Sleap said on election day fundraising, there was great interest in members of the local community who wanted to join the garden.
But Sleap said there was no direct correlation with rising prices in supermarkets and that people were usually more motivated by concerns about sustainability and the desire to grow and eat local seasonal foods.
Professor Mark Howden, director of the Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, said home gardens and community gardens were a good choice for people who wanted strengthen their access to food, when available.
“It’s not just about food safety, it’s also about good nutrition and also about teaching your kids where the food comes from,” Howden said.
“There’s a good reason why people should grow some of their own food without getting too carried away.”
The highest body of Australian vegetable growers, AUSVEG, said the cost of vegetables had more than doubled between 2006 and 2016.
Flavio Macau, associate dean of the Edith Cowan University School of Business and Law, wrote in The Conversation that prices would remain high so that the underlying causes would not go away.
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Half of the rent increase was due to rising transportation costs, the cost of fertilizers, labor shortages, and the consolidation of the industry with small farmers leaving the business.
But the other half was climate change, not just global warming, but also an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events such as wildfires and droughts, and more recently mass floods in NSW and Queensland.