A sustainable farm system for peri-urban Sydney SMEs

Past studies indicate that Small to Medium farmers in peri-urban Sydney, Australia region are forced to operate in a very linear fashion and therefore are strongly dependent on a single system actor, known as the 'Agent' to sell their produce. This study aims to identify if and under which circumstances, Sydney farmers could have resources that would allow them to no longer have to depend upon any single system (ie. The Agent). This research identifies that in order to remove single actor dependency, the Sustainable Peri-urban Farm system, would need to allow farmers to receive inputs and feedback from both natural and manmade systems and vice versa. The well integrated, Sustainable Farm system, would create a base where farmers could receive resource and coordination instructions from the Environmental and Biological Systems while systems like Communication, Health, Market, Transport, Education and Agri-tourism Systems would help farmers support and nurture new collaborative business ventures and opportunities.