The Invercargill City Council is rethinking how it grows its garden displays as it works with a network committed to creating a strong and resilient food system in Invercargill. 

The city council is part of the Murihiku Kai Collective, a group of like-minded organisations  working together with the aim of creating a robust food system. 

The Kai Collective was created following a co-design project facilitated by Healthy Families Invercargill that showed significant and deep-seated challenges with the food system in Southland. 

The collective has already collaborated on a series of initiatives, including a public harvest day with Koha Kai, and Long Term Plan submissions to the Invercargill City and Southland District Councils, as well as Environment Southland. 

Invercargill City Council Landscape Asset Planner Sheryll Ashton said the council had started experimenting with edible plants in some of its display gardens. 

“We are expanding out our trials, we are already experimenting with different things, edible products in our gardens as part of our displays (and) we are opening that up for sharing with the public.” 

Parks and Recreation team member Leigh McAulay said the council had already successfully grown chillies earlier in the year, which had been harvested by representatives from South Alive and made available to the community, so were now trying rainbow chard (silverbeet) and ornamental kale. 

The aim was to hold a public harvest later in the year when the plants were ready, Leigh said. 

The hope was that the public would be inspired to try something new, and maybe even learn how to grow their own vegetables, she said. 

Healthy Families Invercargill Systems Innovator Rochelle Francis said in order to create a sustainable and robust food system in Invercargill, organisations needed to work together to remove some of the barriers people had to access healthier kai. 

“This is not an issue we can solve alone, but by working together and each playing our own part, we can make it easier for families and individuals to access good, nutritious kai, and that, in turn, benefits the whole community.” 

Article added: Tuesday 24 August 2021