Collingwood Children's Farm is an inner-city oasis （绿洲）. For 40 years, this farm with pigs, chickens and vegetable gardens has provided a taste of the countryside in Melbourne. The four-hectare farm is no throwback to the past. It is providing a brief look at our future. In a time when a changing climate and population growth are causing concerns about food safety, the farm is becoming a model for how we might change our approach to inner-city food production.
The farm's primary purpose has always been to support those in the community experiencing disadvantage. However, the not-for-profit has also spent the past year becoming a model of best-practice inner-city agriculture.
Since mid-2020, an unused field has slowly been transformed into a vegetable garden. On top of that, new horticulturalists （园艺专家） have been employed to help build vegetable gardens that will help the soil.
Horticulturist Rachel Freeman is head of the farm's vegetable gardens. Freeman says she is a big believer in the importance of"linking people to food systems and showing people what you can do". When it comes to showing how to educate and engage the community, this farm is hard to beat.
In 2019, Collingwood Children's Farm had an average of 15, 000 visitors each month. In April 2020, 17, 000 people came through. At that time, Ash and Shacklock were harvesting fast-growing turnips （萝卜） they had sown between cabbages to make the most of the growing space.
Freeman says that the farm has been"in this amazing state of"change with many new projects under way. However, they are happening at a snail's pace due to the farm's focus on involving volunteers, especially people with disadvantage. "We do the work slowly with volunteers, "Freeman says. "This is an active space not a botanical one. "
