The advantages of a vege patch in the front yard competition are:

1) Each front yard becomes an advertisement to the neighbourhood and local community about growing your own food and food security.

2) Once one person visibly is using their front yard for growing of food this "gives permission" to others in the area to try the same idea.

3) Since the vegetable patch is in the front yard there are no problems about access to private property when judging occurs.

4) A number of competition categories are possible such as, "Best children's vege patch", "best vege patch on a sealed surface", "best tenant's vege patch" etc.. The rules can be formulated to encourage the behaviour that one wants.

5) The competition can be set up with a panel of community advisors who are people willing to advise others on gardening etc. In this way it encourages networking and support.

6) I have had some preliminary discussions about this idea and it is very attractive to business owners (e.g.who can be named as recommended sources for materials and can give registered competitors an e.g. 10% discount on purchases). This sort of competition would be very attractive as news for local newspapers thus ensuring quite a lot of free advertising which can spread the idea of food growing further.

The main obstacle to insitution of this idea is that I need a little administrative assistance and if anyone is willing to give me a hand we can get this idea moving in the Adelaide area. Also, if you live somewhere else but want to institute such an idea then write to me and I can give you more details.