Horticulture team partners with Food Ladder

Charles Darwin University’s horticulture team is training participants in the Northern Territory’s first Food Ladder social enterprise project in Katherine.

The team of lecturers are training people in a Certificate II in Rural Operations as part of the project, which aims to provide healthy and sustainable food for Indigenous communities.

Horticulture team leader Scott McDonald said lecturers travelled each month from Darwin to the project’s facility, Yilk-Amak Community Farm, opposite CDU’s Katherine campus.

Mr McDonald said students gained skills in plant propagation, horticultural production, and occupational health and safety while growing crops in the facility’s hydroponics beds.

He said the project’s first harvest would be ready later this year and, as a result of the training, students were well placed to gain work in the horticulture industry.

“We feel privileged to be part of the project by training its participants and helping to provide sustainable, healthy and fresh food in remote communities," Mr McDonald said.

Food Ladder CEO Ms Kelly McJannett said the horticulture team had provided invaluable on-the-ground support to the project.

“Like CDU, we are committed to creating longstanding change and outcomes in communities and we are thrilled to be working collaboratively with the lecturers to make that happen,” she said.

The project is run in partnership with Katherine Indigenous Women's Association and Job Find, and recently partnered with the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation.