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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
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The production of milk, meat, fruit and vegetables has played an important role in the economy and culture of Melbourne's suburbs. Food production was originally a matter of necessity for the Kulin people and early white invaders, and as the fledgling settlement became a town, then a city, much of its fresh food continued to be produced locally, on commercial mixed farms, and in market gardens, orchards, dairies, private kitchen gardens and backyards.
The 1891 census revealed a city teeming with productive animals, with 17 844 cattle, 4097 pigs and almost half a million fowls - more than the human population - recorded in greater Melbourne municipalities. This state of affairs had some drawbacks: accounts of reeking manure heaps and festering fowl runs were common, and even in the semi-rural borough of Oakleigh in 1887 there was debate in council over whether to act against the menace of wandering cattle.
In the 1920s, as suburban development proceeded apace, many councils began to introduce regulations prohibiting large livestock, an exercise that met with resistance in some areas and impassioned pleas for exemptions in others. Kerr's dairy at the corner of Albert and Blair streets, Brunswick, closed its doors after 43 years when cows were prohibited in the city in 1930; many dairies in other suburbs did likewise. However, public protest, and the perception that many residents relied on their house cows, meant that prohibition of cattle in Oakleigh would be delayed until 1952. Council regulations on poultry were tightened to a lesser degree and with less efficacy in the 1950s and 1960s, although by that time, other forces were also driving a decline in poultry-keeping.
The decline in suburban livestock numbers created an imbalance in an urban ecology that had seen much manure used locally in parks and gardens and orchards. Artificial fertilisers became the order of the day for commercial growers, but home gardeners lamented the unavailability of soil-conditioning 'farmyard' and stable manure.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large private gardens had areas set aside for fruit and vegetable production, which was often undertaken by professional gardeners. However, productive gardening was also promoted - and taken up - as a healthy recreation for a largely sedentary, landowning urban bourgeoisie. It became a mark of solid middle-class respectability, embodying the value of self-help through industriousness and forging links with a pervasive agrarian ideal. In all classes, it reflected a colonial predilection for the idea of independence. The work of food production was largely a male domain among the upper classes, although among the middle and working classes, women were often responsible for the day-to-day maintenance of backyard gardens and poultry, and several dairies and poultry farms were run by women.
Suburban food production achieved a heightened importance during times of war and depression. More than half of Melbourne's households grew some of their own food during the 1930s depression, with many gardens expanded during times of unemployment. In 1941, over 80% of households in Box Hill, Camberwell, Caulfield and Oakleigh were growing some of their own food, and production is likely to have increased two years later when an official 'Grow your Own' campaign, launched in response to a shortfall in commercial food production, vigorously encouraged Melburnians to grow vegetables and keep fowls.
The 1950s saw the introduction of a dramatic change in the suburban foodscape, as more immigrants from Southern Europe brought a distinctive preference for fresh, tasty, traditional food to Melbourne. In 1992 they were largely responsible for the 1.4 million litres of wine produced by Melbourne households, although most of the 31 189 t of home-grown fruit and vegetables were produced by Australian-born Melburnians. In 1977 food production commenced in a new suburban setting, with the inauguration of the Nunawading Community Garden. Similar gardens have since been established throughout Melbourne, including popular gardens at the public housing estates in Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond, and at the Collingwood Children's Farm and CERES, both of which also function as small mixed farms with an educational focus.