Welcome to the Australian Local Food System Policy Database. This is a collection of policies from New South Wales (NSW) and Victorian local governments that relate to healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems.
For further information about using the database and how it was created see How to use the database. You can search the database by using the fields below. Domain refers to eight broad categories under which various topics are situated. The domains and topics are based on a framework of recommendations for local government action on creating a healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system (also located on the ‘How to use the database’ page linked above).
To cite the database: Reeve B, Carrad A, Rose N, Charlton K & Aguirre-Bielschowsky I (2021) Australian Local Food System Policy Database. Available at: https://law-food-systems.sydney.edu.au/policy-database (access date).
Suggested search terms
Hold Ctrl to select multiple terms. Using ‘any words’ functions as an “OR” search. Using ‘all words’ functions as and “AND” search.
Search Criteria:
| Document title | Relevant text in the policy | Domain | Topic | State | Local Government name | Council type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social Sustainability Policy & Action Plan | Improve local environmental conditions to support health and wellbeing 3.10 Enhance the environment through a range of approaches in collaboration with government and non-government organisations and communities, including greening streets; delivering green roofs and walls on new developments; delivering community gardens and verge gardens; increasing green pedestrian networks, and improving environmental quality – including levels of air, noise and light pollution. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | NSW | Sydney | Metropolitan |
| Social Sustainability Policy & Action Plan | Sustainable environment: urban ecology (vegetation cover, vegetation communities, community gardens) – Community Wellbeing Indicators | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | NSW | Sydney | Metropolitan |
| Social Sustainability Policy & Action Plan | Through our broad service remit and closeness to community, we can influence community health outcomes. We will continue to do this by providing open spaces, recreation facilities, and walking and cycling infrastructure to encourage active living; monitoring air quality; regulating food safety | Food Quality and Safety | Education on/enforce food safety regulations | NSW | Sydney | Metropolitan |
| Social Sustainability Policy & Action Plan | Establishing a food business incubator It is proposed to pilot a Sydney Food Business Incubator in the city as a three-year pilot project involving the University of Sydney, federal and state government and social enterprise sector partners. A food business incubator is a scheme that supports people who are disadvantaged to establish food-based startup businesses. This is through vocational education and training in value-added food production, along with business development skills. The initiative fosters the development of a sustainable network of businesses that increase the wider community’s access to healthy and affordable food. This model for addressing food insecurity – along with its underlying causes of economic exclusion and rising inequality – is being established in cities across the world, most notably Detroit and other US cities. The Sydney incubator proposed by the University of Sydney is based on these best practice models. The initiative is planned to become one of the suite of responses by the City and its partners to food insecurity in our prosperous city, which affects 8.5 per cent or approximately 17,000 of our residents – and rising (Community Wellbeing Indicators, 2016). It will enable residents’ participation in the city’s vibrant food economy and contribute to the growth of the city’s ecosystem of sustainable food-based enterprises. It will support some of the Sydney’s most vulnerable people to feed themselves, while delivering broader food security, social justice and community resilience outcomes. Residents will be engaged to participate in the scheme through the city’s networks of social housing communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and refugee and asylum seeker communities. This three-year pilot offers Sydney the opportunity to actively participate in national and global food justice networks, to share learnings from the rigorous research and evaluation that will be a core component of this federal research pilot, and to deliver direct positive social impacts in the local area. The pilot project brings potential to scale up across the city’s urban renewal areas – bringing longer term social and economic benefits. | Economic Development | Food related job creation | NSW | Sydney | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Advocating strongly for affordable housing targets with our partners on major urban renewal projects, such as the Parramatta Road Urban Renewal Area, Parramatta North Urban Transformation, Sydney Olympic Park, Camellia and Wentworth Point and advancing the affordable housing targets and recommendations for inclusionary zoning identified in the draft West Central District Plan | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | and providing affordable housing that enables key workers to continue living close to their places of work | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Conducting research into housing needs. | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Deliver and expand a diverse range of affordable, high quality housing that meets the spectrum of housing needs in the community | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Directly providing affordable housing. Council owns a growing number of affordable housing properties, which are managed by a community housing provider and rented to low and moderate income households at below market rates. | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | DIVERSE AFFORDABLE HOMES FOR EVERYONE Deliver and expand a diverse range of affordable, high quality housing that meets the spectrum of housing needs in the community | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | DIVERSE, AFFORDABLE HOMES FOR EVERYONE | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | GOAL: DIVERSE, AFFORDABLE HOMES FOR EVERYONE | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Implement an Affordable Housing Policy to expand housing choice and improve community access to affordable rental housing | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Maximising Council’s own land assets to derive affordable housing, and other social infrastructure | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Planning and regulating the housing mix available in our City, ensuring that growth is inclusive, and happens in the right locations, especially through our Local Environment Plan (LEP) and Development Control Plan (DCP) | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Review Council’s land assets to evaluate their potential to improve social sustainability | Social Policy | Affordable housing | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Expand the Let’s Dine Out Pilot to enable socially isolated people to connect with their communities | Health and Wellbeing | Nutrition in vulnerable populations | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Regulating local businesses to ensure smoking bans and food safety standards are upheld | Food Quality and Safety | Education on/enforce food safety regulations | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| Socially Sustainable Parramatta Framework | Connecting people with fresh and healthy food at local farmers’ markets | Economic Development | Public food markets and distributors | NSW | Parramatta | Metropolitan |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Training and education would be provided to participating households to maximise the likelihood of composting and worm farming being undertaking correctly and not becoming anaerobic | Health and Wellbeing | Education/events on food system issues | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | • Implementing a kerbside collection for household garden and food waste The business case for each of these options is discussed further below. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | A number of options for decreasing the amount of waste generation and/or increasing the amount of recycling through the kerbside system are considered as part of this strategy, including: • Reducing the bin size for residual waste • Encouraging the use of compost bins and worm farms for food and garden waste | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | A number of options for decreasing the amount of waste generation and/or increasing the amount of recycling through the kerbside system have been considered as part of this strategy. These have included: • Reducing the bin size for residual waste from 120 litres to 80 litres • Increasing the size of the recycling bin from 240 litres to 360 litres • Encouraging the use of compost bins and worm farms for food and garden waste | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Option 3: Encouraging the use of compost bins and worm farms for food and garden waste Reducing the amount of food waste sent to landfill has dual benefits in reducing costs (based on the current bin audit data food and garden waste make up 36% of household waste sent to landfill) and reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the decomposition of this organic waste material in landfill14 . Without a kerbside collection service for household food and garden waste one option is to encourage home composting and/or worm farming of these materials. Council can encourage this activity by providing rebates for compost bins and worm farms and exploring opportunities for bulk procurement. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Promote home composting and worm farming of food and garden waste | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | promote home composting and worm farming of food and garden waste for households that have a kerbside service through either a rebate or council bulk purchasing | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Promote home composting and worm farming of food and garden waste for households that have a kerbside service through either a rebate or council bulk purchasing | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Strategy Objective Reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with Council’s waste management activities Proposed Option Option 2: Increasing the size of the recycling bin from 240 litres to 360 litres Option 3: Encouraging the use of compost bins and worm farms for food and garden waste Option 6: Implementing a kerbside collection for household garden and food waste | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | Training and education would be provided to participating households to maximise the likelihood of composting and worm farming being undertaking correctly and not becoming anaerobic | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |
| SOU WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO WASTE MANAGEMENT AND RCE RECO MA VE MENT ND RA RY RY JANUARY 2014 ST RA TEGY | • Encourage a plastic bag and plastic bottle free policy in the Shire | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Hepburn | Regional |