Layer 1
Daily food
Gardens, orchards and the cafe. Fresh greens, herbs and fruit within a hundred metres of every home, and a reason to be out among neighbours every day.
09 · The Food Plan · Canberra basin to the far south coast
Feeding the villages
A food security plan for three regions, and a network of growers to carry it. Local food, grown close, stored well and traded between neighbours on the village exchange.
Feeding the Villages: a food security plan from Canberra to Narooma · Watch on YouTube
The worst news first
The region cannot feed itself
The food system from Canberra to Narooma copes with price rises. It does not cope with anything that closes the highways or cuts the power for more than a day.
- 144 haVegetables, fruit, nuts and vines across the ACT, Queanbeyan-Palerang and Eurobodalla combined. 98 per cent of farmed land is grazing.
Source: ABS, Agricultural Commodities and Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, 2020-21, summed from council rows. - One road inEvery supermarket from Canberra to Narooma is stocked by truck from distribution centres in western Sydney. Nobody publishes how many days of food the shelves hold.
Source: Woolworths Group 2025; Food and Drink Business 2024. No days of stock figure found for any store or centre serving the region. - 6 to 9 daysHow long Narooma went without normal supermarket supply in January 2020, when fire cut the highways and the power.
Worked out from dated ABC and The Beagle reports. No source gives the reopening date. - 1 in 3Australian households were food insecure in the year to mid 2026. Regional households are worse off than city ones.
Source: Foodbank Hunger Report 2026 (33 per cent nationally, 36 per cent regional). - About 4 in 10Narooma residents are 65 or over. Older people who live alone, or have no car, lose food access first.
Source: 2021 Census, via City Population (about 39 per cent). - No planNo council in the region has a funded food plan. The national strategy is not due until mid 2027.
The plan
Three layers on every site
Layer 2
Seasonal stores
A village larder. A root cellar, a cool room and a preserving kitchen, buying regional food in season at farm price and turning it over.
Layer 3
A shock reserve
Fourteen days of staples now, thirty when the Commons opens, ninety as a tested target. Eaten from every week so nothing expires. A register of who needs help first.
The first rule. Each site stands alone for fourteen days. Trade between sites is the second line, not the first, because both roads have closed in the last six years.
Three regions, one network
Each region grows what it grows best
Three climates, from frosty tablelands to a humid coast. They harvest in different seasons, so a bad year in one is rarely a bad year in all.
Region 1
Canberra basin and Queanbeyan
Young Street. 580 m. About 59 frost nights a year.
Grows the fresh food. Greens, herbs, berries, Asian greens, sprouts and mushrooms, in courtyards, the Commons and the basement lab.
Holds the stores, the kitchen, the seed bank and the exchange.
Cannot grow the family's calories. There is not enough ground.
Frost: BoM Canberra Airport Comparison, station 070014. No frost record exists for Queanbeyan itself.
Region 2
Southern Tablelands, Bungendore and Braidwood
Bungendore exchange and the farm near Bungendore. About 700 m. Rain fed.
Grows the protein and the calories. Faba bean, field pea, lupin, oats, potatoes, pumpkins, onions and garlic. Hazelnut, chestnut, walnut and apple.
The only region where a plant-based family's land budget closes.
Rainfall 600 to 720 mm and falling. The farm's size, soil, water and operator are not yet published.
Rainfall: NARCliM2.0 South East and Tablelands snapshot, 2025. Crop windows: GRDC 2016, NSW DPIRD 2024.
Region 3
Far south coast, Kianga, Moruya and Bodalla
The Narooma project. Near sea level. Mild winters.
Grows the second season. Sweet potato, cowpea, citrus, avocado, macadamia and olive. Banana in shelter. Finger lime, lilly pilly, Davidson plum and warrigal greens.
Supplies oil, winter vitamin C, and beach-cast seaweed for iodine within the NSW limits.
Cannot grow enough pulses. The coast eats tablelands pulses.
Climate: BoM Narooma, station 069022. Cowpea: NSW DPI summer forage guide.
Distances from Young Street: the farm near Bungendore about 22 km, Braidwood 52 km, Kianga about 210 km by road.
What travels
Dry goods move. Fresh food stays.
Fresh food is eaten where it grows. The network moves only what keeps: preserved at the producing site, then sent.
Fruit, seedlings and soil do not travel from the coast to the tablelands without a biosecurity check. Queensland fruit fly is spreading south along the ranges.
- MovesSeed, dry pulses and grain, nuts in shell, pressed oil, dried fruit and herbs, fermented food, grow-out records, people for workshops.
- StaysFresh produce. Every site feeds itself first.
- SeedOpen pollinated varieties only. Each site keeps a working jar collection. A base store at minus 20 degrees at Young Street when the lab is built.
The exchange
Sell and trade your food on the LETS
Every grower in the region can sell and trade through the LETS. List what you grow, set your price in SUN, in dollars, or both, and bring it to the weekly market.
Join at sunvillages.trading. A local concierge meets you, usually at the market, and sends a personal sign-in link. No passwords. Then go on both lists: what you grow, and what you need.
Join the LETS Sign in- Young StreetThe exchange for growers in the Canberra basin and Queanbeyan. Markets on Saturdays in winter and after work in summer. Times confirmed with members.
- KiangaThe exchange for growers on the far south coast. First market planned at the Kianga homestead for the summer gathering, 11 to 14 December 2026.
- BungendoreThe exchange for growers on the Southern Tablelands, with the farm near Bungendore as its anchor grower. Market day and place to be set with the first members.
- Twenty is a targetEvery village opens with its first members. Twenty active members is the target in Stina's model, not a lock.
- WeeklyMarket day is weekly, not monthly. Stina's book records that closing the old Friday market unravelled the village.
Fair
Every account starts at zero
No interest. A minus is a promise to give back, not a debt. Balances are visible to members. Healthy accounts stay near zero.
Lawful
Neighbours swap, businesses use dollars
Swapping home-grown produce between members is the exchange's core. A registered business, the Commons kitchen and the cafe trade with members in dollars.
Safe
The food rules
No home-kill meat. Oysters only from licensed harvest areas that are open. No low-acid canning: freeze, dry or ferment. Sprouts, pressed oil and preserves follow the food business rules.
For businesses. If you are GST registered, check the GST treatment of trades in SUN with your accountant before you join. The Institute will seek written positions from the ATO and from Queanbeyan-Palerang and Eurobodalla councils. Nothing here is tax or legal advice.
Tax: ATO ruling IT 2668 treats swapping home-grown vegetables as a domestic or social exchange. Food law: the NSW Food Act counts barter as sale; FSANZ Standards 4.2.6 (seed sprouts) and 4.2.8 (leafy greens, from 12 February 2025).
The growers' network
Grow with us
Every grower joins the network the same way: through the LETS. Small farms, orchards, market gardens, beekeepers, seed savers and backyard growers with a surplus, in all three regions.
01
Join the LETS
At sunvillages.trading/join, pick your village: Young Street for the Canberra basin, Bungendore for the tablelands, Kianga for the coast. Under "something you might offer", say what you grow.
02
Meet the concierge
The concierge meets you, usually at the weekly market, and sends your sign-in link.
03
List your food
On Offers and Needs, choose Food and the kind of food: fruit, vegetables, herbs and honey, eggs, preserves and more. Set a price in SUN, dollars, or both. Meat and shellfish need the licence statement.
04
Sell at the market
Your listing goes on the village's growers list and on the market's "food on offer this week". Need hands at harvest? List it as a need and pay in SUN.
Selling as a registered business? Village business accounts open once written tax advice is in place.
No village near you? Propose a new place on the LETS. Tell us where it is, who would trade there and where a weekly market could run. The concierge and the board look at every proposal. Propose a place
How the network works
- RolesEach site needs a convenor, a seed keeper and a harvest recorder, rotated and credited in SUN. Every grower over 75 has a buddy.
- TrialsGrowers who log bed area, harvest weight and hours give the region its first real yield numbers.
- Earn a plotNew growers start by helping at two other plots first, the Permablitz rule that has run since 2006.
- MeasureFive things logged per site each season: bed area, harvest weight, hours, credits issued, and where the food went.
- Three peopleNothing that happens weekly is owned by fewer than three people.
A node, not the convenor
Good food groups already work across the region. The Institute joins them and adds what is missing: stores, a reserve, an exchange and measured data. It does not try to run the regional food system.
- Basin and tablelandsSouthern Harvest Co-operative, COGS, Canberra Seed Savers, Canberra City Farm, Mulloon Institute.
- CoastSAGE Moruya, SHASA, Bega Valley Seed Savers, South Coast Seaweed, Wagonga oyster growers.
Listed as existing groups the network will write to. No partnership is claimed until each one agrees.
The first season, summer 2026 to 2027
Year one feeds no one. It finds out.
Year one is soil tests, harvest logs, trials and seed. The first protein crop is faba bean sown at the farm in April 2027 and harvested that December. The first nuts come in 2030 at the earliest.
Region 1
Basin
Soil tests. Two demonstration wicking beds. Buckwheat and amaranth trials. Seed jars. Garlic in March. Mushroom logs cut and inoculated in winter.
Region 2
Tablelands
A farm fact sheet and soil test. Faba bean, field pea and lupin seed ordered for sowing 20 April to 15 May 2027. Small lentil and chickpea trial plots. Nut and apple trees in winter.
Region 3
Coast
A census and harvest log of the Kianga orchard. Sweet potato cuttings and cowpea in November. Fruit fly nets. A letter on beach-cast seaweed to council and the marine park.
Four nutrients never come from the garden on a plant-based diet: vitamin B12, long-chain omega-3, winter vitamin D and reliable iodine. The plan treats them as a fixed supplement line. Nothing on this page is dietary or medical advice.
Where it stands
Done, under way, not yet
Done
- Evidence report, food security plan and growing network plan, version 1.0, 4 November 2026.
- The village exchange is open at sunvillages.trading.
Under way
- Building the growers' register for all three regions.
- Opening Bungendore as the third village on the exchange.
- Kianga's first market, planned for 11 to 14 December 2026.
Not yet
- Soil tests and the first trials.
- The fourteen-day reserve at each site.
- Written ATO and council positions on food trade.
- The farm near Bungendore's facts: size, soil, water, operator.
- Any measured harvest. Measure before claiming.
Sources
- Sun Villages Institute, Feeding the villages: food security and a growing network from the Canberra basin to Narooma, full report v1.0, 4 November 2026. Every figure on this page carries its source in that report.
- ABS, Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2020-21; Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, 2020-21.
- Foodbank Hunger Report 2026.
- Bureau of Meteorology climate statistics, stations 070014 (Canberra Airport Comparison), 069010 (Braidwood), 069022 (Narooma).
- NSW and ACT Government, NARCliM2.0 regional climate snapshots, 2025.
- GRDC, faba bean and pulse guides, 2016 and 2020; NSW DPIRD winter crop trial results, 2024.
- ATO Taxation Ruling IT 2668; Food Act 2003 (NSW); FSANZ Food Standards Code, Standards 4.2.6 and 4.2.8.
- McDougall, Kristiansen and Rader, Small-scale urban agriculture, PNAS, 2019.
- Sun Villages LETS, sunvillages.trading, read 6 November 2026.
This is the Institute's working plan. Parts will change as the trials report. The background picture on this page is an illustration of the village idea, not a photograph of a Sun Villages site.