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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Doug Hannan Reserve, Reservoir – Approx. 0.67 ha. – Mini skate park, half-court, playground. – Drinking fountain, seating and picnic table. – Open lawn area, trees and garden beds. | Health and Wellbeing | Access to safe drinking water | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Drinking Fountains Drinking fountains are important infrastructure in public open spaces. They encourage walking and cycling, and provide equitable access to clean water for people and animals reducing dependency on single use plastic bottles. Council has committed to increasing the provision of drinking fountains across Darebin’s open space network and their installation will be considered in all future open space projects. | Health and Wellbeing | Access to safe drinking water | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Increase seating, tree planting for shade and drinking fountains in retail streets to increase amenity and activation of the spaces. | Health and Wellbeing | Access to safe drinking water | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | S5.2 Reduce the dependency on single use plastic by providing increased access to freely accessible drinking water in open spaces. | Health and Wellbeing | Access to safe drinking water | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | 16 | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Bundoora Park, Bundoora – Approx. 190 ha. – Urban farm, cafe and multiple playspaces. – Incorporates multiple separate uses such as golf course and river red gum preservation area. | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Identify opportunities to collaborate with community groups on urban food production projects, including mentoring programs. A6.18 Continue to implement actions from the Darebin GreenStreets Streetscape Strategy and Urban Food Production Strategy. | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Recognise the importance of productive food plants in addressing climate change, greening the municipality and connecting people to nature. | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | S6.5 Increase the number of urban food production opportunities. | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | A13.12 Increase urban food production through fruiting trees in streetscapes and open space upgrades. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | A6.15 Create a species palette of hardy plants including perennial productive food plants. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Activate and revitalise degraded or underutilised public open space through community gardens and other types of community based food growing. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | It also recognises a broader definition of open space, where open space includes not only parks and reserves, but also streetscapes, nature strips, productive food gardens, urban nodes, quasi-public space, parklets, transport corridors and overlapping uses of space with schools, public asset providers and other institutions. Collectively, these spaces all make an important contribution to shaping the lived experience and aesthetics of an area, and there are opportunities to recognise the cumulative contribution of these spaces in policy and planning. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Partnerships with schools Increasing access to non-Council owned public open space is a way to immediately and cost-effectively add more public open space into the usable network for Darebin’s community. Depending on the site and community need, this could include developing a playspace or building a community garden on Department of Education land that is jointly used by the school and the Darebin community outside of school hours. In each case, Council, the school and the community should all come together to develop, build, fund and maintain the space. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | S6.6 Include edible trees and vegetation as part of an integrated ecosystem approach to designing parks and open space. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | There are over 790 hectares of open space in Darebin, including local and district parks, nature reserves, creek corridors, community gardens, large regional parks and sporting reserves. | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | a buffer of 100m from creeks. In these locations, ensure that indigenous vegetation is used in new developments and encourage its use in existing situations with the exception of productive gardens in a contained environment. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Activate and revitalise degraded or underutilised public open space through community gardens and other types of community based food growing. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Consult with the Aboriginal community regarding opportunities and concepts for growing indigenous foods. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | It also recognises a broader definition of open space, where open space includes not only parks and reserves, but also streetscapes, nature strips, productive food gardens, urban nodes, quasi-public space, parklets, transport corridors and overlapping uses of space with schools, public asset providers and other institutions. Collectively, these spaces all make an important contribution to shaping the lived experience and aesthetics of an area, and there are opportunities to recognise the cumulative contribution of these spaces in policy and planning. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Partnerships with schools Increasing access to non-Council owned public open space is a way to immediately and cost-effectively add more public open space into the usable network for Darebin’s community. Depending on the site and community need, this could include developing a playspace or building a community garden on Department of Education land that is jointly used by the school and the Darebin community outside of school hours. In each case, Council, the school and the community should all come together to develop, build, fund and maintain the space. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | There are over 790 hectares of open space in Darebin, including local and district parks, nature reserves, creek corridors, community gardens, large regional parks and sporting reserves. | Sustainability and Environment | Home and community gardening | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | A6.15 Create a species palette of hardy plants including perennial productive food plants. | Sustainability and Environment | Food supply and food system resilience | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Recognise the importance of productive food plants in addressing climate change, greening the municipality and connecting people to nature. | Sustainability and Environment | Food supply and food system resilience | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | Drinking Fountains Drinking fountains are important infrastructure in public open spaces. They encourage walking and cycling, and provide equitable access to clean water for people and animals reducing dependency on single use plastic bottles. Council has committed to increasing the provision of drinking fountains across Darebin’s open space network and their installation will be considered in all future open space projects. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| BREATHING SPACE The Darebin Open Space Strategy | S5.2 Reduce the dependency on single use plastic by providing increased access to freely accessible drinking water in open spaces. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Darebin | Metropolitan |
| Brewarrina Child Care Centre | • Encourage the introduction of solid food to an infant by 6 months of age. Recommended first solid food includes gluten free cereal (e.g. rice cereal) and pureed fruit and vegetables. The introduction of solids to babies and toddlers will be done in consultation with families and in line with recognised guidelines. • Encourage the introduction of iron rich foods as soon as possible after the infant is 6 months old by giving them meat, poultry, fish, legumes and wholegrain cereals. For a non-allergic infant encourage the introduction of all the basic food groups after they are 6 months old. • Encourage parents to provide meals of a suitable range of food textures and finger food according to the age and development of the infant. Start teaching an infant to drink from a cup (with a spout or straw) by 12 months old. • Aim to avoid serving genetically modified foods • Encourage children to try all foods at all meal times, however staff will respect children’s preferences • Ensure that parents provide detailed information concerning suitable foods for children who are on special diets • Ask parents to provide at least one piece of fruit per day | Health and Wellbeing | Healthy/sustainable LG food procurement policies | NSW | Brewarrina | Regional |
| Brewarrina Child Care Centre | • Ensuring that information is readily accessible to parents of children enrolled outlining the approach taken to meet the nutritional needs of children including each child’s special dietary needs, culture and religion • Ensure that educators and staff are aware of the need to implement adequate health and hygiene practices and use safe practices for food handling, preparing and storing food to minimise risks to children as well as prevention of transmission of food borne illness • Ensure that gloves will be worn when preparing foods that will not be cooked • Ensure that any staff directly handling cooked or uncooked foods will use food utensils • Ensure that food will be stored at safe temperatures • Ensure that hygienic measures will be taken to maintain a clean kitchen area and clean cooking utensils and equipment • Ensure that both children and staff practice appropriate hand washing practices prior to eating serving food • Provide a choice of cow’s milk or soy milk (calcium fortified) to be served at morning and afternoon tea • Promote drinking water and ensure its availability at all times • Ensure that the service shall remain nut free (this includes no almond milk) and that all dietary requirements relating to medical conditions shall be adhered to | Health and Wellbeing | Healthy/sustainable LG food procurement policies | NSW | Brewarrina | Regional |
| Brewarrina Child Care Centre | • Provide support for nutrition and food safety training for all staff • Consider the special needs of infants including: • Support a mother to continue breastfeeding as long as possible • Encourage breast milk or infant formula to be continued as the main drink until the infant is 12 months old • Provide cooled, boiled water if extra fluids are needed • Discourage fruit juice and all other drinks, other than boiled water and breast milk and infant formula • S | Health and Wellbeing | Healthy/sustainable LG food procurement policies | NSW | Brewarrina | Regional |
| Brewarrina Child Care Centre | Evaluation The service demonstrates good dental hygiene practices across service delivery. Children are provided with nutritional food and drink to reduce exposure to tooth decay. | Health and Wellbeing | Healthy/sustainable LG food procurement policies | NSW | Brewarrina | Regional |