In My BackYard a vegetable growing plot!

A great way to get children gardening is to con them! That's the word from In My BackYard.
In My BackYard (IMBY) is a project to encourage, cajole, trick, or use any other means to make the backyard vegetable garden a centrepiece of our urban landscape!

To encourage children into gardening IMBY has created the "Pocket Money Bean" - a special bean seed that kids can use to turn beans into money. They make an agreement with Mum or Dad to grow the beans in the backyard and in return they will be paid pocket money for the beans.

IMBY's founder, Andy Carnahan of Bowral in the Southern Highlands of NSW (pictured above with beans ready for students to shuck into 'Pocket Money Beans'), readily admits that the central concept is based on a playful "scam".

For the kids, they are getting one over Mum and Dad. Getting paid for easy work! For Mum and Dad, of course, the kids are tricked into a healthy activity, and will be more likely to eat their own home-grown produce.

Pocket Money Beans have been road tested for two years, branching out into Pocket Money Vegetables after Yates donated 2,000 packets of seeds to support the project. The beans and vegetables have been distributed at local environment day fairs, an eco show and small farms expo.

Light-hearted Incentive
Children and parents both the love the concept and it provides a wonderful light-hearted incentive to put a small garden in the backyard. Upper primary children (Years 4 to 6) seem to grasp the concept most strongly.
IMBY is based on a simple mission statement: to reconnect children and families to food gardening - one backyard at a time.
It is hard to find anything to criticise about backyard vegetable gardens. They provide food, gentle exercise, botany lessons, a richer eco-system, waste disposal, appreciation of the environment, the value of consistent effort, and of delayed gratification.
Andy hopes one day soon, a backyard vegetable garden will be held in the same high esteem as a daily walk.
'It is ironic in these days of high technology and medical discovery that something as basic as a half hour walk is now the first and best prescription for just about any ailment. I think food gardening will be 'medically proven' to have the same benefits - but my prescription is not to wait!'
IMBY is a simple project - the IMBY website (at www.imby.org.au) contains more details about the project, and details the pocket money beans in more detail. You can ask for a sample packet of beans and download literature and templates to create your own pocket money vegetables.
"I see the website in the same way as I see my garden. The ideas on the website have been 'grown' by me but they are not mine. Everyone is welcome to take their own 'cuttings' and use them to develop their own ideas for encouraging gardening. In return I would love to hear how others have gone in getting the gardens growing".

Exposing IMBY

Andy is hoping to get IMBY 'exposed' on a current affairs show as a good news scam in Spring 2007. "Parents fleeced by their own kids" or "Unscrupulous parents resort to dirty tricks to force vegetables on their unsuspecting children". Hopefully the shows have a sense of humour!
IMBY will continue to give away and promote the Pocket Money Beans and Vegetable idea. For teachers and others wanting to start a project in their area Andy is happy to help. You can email him at andy@imby.org.au or write to IMBY, PO Box 54, Mittagong NSW 2575.

From Sustaintable Gardening Australia

Organic Farming Yields 'as good or better'

Organic farming yields 'as good or better'
Posted Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:00am AEST
Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food as conventional farming in developing countries, and holds its own against standard methods in rich countries, US researchers say.
They said their findings contradict arguments that organic farming, which excludes the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, is not as efficient as conventional techniques.
"My hope is that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea that you can't produce enough food through organic agriculture," Ivette Perfecto, a professor at the University of Michigan's school of Natural Resources and Environment, said in a statement.
She and colleagues analysed published studies on yields from organic farming. They looked at 293 different examples.
"Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base," they wrote in their report, published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.
"We were struck by how much food the organic farmers would produce," Professor Perfecto said.
"Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of influence by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertiliser companies, all have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food," she added.