‘I bring my sister a bag of lettuce’: The gardeners avoiding outrageous prices

Sleap said at the election day fundraiser, there was a huge interest in local community members wanting to join the garden.

But Sleap said there was not a direct correlation with the price rises in the supermarkets and people were usually more motivated by concerns about sustainability and a desire to grow and eat seasonal, local food.

Professor Mark Howden, director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, said home gardens and community gardens were a good option for people who wanted to shore up their access to food, when available.

“It’s not just food security, it’s also about good nutrition, and it’s also about teaching your kids where food comes from,” Howden said.

“There’s a good rationale for why people should be growing some of their own food without getting too carried away with it.”

The peak body for Australian vegetable producers, AUSVEG, said the cost of vegetables had more than doubled between 2006 and 2016.

Flavio Macau, associate dean in the School of Business and Law at Edith Cowan University, wrote on The Conversation that prices would remain high because the underlying causes were not going away.

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Half of the rent price rises were because of increases in the cost of transport, the cost of fertiliser, labour shortages, and industry consolidation with smaller farmers exiting the business.

But the other half was climate change, not just global warming but also the increased frequency of extreme weather events such as bushfires and droughts, and most recently the massive floods across NSW and Queensland.