Is local food more sustainable?

The focus should be on the real downsides of urban sprawl. It is not necessary to exaggerate the issues associated with farming land. Agriculture in Australia is in little danger from urban encroachment - the total area of land used for urban development in Australia is equivalent to less than 1 per cent of all land used for farming and the productivity of agriculture has doubled over the last 30 years.

In any event it is interesting to note that some key agricultural areas within Melbourne’s border are “spared” from urban development.

Lettuce and broccoli are grown in large quantities in the 3,000 hectare Werribee Irrigation District (it produces 70 per cent of Australia’s lettuce) using recycled water pumped from the Western Treatment Plant and the Werribee River.

The largest cattle farm in Victoria, where cattle feed on grass that is flood-irrigated with recycled water, is located on the Western Treatment Plant - it grazes 15,000 cattle and 40,000 sheep.

This doesn’t mean however that they are necessarily the best options for reducing your food footprint - farmers in the Irrigation District, for example, have long been accused of exhausting the soil of nutrition and relying excessively on fertiliser.