How maximum security prison inmates and officers worked together to create a farm behind bars
- Written by Christian Tietz, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, UNSW Sydney
At Macquarie Correctional Centre in western New South Wales, a story of collaboration and persistence is unfolding. Inmates and prison officers are farming commercial quantities of fresh food in a purpose-built indoor facility.
One of the 400 male offenders in maximum security at Macquarie contacted me with the idea about five years ago, proposing it would form the basis of a PhD. I agreed to supervise the project.
Inmates at Macquarie Correctional Centre are encouraged to further their education and follow their interests. The approach is modelled on the Scandinavian prison system, which has the world’s lowest re-offending rates.
The project shows food gardening provides a meaningful activity for inmates, some of whom never had the opportunity to learn how to plant and grow produce.
Why farm indoors?
The project involved farming indoors because the environment can be more carefully controlled. Being isolated from the weather means there’s no need to worry about extremes such as frosts or heatwaves.
This type of “controlled environment agriculture” is also more efficient. It requires less resources than traditional agriculture, mainly because there are fewer losses due to pests and diseases.
By controlling the amount of light, water and nutrients each plant receives, it’s possible to optimise the growing system – making it more like a plant factory than a standard greenhouse.
From vision to reality
Inmates studying in prison don’t have internet access. Emails are printed out or relayed. If information needs to be viewed online it is under supervision of an authorised officer.
Despite the challenges, the student published his first conference paper in 2021 and his first academic journal article in 2023. A second article followed in 2024. The student also submitted his PhD 2024.
The project began with a research plan. Then the PhD student ran focus groups with officers and inmates in mixed groups. A series of one-on-one interviews followed.
Officers and inmates co-designed and developed the indoor farming facility. One group of inmates, trained in the in-house design office, used 3D computer aided design (CAD) software to produce technical drawings for the farm. Another group took these drawings and turned them into small-scale indoor farming prototypes.
After extensive testing, the team selected the best prototype and developed the full-scale project, known as M Farm.
The student won a competitive grant of A$50,000 from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice Innovation Fund. This funded construction of the farm.
Another grant from the University of NSW supported a solar-powered food waste composting machine. The machine converts daily food waste from the entire prison into organic fertiliser. This means less food waste is sent to landfill, saving costs and reducing emissions.
Produce from the farm is used in the prison café. Since November 2023, the farm has supplied about $3,500 worth of produce to the café.
Last year, about 30 items were entered in the local agricultural show. M Farm won first place in the district for best fresh produce.
M Farm has grown award-winning fresh produce.
Macquarie Correctional Centre Media Unit
Cooperation is key to success
Inmates ran the project and enjoyed tangible benefits such as access to fresh produce and a sense of accomplishment and pride.
The project proved inmates can be productive without constant oversight. Similar results were achieved in a community-based vegetable gardening initiative in Girona, Spain, where residents formed an intensive farming cooperative without local council administration.
The prison officers also benefited from being part of the process and took pride in the results. They also shared the benefits in the on-site café, which is open to both inmates and prison staff.
This experiment provides further evidence that engagement and collaboration through co-design can lead to social learning, or “informal mutual learning”.
Empowering co-designers enables the development of solutions beyond initial expectations. The best approach is arming people with the skills they need to actively engage and co-lead in the decision-making processes.
Tasty and nutritious leafy greens grow in the front garden at M Farm.
Christian Tietz
Make it grow
The PhD thesis includes a co-design tool kit that other prisons worldwide can follow. Given the global prison population exceeds 11 million people, this presents an opportunity to develop a broad-scale sustainability initiative.
Farming fresh produce in prisons has the potential to improve nutrition and wellbeing. It also offers environmental benefits such as producing compost, reducing waste and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Such projects also have the potential to give inmates confidence and hope, and provides them with skills and knowledge that can benefit the community after their release.
Authors: Christian Tietz, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, UNSW Sydney
