Ōtepoti Food Futures: Stimulating Cooperation on Local Food Resilience!
Does it sometimes feel like everyone you know cares about our town, we’re all putting in work to make Dunedin a better place to live, and yet, somehow our wheels are always spinning when it comes to making real progress on our collective food resilience?
While there are many dedicated folks working passionately on kai issues in Ōtepoti, the reality is that no single solution will propel Dunedin into a prosperous and food resilient future. There’s no silver bullet that will ready us for the challenges posed by myriad environmental, economic, and social factors. This can only be achieved through effective collaboration between diverse stakeholders (that includes you, by the way!).
Strengthening Dunedin’s Local Food Markets: Community Info/Consultation Hui
When: Friday, August 23rd (5:30pm - 7pm)
Where: Erricks - 218 Crawford Street, Dunedin 9016
We invite members of the local business community, food producers, community organisers, as well as representatives from local, regional, and central government (and anyone else interested!) to have a drink with us. We want to inform you of what we have planned for November, while also hearing about what's important to you. We’ll be chatting about:
How do we better support those already producing food locally?
How can we expand local infrastructure and markets to create space for more producers without squeezing those already growing and producing locally?
How can we inspire and empower the next generation of farmers and growers to step into local food production?
What measures can put in place to ensure the limited land suitable for food production in and around Dunedin is not used for other purposes?
How can we support social enterprise initiatives?
Anything else you think needs to be addressed!
More info here.
Community Gardens Hui
When: Saturday, September 21st (1pm - 3:30pm)
Where: The Dunningham Suite - Dunedin Public Library (4th Floor)
There are a lot of beloved community gardens reaching all corners of Dunedin city. While a lot of these are thriving, many of these gardens also struggle with community engagement, volunteer retention and procuring adequate resources to thrive. In September, 2024, Our Food Network will host and facilitate a networking and cooperative planning event open to all people already involved in (or interested in) community gardens in their neighbourhood. This includes school gardens!
At this this 2.5 hour, informal event we will discuss the following questions:
1. What do we actually want to achieve with our gardens?
2. What are the most important elements to achieving this “success”?
3. What are the recurring problems/issues we experience at our community gardens?
4. How could community gardens in Ōtepoti better support each other?
5. How could the local government better support community gardens?
Ōtepoti Food Futures is an open, city-wide food Hui that will take place on 16th of November, 2024. Coordinated by Our Food Network (OFN), this dynamic, full-day event will see people from all sectors collaborating to map out the changes needed to establish Ōtepoti as a food resilience pioneer in Aotearoa in the coming years.
We want to hear from community organisations, businesses, local and regional politicians, schools, as well as rangatahi/youth, parents, kaumātua/elders, and everyone in between! This is a follow up from our Aug and Sept meetings.
