Article
From Compliance to Capability
Weaving Another Thread into the Horticulture Regulations Conversation, by Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne (Dr Demeter)
Dr Olivia Rundle’s recent Tasmanian Times article, Homegrown Veggies Targeted, has made an important contribution to the public conversation surrounding Tasmania’s proposed Horticulture Regulations by carefully examining what the draft regulations may mean for home growers, community food initiatives and local food resilience.
I would like to contribute alongside Dr Rundle’s thoughtful analysis and weave another thread into this important conversation. While Dr Rundle explores the practical implications of the proposed regulations, I find myself drawn to a broader question that has emerged through more than two decades of practical work designing local food systems with communities, together with the development of the Con Viv framework for living systems design. That experience has led me to ask not only how we regulate food systems, but what the purpose of public policy is in helping local food systems flourish.
What is the purpose of public policy?
Is public policy simply a mechanism for managing risk and ensuring compliance, or can it also cultivate the conditions in which people, communities, local economies and ecosystems flourish together?
This question has quietly unfolded through my earlier Tasmanian Times article, Grow Small, Feed All – Tasmania Renewal, where I argued that food is not merely an agricultural sector but a form of civic infrastructure connecting health, education, regional economies, ecological stewardship and community wellbeing. The current discussion surrounding Tasmania’s horticulture regulations feels like a natural continuation of that conversation.
For generations our institutions have become increasingly skilled at designing systems of compliance. This is understandable. Food safety matters. Biosecurity matters. Public confidence matters. Where food moves through large commercial supply chains, across multiple businesses and into anonymous markets, appropriate regulation protects consumers, producers and Tasmania’s agricultural reputation.
The difficulty arises when policy mistakes fundamentally different relationships for the same kind of system.
A commercial vegetable producer supplying national retailers, an export business, a neighbourhood crop swap and a family sharing surplus lettuce with friends are not participating in the same food system. They operate at different scales, through different relationships, purposes and patterns of risk. Yet policy often assumes they can all be governed through the same regulatory logic.
From a Con Viv perspective, good policy begins not with regulation but with relationship. Before asking what rules are required, we must first ask: What kind of living system are we seeking to support?
Industrial food systems are designed around scale, packaging, transport, traceability, commercial exchange and anonymous consumers. Community food systems are built through trust, local knowledge, seasonal learning, reciprocity and direct relationships between growers and those who receive their food. Home gardens, school gardens, community gardens, crop swaps, neighbourhood food sharing and local seed networks are not simply smaller versions of industrial supply chains. They are different living systems, generating different forms of value and requiring different forms of stewardship.
This distinction also changes how we think about food security. Food security is often understood as ensuring reliable access to safe food. That is essential. Yet resilient food systems are not secured through regulation. They are secured through capable communities.
Every person who learns to grow vegetables, every neighbour who shares surplus produce, every elder who teaches seed saving, every school that establishes a kitchen garden and every community that creates opportunities to exchange knowledge strengthens Tasmania’s food resilience. These are part of the social and ecological infrastructure that enables communities to respond during climate shocks, supply chain disruptions and economic uncertainty.
When public policy unintentionally extends industrial administrative requirements into these community relationships, it risks weakening the very capabilities upon which long-term resilience depends. This is why I submitted “From Compliance to Capability” as part of the public consultation.
My submission argues that we cannot simply apply industrial and commercial regulatory frameworks to home growers, neighbourhood food sharing and community crop swaps. These activities are not miniature commercial enterprises. They represent an entirely different expression of food culture. Their purpose is not anonymous commercial exchange but community participation, learning, generosity and local resilience.
This does not diminish the importance of food safety or biosecurity. Rather, it asks whether governance can become more discerning. Can policy distinguish between genuine commercial risk and community participation? Can regulation remain focused where risk is greatest while public investment strengthens the capability of people and communities to grow food safely, share knowledge and participate confidently in local food systems?
A capability approach asks different questions. How do we increase food literacy across Tasmania? How do we support growers through education, mentoring and practical extension? How do we encourage school gardens, community gardens, seed libraries and neighbourhood crop swaps that reconnect people with food and with one another?
These questions recognise that policy is not only about preventing harm. It is also about creating the conditions in which communities flourish.
Not simply to refine a set of horticulture regulations, but to rethink how we design public policy itself. Living systems teach us that stewardship begins by recognising the nature of the relationships before us. Industrial supply chains deserve proportionate commercial regulation. Community food systems deserve encouragement, education and support because they generate public value far beyond the food itself.
Tasmania has an opportunity to contribute something distinctive to the international conversation about food systems. As an island with strong regional communities, deep agricultural knowledge and an enduring culture of neighbourliness, we can demonstrate that food safety, biosecurity and resilient local food systems are not competing goals. When governance is designed with living systems in mind, they become mutually reinforcing.
If this conversation helps us distinguish between governing commercial supply chains and nurturing community food culture, then the current consultation may become more than a regulatory review. It may become an invitation to reimagine public policy itself, not simply as a means of managing risk, but as a practice of cultivating the conditions in which people, communities, local economies and landscapes can flourish together.
That, to me, is the shift from compliance to capability. It is also the invitation of Con Viv: to design with life, so that the systems we create continue to sustain life for generations to come.
About Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne
Dr Emily Samuels-Ballantyne (Dr Demeter) is a living systems designer, researcher and educator, and the founder of Living Earth College and Con Viv Design. Her work explores how food, community and public policy can be designed to cultivate resilient local economies and thriving communities. Through the Con Viv framework, she brings together ecological thinking, participatory design and governance to help communities and institutions learn to design with life rather than simply manage it.
About Con Viv Design & Living Earth College
Con Viv Design is a Tasmanian living systems design studio, and Living Earth College is its educational home. Together they develop research, courses and practical initiatives that support communities, organisations and governments to strengthen food systems, build capability and create flourishing places.
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