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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Natascha Mirosch

From bowls club to mushroom farm: how a new generation is reimagining life on the land

Matt Davis Queensland Rhett Hammerton
Mushroom grower Matt Davis
Mushroom grower Matt Davis sells pink oysters and freckled chestnuts to some of the region’s top restaurants, as well as visitors who cross the old bowling green to his ‘farmgate’ shop. Photograph: Supplied by Mat Davis

Matt Davis is surveying his land while sipping a knock-off beer. His property would fit into the average Queensland farm more than 5,300 times and he can afford to relax – there are no fences to mend or animals to feed and his crops are impervious to the vagaries of the weather.

Davis is an exotic mushroom grower, his pocket-sized farm in the equally diminutive town of Harrisville, south-west of Ipswich, a repurposed lawn bowls club.

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