Healthy Food Systems
Food is essential to everyone – it not only connects people from all walks of life but it has a direct impact on our health and wellbeing.
That’s why we are working with the Central Goldfields Food Network and other community partners to build a healthy local food system.
What is the food system?
The ‘food system’ is everything and everyone involved in bringing food from farm to fork, and back again. It isn't a straightforward process: instead, it's a complex web of relationships that connects all the steps involved in growing, processing, distributing, selling, consuming, and disposing of food: on-farm, in shops, and at home.
Roadmap to a better food system
In 2024, we partnered with Sustain - The Australian Food Network to create the Central Goldfields Food Systems Roadmap. The Roadmap provides a snapshot of the food system in Central Goldfields, its challenges, and opportunities to improve it.
More than 230 community members and stakeholders were involved in consultations for the Roadmap, through interviews, Kitchen Table Talks, public listening posts, and written feedback. This gave us a clear picture of the challenges involved in accessing healthy food in Central Goldfields, and the local people and projects already working to address them. We also heard hundreds of fresh and creative ideas for ways we can work together to tackle them.
The Roadmap outlines 19 key recommendations of ways to achieve community's vision for a better local food system: one that is equitable, helps to build social connections, and supports healthy eating. These recommendations are organised into five themes:
- Enhance local food systems governance to achieve the Roadmap goals.
- Foster small-scale local growing to support a community-owned shared food enterprise.
- Community food education programs meeting different needs for different cohorts.
- Explore options to create healthy and diverse food retail environments.
- Activate broader regional partnerships in developing the local food system.
Funding to develop the Roadmap was provided by VicHealth, through the Local Government Partnership Project.
Click the link to download the full document and find out more: Central Goldfields Food Systems Roadmap(PDF, 7MB)
For enquiries, please contact Gemma Simpson, Children and Young People First Project Officer: gemma.simpson@cgoldshire.vic.gov.au / 0428 941 399