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Mullumbimby Local Food Festival is a Huge Success

Wow!  What a wonderful event!  On the 29th October The Mullumbimby Community Garden and Byron Shire Council presented the Mullumbimby Local Food Festival. Featured were  displays of local food and produce grown by local farmers as well as value added products.  

An exciting new venture is the Hemp Farm, close to Byron Bay. Their stall had hemp seeds, examples of hemp plastic, hemp fibre for jewellery-making and information about other products including hemp chocolate being made at their farm.  Check www.hempfarm.com.au for their 2 hour eco tour. 

A rice farmer from Casino spoke about his rain-fed brown rice crops.  Grown without irrigation this strain of rice thrives in our climate, whereas normal rice uses 1500 litres of water per kilo of rice grown.  This rice is available at Santos.

Healthy vibrant seedlings are for sale at the Community Gardens at any time and include a variety of vegetables, some quite unusual, as well as herbs and flowers.  The community-built shadehouse, as well as all the other buildings including compost toilets and kitchen are an inspiration; just go see what can be achieved on a shoestring with community input.  Its heart-warming and quite fabulous!

As well as the wonderful food prepared for the day (and which you can see growing), there were talks by local food activist, Helena Norberg Hodge and ABC TV Gardening Australia presenter Jerry Coleby-Williams. This video filmed by Robert Hart captures the mood and energy of the festival, including interviews with Mullumbimby farmers market organiser, Judy MacDonald, Byron Shire Mayor, Jan Barham, and local compost toilet expert, Garry Scott.