Sydney’s Food Landscapes

The story of Sydney’s metropolitan food landscapes is one of dramatic transformations of First Nations land amidst jostles for power and wealth. This book unearths Sydney's lost commercial agriculture since colonisation in 1788 to assess its fragile food futures. Richly illustrated, 270 images are encapsulated within 110 figures, including an array of original metropolitan-scale mappings. Discussion traverses the city’s diverse cultural influences, from Indigenous land management to British pastoralism, Chinese cultivation of Sydney’s “backyard vegetable garden” and southern European farming spawning billion-dollar empires. The region has further been shaped by a vast array of cultural and ideological factors and material practices, with relevance to planning, policy, ethics, geography, heritage, art, design and technology. This book is the first to bring Sydney’s disparate post-colonial food histories together in one volume to explore the dynamics and tensions between urban growth and food production. The relevance of Sydney’s food landscapes therefore extends far wider than the city itself, with implications for countless regions worldwide in a time of increasing climate and resource precarity. Dr Joshua Zeunert is a Scientia Associate Professor at UNSW in Sydney and a Registered Landscape Architect. Motivated by deep care for the more-than-human world, his work explores human activities and landscape-scale change over time. Josh has achieved award-winning scholarship including books, chapters, journal papers, industry articles, curation, exhibited and creative works. Dr Alys Daroy works in the environmental humanities and is Academic Chair of Theatre and Creative Production at Murdoch University, Boorloo/Perth. Books include Shakespeare, Ecology and Adaptation with Paul Prescott for Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare (2025) and a range of ecological publications, artistic works and performances.