Hello there, we are the Andrews family Stuart, Megan, Hamish and Lachlan. Since 2016 we have owned and run Forage Farms in Kybong, Queensland. We produce pastured eggs, pork, lamb and beef.
We see ourselves as custodians of the land. It is our belief that we should leave the land we farm better than we found it.
Our purpose is to regenerate, rehabilitate and rehydrate our landscape. We aggrade land not degrade land. We reintroduce function back into the landscape, build soil, build water holding capacity and build fertility without the use of chemicals or artificial fertilisers.
So how do we do this? Our animals, chickens, pigs, sheep and cattle, move across our pastures in a rotation.
These animals act as nutrient donors, through their droppings, that build soil fertility. All animals graze on different plant species and their disturbance of the soil stimulates the germination of different seeds and encourages microbes that aerate the soil.
The plants that grow as a result build soil carbon while cooling the climate. The land is left for long periods to recover between short periods of grazing. Over time our pastures have improved. We see evidence of this every day.
So how do these improved pastures affect the food we produce on our farm? Rotation of the chickens, pigs, sheep and cattle to fresh pastures increases the diversity of our pastures and improves soil health.
As a result, the animals that eat these diverse pastures produce fantastic tasting and nourishing eggs, pork, lamb and beef.
Healthy pastures = healthy soils and plants = healthy and happy animals = healthy food.
We do all this because we don't just want to farm sustainably; we want to actually regenerate the landscape so it is resilient and ensures that it will continue to produce great food for many generations to come at the same time educating consumers and farmers how this can be done.
Our greatest challenge has been learning how to promote and sell our produce. As farmers, growing food is the easy part, however marketing and selling was out of our comfort zone and something we had to learn fast. Running a mixed enterprise business is challenging and BUSY.
Our main successes would be the environmental improvement of our property and being able to sell our produce to local restaurants, cafes and supermarkets.
Hearing from our customers how much they love our produce is very satisfying and makes all our hard work worthwhile.
Stuart has been farming all his life and a long-term goal has been to close the gap between farmers and consumers. We run farm tours to engage people in knowing where their food comes from. Developing this operation will hopefully allow this connection to occur with the added environmental benefits.
We are wanting to add more income streams to the property and possibly look to replicate the same model in other areas if there are people out there looking to do something similar but lack the know-how.
So there you have it. We love what we do and get a real kick out of sharing our story and our produce. And we have met some fantastic people along the way. T
o follow our story and keep up to date with what is happening on the farm follow us on Instagram, like us on Facebook or sign up to our newsletter via our website www.foragefarms.com.au
If you would like to purchase some of our delicious eggs, pork or lamb, it is available at our farm shop on Saturday mornings 9am-12pm.
You can also check out our Forager's Map on our website for a full list of our stockists.