3000acres is a social enterprise with a mission to help more people, grow more food, in more places.
Since 2014, 3000acres has been bringing people together to encourage sustainability and create opportunities for food growing in greater Melbourne through a range of urban agriculture projects.
We break down the barriers to urban agriculture by supporting communities with the skills and knowledge to grow fresh healthy food, whilst transforming underutilised land into great community spaces.
We work with diverse groups including councils, developers, statutory bodies and communities to turn ideas about growing food into fruitful realities.
Our projects and advocacy work aims to normalise food growing as an expected feature of healthy and resilient urban landscapes. Ultimately, we want community spaces to be available for people to come together, grow, learn, share and feel connected.
Our Story
3000acres was born out of a seemingly simple question: ‘How can we improve access to healthy and fresh foods in urban environments?
Our solution to this issue of urban food insecurity was not to provide food to people but to unlock pockets of underutilised land to enable people to grow food for themselves.
Throughout Melbourne, there is a vast amount of underutilised space – ranging from tiny verges on street corners, to vacant car parks, to public parks to large scale empty lots awaiting development.
By considering principles of sustainable urban design we began to recognise the potential of the vacant concrete lot as an untapped opportunity to be transformed into vibrant and productive community spaces.
We continue to work with a wide range of stakeholders to make more land available and support communities to turn these into spaces for change through education and resource sharing.
3000acres has grown into an urban food growing and social movement, supported by a community of dedicated volunteers and supporters. Our initiatives include shared sustainability activities such as food swaps, corporate volunteering, workshops and our flagship Olives to Oil Harvest Festival.
Future growth
In 2022 3000acres joined the CERES family and put down roots at CERES’ Brunswick East HQ. This move recognises our strongly aligned visions and in working together our food systems teams will become increasingly effective in our missions, and amplify our collective impact by doing it together.