Between bisset bluegrass fields and belts of bushland that stretch to steep peaks on the foothills of Queensland’s Scenic Rim, farmer Rohan Morris checks on his free-range pigs.
Few pigs are allowed in paddocks. Like wild boars, they can quickly turn lush pasture to scars of hardened soil. But if managed carefully, Morris says, the landscape can tolerate and even benefit from their hard hooves. The pigs have a better quality of life than in a piggery, and the pork is more nutritious and tastes better too.
When a pig is ready for slaughter, it’s sent from the small-scale organic farm to a local abattoir and butchered (Morris is planning to build an abattoir on-farm) before it’s distributed by Morris and his wife Fiona to about 60 families in south-east Queensland who pay a subscription for a mix of beef and pork cuts each month. It costs $36/kg in bulk deliveries.
Demand for produce sourced directly from farms is growing, and Morris says multiculturalism is, in part, driving that trend.
“People from other countries are excited about finding our farm and produce,” he says. “They really value buying good quality food.
“There seems to be a strong direct buying culture in places like Asia, Europe or South America. They often really love pork and know how to cook and enjoy it.”
When Morris and his family moved to the district eight years ago, he knew of one other direct seller in the district. “Now you’d find half a dozen farms doing things differently, and maybe more if you really went looking,” he says.
“But of course, middlemen actually do a lot of useful work. You might save money by not using them, but you have to take on the extra work.”
Prof Cathy Sherry from Macquarie University says high rates of urbanisation in Australia have resulted in a “profound disconnect” between people and the food they eat. Slowly, she says, things are changing.
“Peak disengagement [with food] was probably 10 years ago,” Sherry says. “We’re now at a turning point where people are starting to think more about where the food they eat is coming from.”
About 90% of Australia’s population lives in an urban environment. People from less urbanised cultures may have a stronger connection to agriculture, Sherry says.
“If you live in the city, somebody else is growing your food for you,” Sherry says. “Often your only relationship with food is picking it off supermarket shelves.”
The president of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, Tammi Jonas, sells the produce from her farm in Victoria’s central highlands directly to customers.
Jonas says farmers who sell directly to customers are a small but growing minority.
“In Australia we have one of the biggest disconnects with food in the world,” she says.
Jonas says while meat bought directly from producers can be more expensive than supermarket prices, the difference in meat prices is highly variable and fresh produce direct to consumer is “reliably” cheaper than major supermarkets.
“Really, [cost] is not the aim of the exercise,” she says. “The aim is to give farmers a better deal.”
“One of the reasons we’re losing farmers at such a steady rate is because they’re not being paid a living wage. We want to pay ourselves a living wage, and to do that we have to charge more for food.”
A few kilometres west of the Morrises’ farm, first-generation farmer Randle Breen supplies up to 100 families – mostly from Brisbane – with beef, eggs and pork.
“Within our mainstream food system a lot of the profit and viability seems to land outside the farmers’ hands,” he says.
“We wanted to try [to] own every leg of the supply chain.”
