In a paddock by an old shed, a crowd of “passionate eaters” and the odd farmer surround Randal Breen. This is Breen’s farm, and crowds are part of the business model.
“Before we do anything here, we ask ourselves: is it good for the animal, the land, the farmer and for the people that we feed?” Breen says.
He is speaking at an open day about the farm’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) scheme, a model whereby farms distributes produce among their members in exchange for consistent financial support.
It’s this premise that has led Scott Trudgett, his family and much of the crowd on a two-hour drive west of Brisbane to visit Randal and Juanita Breen at their 263 hectare farm at Echo Valley on Queensland’s Southern Downs.
Most of the food Trudgett’s family of six used to eat was bought after work from a budget supermarket. Now, for a subscription and initial 12-month commitment, they receive a monthly box of meat and eggs direct from the Breen’s farm. They are one of 80 families signed up to this CSA and make a few visits to the property each year.
“It just made sense to get it direct from a farmer, we knew the quality, we can come and look at the farm for ourselves,” Trudgett says.
Monthly fees range from $88 to $275, depending on the amount of produce members wish to receive.
The commitment to a fixed monthly fee means the risks of farming are shared with CSA members. In the 2019 drought, just 12 cows remained on the property. “That wasn’t going to feed many people,” Randal says. “We were staring down the very real barrel of this all being over.”
But their members stepped in. At a meeting in Brisbane, they agreed to continue to pay the same monthly fee but for half the usual amount of produce.
“It’s a partnership,” CSA member Vicky Mills says. “It’s about rebuilding that connection to the land, which we’ve lost.”
And on the farm, the land comes first. The Breens stock their chickens at a tenth of the rate required to be free-range certified and rotate their cattle herd between paddocks to allow the land enough time rest. It’s part of their “100-year plan” to restore the landscape’s soil and vegetation, Randal says.
The last stop on the tour is the on-farm boning and packaging room. “I’m not sure about this bit,” says Kim, another passionate eater from the city. A vegan for more than a decade, Kim started buying meat from the farm (they sell any left-over produce after supplying their CSA members) to address a stubborn iron deficiency and mounting health issues.
“I loved the feeling of eating meat, and the way it improved my health, but hated the fact of what I was doing – it’s a living thing and it doesn’t want to die,” she says. “I still struggle in a way, it’s a trade-off for my own health, but if this is what it takes, visiting the farm.”
Dr Kiah Smith, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland, says CSA models are providing a “values transaction” between farmers and consumers in a way commercial supply chains have failed to achieve.
“It’s reorganising the relationship between how food is grown, distributed and consumed, rather than seeing it as a pure market transaction,” Smith says.
CSA can also give small scale operations the ability to purse better environmental and animal welfare outcomes even if doing so may impact profits, she says. “It enables small farmers to grow food that they’re passionate about and live in places that they care for.”
In Japan, where the model originated, its known as “food with the farmer’s face on it”. The model is slowly growing in popularity in Australia, but is largely restricted to farmers based close to large urban centres with enough demand to drum up a viable membership.
Cost can be another barrier. Smith questions who “are [the] kinds of consumers that will continue to buy from alternative sources that are generally more expensive?”
Trudgett pays more for the 10kg of meat and 30 eggs supplied monthly by Breen’s farm than he would spend at a large supermarket for comparable but lower quality produce.
But Smith says the higher prices of food from alternative supply chains reflects the actual cost of producing sustainable produce that fairly compensates small-scale farmers.
“Its a bit like people buying electric vehicles now, they’re still very expensive and not everyone can afford them, but as that kind of infrastructure improves they will become more mainstream,” she says.
For Trudgett, having a stake in the farm is worth the increased cost. “It’s the best I could hope for living in the city, knowing exactly where our food comes from,” he says.
“We call it our farm.”
