS RECEIVING BAG AND WALKING AWAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYDNEY RESIDENT AND CUSTOMER, RUTH HOWARD, SAYING: "Have you seen the produce that you get in some of the supermarkets? This is absolutely straight grown from the garden. I know that when I go home and have my snow peas, they've been probably just picked this morning, and that's so different to what you get in the supermarkets, and there's a real difference in the quality of the food, a huge difference for me and it just makes cooking and eating so pleasurable." CUSTOMERS ARRIVING AT COLLECTION POINT (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYDNEY RESIDENT AND CUSTOMER, MARCUS FOWLER, SAYING: "So it's fresh, it's good quality and you're helping local businesses as well too, so it's all good." POCKET CITY FARMS COMMUNITY AND EDUCATION COORDINATOR ADINA OOSTERWIJK LOOKING ON PEOPLE WALKING TO COLLECTION POINT (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL MANAGER OF POCKET CITY FARMS, HEATHER MCCABE, SAYING: "I think just the simple act of growing something that you can eat itself is an extraordinary thing and it can just start with something as small as a bunch of parsley. It really, having that sense of having grown something that you were then eating and that you can pick something straight from a plant and eat is just incredible." FLOWERS NEXT TO CROPS BUTTERFLY ON FLOWER
- Embargoed: 13th May 2020 11:41
- Keywords: Australia COVID-19. coronavirus Sydney farming food produce urban farm vegetables
- Location: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
- City: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
- Country: Australia
- Reuters ID: LVA001CBJLHS7
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: An Australian urban farm in the heart of downtown Sydney, that was once a lawn bowling green, has recorded an upsurge in public demand for its produce during the coronavirus pandemic.
Pocket City Farms, located just five kilometres (3.1 miles) from Sydney's Central Business District, opened in 2016 after being transformed from a lawn bowling club. It's aim was to demonstrate how food could be grown in a dense city on unused land.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, Pocket City mainly sold to local restaurants, wholefoods distributors and "Ooooby" - a community vegetable mix box delivered weekly to people's houses.
But with COVID-19 restrictions closing restaurants and Ooooby's demand for vegetables becoming too large for the farm during social isolation, Pocket City switched to focusing on selling directly to the public to keep the farm operating.
"We've now built that from maybe selling maybe two online orders a fortnight, we've got 25 to 30 a week. And so for us, that's really what we're on about here. It's selling food to our local community," Pocket City Farm General Manager Heather McCabe told Reuters on Wednesday (April 29).
The farm sells to customers vegetables and salad greens like snow peas, carrots, basil, zucchinis and chillies, that turn over in the soil quickly on the market garden's 1200 square metres (12916.69 sq ft) of land.
McCabe also said that she is getting lots of requests from customers asking for seedlings to start their own backyard farms at a time when food provisions are stretched.
"People growing their food in their backyard, it's just booming at the moment," she said.
McCabe said that in spite of the upsurge in purchases from the public, business has still taken a hit since they have lost much of their restaurant clientele.
Australia has credited a partial lockdown and virus testing with bringing the rate of new infections down to below 1%. Home to 25.7 million people, it has recorded about 6,700 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and 88 deaths.
Some states and territories have begun to ease restrictions independently, including allowing slightly larger public gatherings and reopening beaches. But the federal government said there will not be any changes before a review on May 11.
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