Bridging gap between farmer and consumer
BRIDGING the gap between consumers and farmers is the goal for Hillfields Farm.
First generation farmers, the Schofield family, are creating a community with their subscription based farm, feeding over 100 families every week.
“Its based similar to a CSA model (community serviced agriculture). Members buy a subscription and we only sell exclusively to our members, we don’t sell outside of that,” Daniel Schofield said.
“We grow small amounts of lots of varieties. Mostly vegetables. We also buy in certified organic fruit from Ecofarms. We also buy and supply milk from 4real Milk in Beaudesert.
“We don’t really have the climate for our own fruit. We grow strawberries, rockmelons and watermelons in the way of fruit. We have a few citrus trees but not a lot.”
Hillfields Farm also has their own pastured free-range eggs.
“We have around 300 birds per hectare. We’ve got about 350-400 birds,” Mr Schofield said.
“We have like a chicken caravan or a chicken tractor. They roost in that at night and are free to roam every day. And we move the tractor every day so they have fresh pasture.
“We do our own honey as well. We only have three hives. We’re in the process of using one of the beehives attached to a big enclosure for pollination.”
Daniel and Melissa Schofield, with the help of their three daughters, Chloe (18), Charlotte (5) and Lucy (2), have been running their farm business since 2015.
“I have a trade background and we’ve had the farm since 2009,” said Mr Schofield.
“I have a young family now. So we thought we’d use the fine farm land we have and the water we have and we started the business about three years ago,
“And here we are now.” The Borallon based farm has a delivery service as well as farm pick up.
“We do our delivery on Sunday and then we do farm pick up,” Mr Schofield said.
“We have a big timber post barn that we set up like a market. We’ve got big fridges in there. “Chloe does all our deliveries for us. The young ones help out as much as they can. Hinder or help, not sure which way to put it.” Mr Schofield said most of their customers are people who want to reconnect to their food through farmers.
“One of our members does five or six recipes every week to use the produce they’re getting from the farm,” he said.
“Some people will get an eggplant when its in season and have no idea to eat eggplant.
It’s teaching people to eat seasonally as well. — Daniel Schofield