It’s 1998 and Indira Naidoo is revising her notes while balancing a container of microwaved food – her dinner – over her keyboard. The day’s stories are rolling in… more stories of poverty and disaster… and as SBS Late News’ presenter, it’s Indira’s task to present them to the nation.
The image is worlds apart from present-day Indira. A sustainability advocate and author of two bestselling books on urban farming, Indira is probably the woman least likely to shovel in last night’s leftovers while typing furiously. Instead of the SBS newsroom, she works from home in Potts Point, looking over the 13th floor balcony that gave her a new career.
Nowadays, Indira is perhaps best known for that 20 square metres of space – and the plants she grows on it. Nestled between a clothesline and a barbecue, Indira has cultivated an urban oasis that returns around 70kg of fresh produce a year! But Indira doesn’t just grow plants… she’s nurturing a revolution.
Fostering community.
Since starting publishing her first book The Edible Balcony, Indira has worked with kitchen garden programs in many disadvantaged communities. One of the biggest projects is the rooftop garden at The Wayside Chapel, which is tended to by Potts Point’s homeless.
“The garden is just going gangbusters. It’s so lush! Everyone who goes up to that garden says how calming it is,” says Indira. The garden has even developed a reputation amongst foodies – local chef Kylie Kwong often visits to grab warrigal greens for her restaurant.
But, most importantly, these projects are giving the right nutrition and education to communities which would otherwise have minimal access.
“It’s all very well to say, “you should eat this, not that”, but the reality for 40 per cent of Australians there isn’t a lot of choice,” says Indira.
“Supermarkets deliberately send the fresher food to areas with the biggest spending buyers.”
Although Indira no longer hosts SBS news, she still talks a lot about poverty and disaster. After taking long-service leave to visit the poor communities she often reported on, Indira realised the link between all these stories was a shortage of food and water.
Promptly, she got involved – and joined CHOICE Consumer Group as media manager and spokeswoman.
“One of the things we found at CHOICE was that supermarkets would deliberately send the fresher food to areas with the biggest spending buyers. But then, some communities don’t even have supermarkets.
“There are more and more food deserts popping up in isolated areas that I’m getting very concerned about.”
Sustaining industry.
It’s not just Indira who’s concerned about communities falling through the cracks. In recent weeks, there has been outrage over dairy farmers being paid 37c by supermarkets per litre of milk that costs 38c to produce. But Indira says that problem is endemic across all farming industries.
“Farming is removed from our everyday world because we don’t feed chickens, we don’t see vegetables growing. When was the last time any of us saw a real dairy cow?” says Indira. “A supermarket eggplant would only cost me 10 cents, but on my balcony it took me three months to grow and, and I knew it was more than 10 cents work.”
“I grew an eggplant on my balcony in three months – I know that’s more than 10 cents work.”
Having an edible garden allows Indira to stay in touch with the hard work that’s involved with getting food to table, even if she doesn’t spend too much time at the supermarket.
“I genuinely try to avoid processed foods as much as I can,” she says. “Although funnily enough, and this wasn’t even planned, I went to the supermarket yesterday and I saw your I Quit Sugar protein ball mix. I never really buy mixes, but this one didn’t have any additives. I made them this morning and they were delicious! I actually really recommend them.”
Cultivating childhood.
But perhaps Indira’s biggest passion is working with children. With more and more kids growing up without homecooked meals, Indira believes that all schools should have cooking and gardening programs, ideally funded by the government.
“With these programs at schools, a lot of kids are now going home and teaching their parents how to cook, or driving what goes into the shopping trolley. A kid was telling me, ‘I love pumpkin so I’ll put it in the trolley. Mum asked why I put that in there. Well, I know how to cook it and make pumpkin soup.’ And so he made pumpkin soup for his family.”
“You don’t have to teach kids about miracles when you’ve got a garden. They see it every minute of the day.”
But it’s also the experience of nature – a modern novelty – that is so important. One of the schools Indira works with, Mount Carmel Catholic School in Redfern, recently set up an Indigenous vegetable patch. The garden is now so popular that teachers are bringing classes outdoors.
“Kids are picking up compost, watering, getting fresh air, vitamin D. And they’re learning so much. You give a kid a pumpkin seed and they actually won’t believe it will grow into a pumpkin. That must sound so impossible the first time you hear that. And then to see their delight, as it sprouts and shoots… and turns into a huge pumpkin!
“You don’t have to teach kids about miracles when you’ve got a garden. They see it every minute of the day.”
Want to grow your own kitchen garden? Keep an eye out for Indira Naidoo’s gardening tips on the blog soon.
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