Written by Joanne Cho, PCC Seed Bank Coordinator
To write this article, I set myself three missions in this city:
- To visit a community garden, observe the diversity of edible plant species, and learn about Italian approaches to growing food.
- To visit vendors of seeds for edible plants.
- To observe and practise vegetable gardening in my friend’s orto.
My first mission: visiting an orto comunitario
First off, I went to an orto comunitario—what we call a community garden in Australia.
There is an interesting linguistic distinction in Italian. Unlike English, Italian has a word specifically reserved for a vegetable or food garden: orto (plural: orti). An ornamental garden is generally called a giardino.
This distinction reflects something deeply embedded in Italian culture. For centuries, growing food has been an important part of everyday life, and the orto has been a place where the pleasures—and occasional minor pains—of growing, harvesting and eating food can be shared.
The community garden I visited was the biggest I had ever seen. I was fascinated by the variety of plants, including some interesting heirloom varieties. The sun-kissed berries and grapes I tasted were simply divine—intensely sweet and full of flavour.
My second mission: the seed vendors
My visit to a seed vendor near Lago Maggiore was a real teaser, just as I had imagined it would be.
At the same time, it gave me a painful reminder of the limitations I face as an Australian gardener. Looking at the enormous diversity of seeds available, I felt that familiar sting in my heart, knowing that Australian biosecurity regulations would not simply allow me to buy those seeds and bring them home.
Among many other seeds, I photographed the chicory seeds to demonstrate just how much diversity can exist within a single edible plant species in Italy.
The feeling is even stronger whenever I visit my home country, South Korea. I see so many vegetable and mountain-plant varieties that I would love to grow in Australia, yet I cannot simply purchase them and bring them home.
For me, this is more than a matter of acquiring seeds.
It feels like a potential severing of a chain of eternal joy: from the delicious memories of childhood, to the happy moment of discovering and purchasing seeds, to the anticipation of growing them, harvesting them and eventually experiencing their authentic flavours again.
And then there are Korea’s hundreds of varieties of sannamul—mountain vegetables and edible medicinal plants that I admire for their delicate scents and distinctive flavours. Their edible parts come in so many forms: young leaves, tree shoots, fern fiddleheads, roots, bulbs, leaves and aromatic herbs.
This is an extraordinary edible biodiversity.
My third mission: working in an Italian orto
My friend’s countryside orto is another wonderful example of edible diversity. It is home to long capsicums, multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, eggplants, beans and many other vegetables.
This time, we worked together to plant about 20 metres each of seedlings of leeks, red cabbage, broccoli, celery, radishes and several other vegetables.
Once we had finished, after about 4.5 hours of work, we were deeply satisfied.
And I was thoroughly sun-kissed—so much so that my skin had turned almost black!
There is something profoundly satisfying about working with another person in a vegetable garden: preparing the soil, planting, sweating, observing and finally standing back to see the rows of young plants settled into their new home.
And all these experiences bring me back to one word: BIOSECURITY
Through these three missions in northern Italy, combined with my 31 years of living in Australia and my long-standing yearning for greater edible-plant diversity, my thoughts converge on one thing:
BIOSECURITY
There is no need for me to stress how important biosecurity is for an isolated and ecologically vulnerable continent like Australia. We have an obligation—and also the privilege—to protect our native flora and fauna and keep Australia’s unique ecosystems healthy.
But I also believe that Australians have a legitimate desire and right to access the enormous diversity of edible and medicinal plants that our planet has to offer.
These two goals do not have to be enemies.
The challenge is to find the equilibrium—the fine balance between protecting Australia’s ecosystems and responsibly increasing the diversity of plants available for people to grow and eat.
Australia is also increasingly home to people from all over the world. For many immigrants, food plants are not simply commodities. They are part of memory, culture, identity and the feeling of home.
Perhaps people need not only physical homes in Australia, but also access to some of the plants that make those homes feel culturally familiar.
Have you heard of BICON?
This is where BICON—the Biosecurity Import Conditions system—becomes fascinating.
BICON is Australia’s system for determining the biosecurity conditions that apply to imported goods, including plants and plant material. Before attempting to import something, you can search the system using information such as the scientific name and determine whether it can be imported, under what conditions, and whether an import permit or other documentation is required.
Australian BICON system
I was surprisingly delighted to discover that some prolific and perennial Korean mountain vegetables I had dreamed of growing in Australia are already known to BICON and can potentially be imported under specified conditions.
In some cases, this means I may simply need to find a legitimate Australian supplier and purchase them legally.
Hooray!
I had previously given up on some of these plants because I assumed they might be invasive or that they would never pass Australia’s biosecurity assessment. Discovering that I was wrong was a wonderful surprise.
Biosecurity does not have to mean giving up on plant diversity.
This experience has changed the way I think about biosecurity.
The question does not have to be:
“Can I bring this plant into Australia?”
A better question is:
“Under what conditions can this plant safely enter Australia?”
That difference is important.
As a seed-bank coordinator and someone who loves growing food, I believe we should learn to work with Australia’s biosecurity system rather than simply assuming that rare plants are impossible to obtain.
If you are a curious gardener like me, with an urge to grow rare edible—or even non-edible—plants, I strongly encourage you to explore BICON and search for the plants you are interested in using their scientific names.
And if a plant is not yet available in Australia but has potential value, there may be legitimate pathways for importing it, subject to Australia’s biosecurity assessment and requirements.
If the importation is possible and can be done safely and legally, perhaps someone will eventually take the initiative to import it commercially or make it available through a seed bank.
Then one person’s curiosity can become a source of biodiversity and culinary joy for many others.
That is the kind of future I would love to see in Australia: strong biosecurity, healthy ecosystems, and greater access to the world’s edible plant diversity.
I am so joyful now knowing what my action plan is going to be in acquiring the seeds of my dream legally. According to BICON, for some seeds, I am not required to go through the full permit process but just need to acquire the phytosanitary certificate. Hopefully the journey is neither too arduous nor too costly. Hopefully, you can join this meaningful journey.
P.S. This humble article is based on years of my personal experience growing food, travelling overseas, investigating plant diversity and biosecurity, making discoveries, and spending many days thinking and writing about these subjects. It represents my own experiences and reflections, written without AI assistance.