Page updated:
Thursday, 22 November 2007

FOOD systems...

Innovation the key to farming at Regenesis

“On our 40 hectare property we mimic natural ecosystems through utilizing biodiversity and closed nutrient cycling. We address the whole of the farm’s ecosystems in our overall design”, she says.

Regenesis managing director, Danielle Leonard

Regenesis management team's David Stratton (left) shows a visitor through the lemon and lime orchard

The certified organic market garden produces greens for the local market and for sale at the farmer's market at Brisbane's Northey street City Farm

In the alley cropping system, commercial market garden crops are grown in the alleys between lines of tree crops and legumes

Straw is grown and baled on site. Compost made on the farm is placed on top of the bales and seeds and seedlings planted into it. The decaying bales add organic matter to the soil. Photo: alley cropping system.

David Stratton shows compost produced in an Earthmakers system to visiting local government sustainability educator, Fiona Campbell.

NASAA certification inspector, Brad Nott (left) inspects worm farms used to recycle waste into fertiliser at Regenises.

Fresh picked a success

“Salad mix, herbs and leafy greens are our most successful products”, explains Danielle. “We pick in the morning and restaurants receive the produce in their kitchen an hour after picking… usually, their produce would have traveled for three days before hitting the kitchen. Freshly picked greens are undeniably superior. Retail outlets tend to put yesterday’s delivery on the shelf and today’s delivery out tomorrow, so they don’t take the same advantage from the freshness factor. There are 30 varieties of vegetables and herbs that vary by season.”

Like other organic farms, Regenesis maintains the fertility of the soil by producing compost, some of the raw materials for which are transported in the farm’s biodiesel-fueled garbage compactor truck that collects organic wastes from many of the same restaurants that the farm supplies with fresh food.

“We use an adaptation of the Sir Albert Howard’s ‘Indore’ composting method. Open-air windrows are turned regularly and monitored for temperature, moisture, Ph and biology. We also make a biologically active compost that is really humus, rather than compost, and we brew compost tea on-site. We use agricultural wastes such as bagasse and aquatic weeds - water weeds are a major environmental problem in Australian waterways.”

Walk along the farm’s service road, past the first of three farm dams that hold a combined total of around eight megalitres when full, and look over the lower slopes planted to a drip-fed mixed orchard, the diversity of which is explained by Danielle: “We have six hectares of mixed fruit plantations including aniseed myrtle, finger lime, kaffir lime, varieties of lemon and lime, pawpaw and other tropical fruits.”

On the steeper up-slopes there are “…eight hectares of rain-fed cabinet timbers, two of mixed eucalypt plantations and another two of regenerated rainforest. We have established brush box, blood wood, tallow, flooded gum - mainly - with some hoop pine, casuarina and spotted gum with a few mature-phase rainforest species”, Danielle explains.

No ordinary farm

It is clear that Regenesis – which employs up to twelve people in its different operations, most of them part-time - is no ordinary farm. That has been the intention from the beginning.

“We undertook comprehensive planning and financial modeling that included revenue projections through to the year 2025”, says Danielle. “We did calculations for each product and included a carbon/biodiversity offset program for tree plantings.”

The popularity of local foods has figured in Regenesis’ planning because it offers market advantages. “The Slow Foods movement and hospitality industry are paving the way. Restaurant customers like the idea of fresh, locally grown food… and it tends to be the high-end chefs that are the primary drivers for our produce”, she says.

”Food production is designed to be direct to consumer, hospitality and retail industries and to be bioregional and local, with an eye to minimising fossil fuel use and eliminating middleman distribution systems. Year four will see us launch a value-adding arm with products which will have a wider geographical market.  We will talk to transport companies at that stage to set up a carbon offset program and/or conversion to biodiesel.”

No organic farm is without its challenges, however. “Balancing the triple bottom line - ecological, social and financial values - and dealing with complex systems…  the ‘lots of little things’ and the interactions between them… as opposed to the simplicity of monoculture and the current reductionist economic paradigm in which we exist”, are among the challenges that Danielle admits to.

Regenesis chose NASAA organic accreditation because it has wide recognition of its standards and because NASAA is committed to advancing the principles of ecological production.

New on the farming scene, the future for Regenesis looks promising because, according to Danielle, “So far, market demand has exceeded our ability to supply.” It goes to prove that, along with proven methods of organic production, knowledge of the market and imagination go a long way. 

Postscript:
Regenesis learned in late-October 2005 that Byron Shire Council had approved a one-year trial of its planned wind generator that will supply the farm with much of its electricity needs.

More at: www.regenesis.com.au