Suits and salary not a patch on shoots and celery

SIMON Gilfillan's great adventures in agriculture had taken him from managing farms in outback NSW and Queensland to grain-handling, international currency and futures exchanges.

But when he was offered redundancy from the Australian Wheat Board last year he decided it was time to mothball the suit and get back to basics.

''I wanted to do things that were transparent, I really wanted to build things,'' he said. ''And thought, why the hell don't I build vegetable gardens. We looked at business models and trends and decided to have a crack.''

Six months ago, ''having a crack'' led to a family-run company called Kitchen Farmer, a Melbourne business that designs, builds, plants and plans no-dig gardens for suburban backyards.

''A lot of urban people don't have the tools to know how to build a vegetable garden,'' Mr Gilfillan said.

''So we start from scratch. Talk about what they want from their garden and teach them about vegetable families, heavy and light feeding, crop rotation, companion planting and provide a two-year planting guide.''

His timing may be perfect with the release this week of the Australian Conservation Foundation's Paddock to Plate report calling for a backyard gardening revolution that by 2015 would have urban food production across Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and the Latrobe Valley return to World War II levels.

The comprehensive report, written by Andrew Campbell, former executive director of Food and Water Australia, calls for a holistic approach to food-production policy that incorporates public health, the environment, farming and society.

It puts 24 propositions to the Victorian Government for the intertwining of public policy across planning, health, primary industry, transport and environment portfolios.

''In terms of urban food production, backyards are a crucial element but so is designing suburbs so food gardens are part of the vision, along with waste recycling, water conservation, public health, the environment and open spaces,'' Mr Campbell said.

''Improving the performance and resilience of food systems is about far more than just tweaking policy settings, it needs leadership at the highest political levels.

''We need a world centre for excellence in sustainable food systems in Melbourne to provide a focus for innovation and leadership and to attract talent and drive reform.''

Margaret Cockram and her husband Neil, an Anglican priest, look like unlikely revolutionaries, but they may be at the forefront of change. Among the first of Mr Gilfillan's clients, they had their Ballarat vegetable garden completed in May and producing in June. It will supply a surplus to their needs by the end of winter.

''We have moved around a lot and we see this as an opportunity to put down roots,'' said Mrs Cockram. ''We aim to be as self-sufficient as possible in vegetables and to feed friends and neighbours and establish ourselves in the community as well.

''We both grew up on farming properties and wanted to reconnect with that through organic vegetable gardening.

''The savings are already evident. There is no transport, the vegetables are grown mostly from seed produced in an organic way and it is easier to have your hands in the soil than get petrol for the car for a trip to the supermarket.''

The Cockrams next plan to establish an orchard of dwarf fruit trees.