Urban orchards share their crops with the local community

Have you ever been lucky enough to receive a bag of excess lemons, plums or figs from your friendly neighbour’s backyard? There’s an organisation in Melbourne’s north helping to share abundant local fruit crops with people experiencing food insecurity.

Darebin Information, Volunteer and Resource Service (DIVRS)’s Urban Food and Food Sharing programs reduce organic matter going to landfill through food rescue and other initiatives such as the Darebin Fruit Squad, who harvest excess fruit from backyard trees to add to food parcels.

DIVRS is a community organisation that connects people in Darebin to opportunity, community and support. They employ 10 part-time staff (equivalent to 5 full-timers) who run many different free programs. Their Urban Food and Food Sharing programs are responsible for rescuing, growing, harvesting and sharing food. The organisation engages over 140 volunteers and shares 600 food parcels each month with Darebin locals.

Like many organisations that share food while also preventing food waste, the cost-of-living crisis and changing climate, as well as the Covid years, have created challenges for DIVRS.

During Covid, fewer households shared fruit they had grown with the Darebin Fruit Squad, which is part of DIVRS’s Urban Food Program. The organisation has been trying to expand its active community to 100 households by reaching out through local media, leaflet drops, events and workshops. The program would particularly like to engage Darebin’s strong migrant communities, who planted many of Darebin’s thriving backyard fruit trees all those years ago.

In 2023, the Squad didn’t rescue as many summer fruits as expected. The team found there was less fruit available due to the changing climate, including adverse growing conditions created by La Nina, and rodents and possums taking fruit.

By the winter of 2023, when the citrus trees were producing, the Squad started to see their engagement activities working. More households were signing up to share their produce. In 2023, the squad collected over 800 kgs of citrus.

Double the number of people have sought food support in the past few years, so DIVRS has focused on how to increase food supply to supplement food received from food rescue partners. The Food Sharing program has found it more difficult to find new business partnerships within the food industry, which is facing its own financial pressures.

DIVRS’s Food Sharing program responded by sending out a flyer that introduced DIVRS with its story and key statistics, rather than cold calling food partners. This helped the team approach businesses because the potential partners already had some information about the program and understood the value of its work.

DIVRS also expanded its composting system to transform food that can’t be shared with the community into compost, a valuable input for DIVRS’s urban farms. In 2023, it processed over 2.5 tonnes of food waste in this way, keeping it out of landfill.

Running programs that rely on volunteers requires careful and rigorous planning. The Darebin Fruit Squad Coordinator Holly Gallagher says, 'We went through and reviewed all our processes including OHS, recruitment and induction. We have volunteers going out to peoples’ homes and doing stuff like climbing ladders, so we do lots of behind-the-scenes work to ensure everyone’s feeling safe and confident.'

DIVRS’s volunteers contribute an abundance of time and skills to the two food programs. They pick fruit, pack food parcels, grow food, turn compost and help with social media and grant applications. Holly says, 'We engage with each of our volunteers and value everyone’s contribution. People volunteer with us for many reasons: connectedness, feeling productive, contributing to community, an affinity for food and the social justice aspect of sharing fresh, nutritious food.'

The Urban Food and Food Sharing programs create various opportunities to build community, share knowledge and encourage sustainable practices. Holly says, 'A fruit pick generates a lot of positive energy between volunteers and householders. Community lunches have strengthened community connections between local businesses, DIVRS volunteers and staff, and community members. We also found that workshops are always a good way to engage people, increasing the visibility of the urban orchard, empowering people to care for their fruit trees and encouraging the donation of fruit to community.'

Driving circular economy at a local scale

Sustainability Victoria provides local communities across the state with the tools and knowledge they need to participate in the shift to a circular and more sustainable way of living.

Over the past decade, Sustainability Victoria has supported 137 community groups to deliver sustainability impacts in their local communities including tool libraries, repair cafes, composting hubs and food sharing initiatives. This project was funded through one such initiative, the Circular Economy Communties Fund.

Read our community circular economy initiative guides.