"nurturing land, nourishing people"
– OUR MISSION STATEMENT
Food Next Door matches under-utilised farmland with landless farmers to support small-scale regenerative farming, growing diverse crops & engaging people from diverse backgrounds to supply food to local households.
In The News
The Wintersun - Episode 5
Local short doco series The Wintersun featured us for their fifth Youtube episode. We talk Local Food Economy, Out of the Box, and Sunraysia's Food Future.
Food Next Door multi-stakeholder co-op explained
A co-op education resource made by Sidsel Grimstad for University of Newcastle.
Yesterday the #riverfarm was crowded with farmers weeding their patch. Six new migrant farmers have a plot here and have been growing peas over winter. They use farming skills from their home and are learning new techniques for our environment and climate - like irrigation!
#communityfarming #landsharing
Broad beans are on! Rach super volunteer at the #communitydemonstrationfarm helped harvest these beauties last week for #outoftheboxsunraysia
#biodynamicfarming #communityfarming
Joel and Butros in a field of peas! Harvesting at the #communitydemonstrationfarm for #outoftheboxsunraysia
Go team! Amazing to see this beautiful harvest on the weekend. You are all doing incredible work in Mildura. Thanks again for showing me around the farm Deb and Peter
We are so proud to be launching this groundbreaking initiative and to be working with such a strong and innovative board. Thanks to @DELWP @Adapt Loddon Mallee for supporting this work that will put more control back into the hands of small-scale farmers. Hooray!
Being part of this network is so inspiring. Thank you SENVIC for bringing all this important work together, showcasing it, and spreading the love for social enterprise. And thank you to all the people and organisations working to make our world a better and kinder place. 🌿🌍👩🌾
We were super excited when Mallee District Aboriginal Services - Mildura, Swan Hill, Kerang, Robinvale contacted us about sourcing some local organic fruit & veg from Out of the Box Sunraysia for their Early Learning program. The first boxes went out last week - the start of a new collaboration for our community. Check out the link in the post below for the full story.
#collaborationisbetter #supportlocalWe're excited to be collaborating with this great little organisation @Food Next Door - it's a partnership to support the healthy eating habits of our families! Thanks to @Deb Bogenhuber and the team at @Out of the Box
buff.ly/35zJzUG
Lookin' great Deborah 💚🙏💚
Why a Co-Op?
Co-operatives are organisations owned by members for the benefit of members. They are different from other organisations because their priority is to have social and economic impact. Food Next Door also aims to have an environmental impact.
Co-ops around the world are guided by the Co-Operative Principles, which include democracy, open and inclusive voluntary membership, concern for community, and education.
Interested in becoming a member of Food Next Door?
What We do
Visions & Objectives
The primary object of Food Next Door is to relieve the suffering or distress suffered by newly arrived migrants and refugee groups, particularly those without access to land and living in rural and regional areas, by supporting these groups to re-engage in farming and grow food, including their traditional foods.
This will be achieved by, amongst other things:
• Sourcing and negotiating access to land for the groups to use for farming
• Providing ongoing assistance and support to the groups to farm the land.
• Creating new distribution channels for the groups to sell their produce.
Our secondary objects are to:
· Strengthen overall community cohesion in the long term.
· Build our soils and encourage regenerative farming practices.
· Increase the number of small-scale farms to provide high quality produce to local markets, and
· Strengthen local food economies through diversification of produce.
Food Next Door’s vision is for under-utilised and vacant farmland to be transformed into productive foodscapes using regenerative farming practices.
We are establishing a community demonstration farm based in Mildura, north-west Victoria, to progress this vision.
Pilot Projects
Victoria
Sunraysia Burundian Garden
New South Wales
Community Connections Garden
Out of the Box
Food Next Door run a weekly local produce box to supply our community with local produce grown by small-scale regenerative farmers.
The enterprise is based on three connected principles:
· Fair returns to growers
· Building community, and
· Regenerating our soils.
Mildura community water bank
Mildura Community Water Bank will be an innovative venture to assist small-scale farmers in securing water at a reasonable, stable price, to be launched in the second half of 2020.
“This project is very important for the local community, helping the small-scale farmers to get access to affordable irrigation water for their farms to produce local fresh crops, to produce vegetables at a reasonable price that is affordable by everyone.”
– Jules Kangeta, Project Manager
Our Team
We’re run by community minded leaders – Passionate, Knowledgable and Hardworking.
Click on our respective photographs to learn more about the team behind Food Next Door.
Deborah Bogenhuber
Executive Officer
Ben Dunn
Chairperson & Co-Founder
Reece Cameron
Director & Co-Founder
Sevilla Furness-Holland
Director & Co-Founder
Joselyne Majambere
Director
Jennifer Douglas
Director
Kubota Songa
Director
Darryl Lang
Director
Peter Webb
Grower's Mentor
Our Advisory Board
food next door
gratefully acknowledges our
supporters & partners
food next door
ARE PROUD MEMBERS OF THE FOLLOWING:
get in touch
We’d love to hear from you!
If you’d like to join Food Next Door Co-Op as a member, kindly click here.
If you’d like to try a week of Out of the Box’s fresh subscription produce, look here.
