What better time to eat locally than GourMay, and what better place than in the Mary Valley! Moving to the area 19 years ago from an essentially “Beef” region of Western Qld, the first thing that struck me in the coastal hinterland areas of the Sunshine Coast was the variety of farms that were here. [...]
The wettest Autumn in many years has seen large scale destruction in Queensland as billions of tonnes of topsoil are relocated, animals, infrastructure and livelihoods decimated and rebuilding on a mammoth scale contemplated. While not for a second taking away from the very real tragedy of the floods that affected swathes of our inland, the [...]
To steal a quote from Holistic Management Educator Brian Wehlburg - 'species aren't invasive, nature is'. A “weed” is defined as a “plant out of place”. But who decides what “out of place” is? Did you know that a new “invasive weed” is declared in Australia, on average, every 18 days? Did you know there [...]
Few conventional farmers make the link between what they produce and the health & wellbeing of the general population; while even less in the general population directly attribute the nutrient density and contaminants in the food they eat with how they look and feel. A 2004 US study found that important nutrients in vegetable [...]
I once asked a “chemical free” producer who was seeking a premium for a product why he didn’t take the logical next step and become Certified Organic. His answer- “I don’t want to be told what to do on my own farm”. With the exception of our “Instagram Farmer” friends, most farmers just want to [...]
Much of the justification of land managers using fire as a tool comes from our perception of how Australian first nations people carried out “Cultural Burning” and then how our ancestors tamed the land we now occupy. Over time (only 200 years), the local European interpretation of indigenous fire management has been bastardised to a [...]
We’ve been banging on about rotational grazing for as long as we have opened the doors of the Kandanga Farm Store but it’s worthwhile to refine this blanket idea - of moving animals through landscapes rather than giving them constant access to all areas all the time (set stocking). Moving animals through landscape mirrors what [...]
Recently, chemical regulator APVMA announced that from 10 September 2025 it will be an offence under the AgVet code to have possession or custody of the cancelled active constituent Diazinon in Australia*. This is big news as Diazinon is a poison used in 15 livestock antiparasitic products including the entire range of buffalo fly tags [...]
The thing about being farmers as well as being Farm Store Keepers is that when we consider products and services for the store we think about how we could use them ourselves in our farming operation. Being certified organic and on our own regenerative farming journey we are not attracted to products, services or companies [...]
Roadsides, parks, footpaths and utilities are primarily “maintained” using poison. We have become used to seeing large areas around our signposts and guideposts “browned out” prior to roadside mowing while spraying edges of footpaths, culverts, traffic islands, railway tracks and so on is seen by many as an indicator of “good management” and a necessity [...]
