The FUTURE of FARMING
Green is the new black in the Aussie agricultural industry, a national awards program reveals
In recent years, the rest of the globe has been waking up to a fact Australians have known for generations – our agricultural industry is world-class. It’s a message Alla Wolf-tasker has helped spread during her illustrious career as chef/owner of Lake House restaurant and the nearby Dairy Flat Farm in Daylesford, Victoria.
“Australia has some of the best produce in the world,” she says. “Chefs come from all over the world and agree about that.”
But with all the challenges now facing agriculture – from climate disasters to supply chain woes – what does the future hold for one of our most important industries?
The answer might lie in the results of a national food awards program – the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards. Now in its 17th year, the awards capture and predict major trends in Australian farming. The program offers the judging panel – made up of some of the country’s most famous produce-focused chefs, such as Josh Niland, Jo Barrett and Lennox Hastie – an unenviable challenge: to crown Australia’s best producers. But it’s a responsibility that many relish.
“Single-handedly, those awards have done what I was hoping they would do – profile and hero the people who actually produce food,” says Wolf-tasker, a delicious. Produce Awards judge since their inception.
To decide award winners, industry professionals, including the chef judging panel, meet for two days to sample some of Australia’s most innovative and sustainable produce, much of it from boutique and micro farmers. Programs like this offer a rare chance for producers – who spend more time toiling behind the spotlight than standing in it – to be recognised for their work. And more than ever before, sustainability is key.
“What’s happening around the world with climate change, we’re taking more of an interest in it and trying to change the ways of the past,” says chef and Sydney restaurateur Matt Moran, himself a generational farmer who has also been involved in the awards from their outset. “What we’re seeing is more clean farming, regenerative farming, and not so much of what was conventional, with no pesticides and more organics. Producers are caring and taking farming to the next step in so many ways.”
A common thread among some of Australia’s most-awarded food producers is that sustainability and innovation are more than just a “nice” thing to do. It’s at the core of how and why producers grow crops, raise animals and harvest seafood.
On the judging day, judges sampled climatefriendly native plants grown by Moojepin Foods. Red and green karkalla, samphire and saltbush thrive in Western Australia’s salinity-affected wheatbelt; by cultivating these crops, Moojepin Foods is making degraded land productive. Judges also tasted Kowari oats, a new, Australian-developed variety grown on Kangaroo Island, which contains increased levels of beta-glucan, which helps reduce blood cholesterol reabsorption. All the produce revealed that farmers, growers and makers are thinking beyond the basics of supply and demand.
At a time when interest in Indigenous land management techniques is booming, one South Australian seafood producer is taking notes from the past to future-proof their business. Now found in fishmongers and restaurants around the world, Goolwa pipis are more than just delicious. Farming the oceans off the remote Coorong National Park, the Msc-certified Goolwa Pipico has forged a commercial partnership with the Ngarrindjeri people, who have been sustainably harvesting pipis (or “kuti”) for tens of thousands of years. It could point the way for others in recognising the custodial role that our nation’s traditional owners continue to play.
From Leeuwin Coast in Western Australia comes a relatively new culinary product with strong environmental credentials, the Akoya. This oyster-like shellfish, native to WA, is taking hold on menus across Australia. Chefs are embracing this emerging product, which is one of a small but growing group of Australian aquaculture products to be officially certified as carbon neutral.
Farmers are also becoming more invested in the health not just of their crops and livestock, but of the land itself. It’s an approach that helps farms become more productive and in better shape for the next generation. On Tasmania’s east coast, Kate and Iain Field raise goats for meat and the milk that goes into their soughtafter Tongola Cheese on their 108ha regeneratively managed property, Leap Farm.
“We run our land in a way that’s very environmentally responsible,” Kate says. “We don’t need to mine our land for every last cent.”
By farming regeneratively, this improves the soil’s organic carbon, which in turn boosts productivity. This means the Fields can increase the capacity of the land and put more animals on. Ultimately, that increases their potential volume, which could allow them to boost turnover.
However, Iain says they’re not driven by a growth mindset. Being a price-setter rather than a price-taker is key for the Fields; the alternative is running the land harder and harder, leading to a loss of carbon and then soil productivity.
Kate says there’s a clear benefit in being able to add value on-farm, and to be able to set their own price: “You’re not losing money to someone who’s doing very little compared with what we have to do to just get the product out the door.”
Supply chains have been an issue for farmers since long before they captured headlines this year. Moran works with many farmers who are still getting the same price as 10 years ago. “Middlemen are making all the money, because contracts are locked in,” he says.
This current crisis has driven newer, more direct means of supplying produce, limiting the distance between the consumer and the farmer. Moran has been inspired by small growers producing vegie boxes and using other direct methods of distribution. Since buying a pub in regional NSW, he has helped kickstart a farmers’ market, and plans to plant a market garden.
“We started a produce market in Rockley, where I bought a country pub, and we’re getting a thousand people there every fourth Sunday,” he says. “Down the track, I’d love to start a co-op and bring more of that produce into the city.”
Knowing the stories of the people who grow our food has value beyond the sentimental – it gets consumers invested in the future of farming. And if you ask Moran? “It just tastes bloody better, because it’s got that story behind it.”
What we’re seeing is more clean farming ... no pesticides and more organics
The 2022 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards winners will be revealed in the September issue of delicious., on sale August 18 or visit delicious.com.au/produceawards