Author: Ana Spataru & Pooja Mallya

Ana Spataru is a PhD student at Deakin University focused on developing a framework for engaging both farmers and policy-makers to redefine the value of peri-urban agriculture. Ana has a background in environmental engineering and a masters in environmental science from Ghent University, Belgium. She is passionate about working in the space of localised food systems in peri-urban areas and contribute to research, initiatives and events that address the future of peri-urban agriculture. Regarding her work on the National Pandemic Gardening Survey, she says, "It gives me hope that many people find food production to be a connection to the land and higher aspirations about sustainability and prosperity. This validates other assumptions I held, that agriculture can be valued beyond simple free-market logic, and gardening might as well be the activity that will make more people engage with local food production." Pooja Mallya is a permaculture enthusiast with an academic foundation in architecture, building services and illumination design. Her experience covers spatial, way-finding and perceptual aspects of lighting design, having worked on projects across the globe since 2002 with multi-disciplinary teams. She is currently studying the Australian landscape through case studies and user research in areas of permaculture, urban horticulture, edible landscapes, spatial design and housing property development design for communities; to potentially take on PhD studies.