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.
The former cafe owner started growing mushrooms at home for family and friends.
“I spent five or six years studying mushroom growing and learning everything I could from reading books, and watching YouTube and Facebook videos and just connecting with people and asking questions,” he says.
“When this unique property came up for sale, I thought it would be perfect for commercial growing.”
A former second world war army barracks, the property once housed soldiers stationed at Archerfield airport before being redeployed as Harrisville District Bowls Club in the 1950s, quickly becoming the social heart of the small rural community. But with an ageing membership, the club folded in 2016, the once immaculately-trimmed green consumed by weeds and bindi patches. Sold and used for storage, it was back on the market in 2020, a serendipitous time for Davis, who jumped at the opportunity to progress his hobby into a business.
Now, with Scenic Rim Mushrooms, he sells pink oysters and freckled chestnuts grown in temperature-controlled rooms to some of the region’s top restaurants as well as visitors who cross the old bowling green to his “farmgate” shop.
“Look, I think if you’re passionate about something and if the business plan makes sense, then you should just go for it because we only get one life and you’ve got to have a crack, you know?” he says.
Bigger isn’t always better
Davis’s operation is emblematic of a new generation of small-scale farmers being welcomed into semi-rural Queensland communities. These farming first-timers are happy to take advice while also seeking to do things differently, with diversified income streams and a greater focus on sustainability.
Nick Holliday worked in a law firm, as a union organiser and as an air-conditioning technician before buying Belvedere Farm, north-west of Brisbane, in 2014.
His intention initially was to live on the property and commute to his job.
“But once I started raising cattle and chickens, I became deeply interested in the idea of feeding people, as well as using livestock to building soil organic matter,” he says.
In addition to their own eight hectares, Holliday and his wife, Brydie, now lease another 60, still well below the average farm size in Australia of 4,300 hectares.
The couple practise agro-ecological farming, using temporary fencing and feeding troughs to rotate cattle around different pastures every day, followed by the chickens, to further aerate and naturally fertilise the soil.
On their leased land, an old dairy farm, they’re using pigs to clear lantana and regenerate the degraded soil.
To ensure a regular income, the Hollidays operate Belvedere Farm via community-supported agriculture (CSA). Their subscribers buy into the farm’s projected harvest for a set period, receiving monthly deliveries of pork, beef and pastured eggs.
Davis, too, has incorporated a subscription model into his business plan, albeit for different reasons. With demand for his Lion’s Mane mushrooms, appreciated for their medicinal as well as culinary benefits, greater than he’s able to supply, his subscribers get first dibs.
These loyal customers appreciate the operation’s light environmental footprint, with power for the temperature-controlled rooms provided by solar panels, minimal water use and the mushrooms grown on sawdust, a byproduct of the milling industry.
“It’s not just for our conscience – restaurants are really wanting products and producers that are sustainable these days,” Davis says.
Hungry to learn
While both the hands-in-soil and the business end of farming can be a sharp and sometimes devastatingly cruel learning curve, both Davis and Holliday have been gratified by the support they’ve received.
“There’s a really awesome movement of new farmers,” Holliday says. “First generation farmers – young people who are undertaking these practices and there are some great mentors, particularly holistic management educators who have adapted methods to an Australian context. We’ve been very lucky to have the opportunity to learn off a lot of other really good farmers.”
Davis says the local council, keen to attract tourism to the region, has also provided business development courses and mentorship programs.
Jo Sheppard, CEO of Queensland Farmers’ Federation, says many young farmers are “enjoying the diversity modern farming can offer”.
This includes “the opportunity to create a sustainable farming enterprise through efficient production, strategic investment decisions and diversification into emerging areas such as agritourism and natural capital.”
Kate Keating is the south-east Queensland co-ordinator for Young Farmers Connect, a national not-for-profit network that provides resources and peer support for young farmers. She says small-scale farming is on the increase and proving a boon for the communities they settle in as well as consumers.
“They’re fostering strong relationships between grower and consumer and educating people on the true value of food and in doing so, bringing a sense of connection back to our local communities and cities,” she says.
For Kate Creasey, of Olive View Estate, the career transition from event producer and vintage makeup artist to olive farmer necessitated a hasty education in horticulture.
“When we moved here, the trees were drought-affected and hadn’t fruited for a couple of years. The previous owner had just sort of lost heart.”
But with lots of advice and support, she and her father have managed to double the size of the trees and had two successful fruitings since buying the farm together 18 months ago, she says.
“The first season, there were heaps, but they were very small fruit. This year we have a smaller crop, but the fruit is absolutely massive, plumped up with all that extra rain and nutrition. We’ve actually had other growers message us to ask us how we got them so big.”
Creasey’s not putting all her eggs (or olives) in one basket though. Like a growing number of farmers, she’s mitigating risk with agritourism, a sector projected by the Queensland Farmers’ Federation to be worth a potential $4.5 billion by 2030.
Like Davis, she has a “farmgate stall”, a quaint 1950 Morris bus, formerly used as a broadcast bus for the Melbourne Olympics, restored by her vintage-loving (and olive-loathing) father where she sells jars of olives, tapenades, oil and more.
She’s also using her events experience to host weddings and other celebrations in the picturesque olive grove and has renovated a cottage on the property to run as an Airbnb.
One thing stopping more people embracing a life on the land is often the start-up capital required to purchase property.
“We’ve been very fortunate that I owned this land before the price of land around here accelerated out of the reach of a farmer,” Holliday says.
However, QFF says it is increasingly seeing out-of-the-box solutions such as share farming or, as the Hollidays are doing, leasing more land.
Demand for Belvedere’s eggs is so great the couple are looking to expand their flock from 300 to 1,000 hens.
But while the business is growing exponentially, their life goals remain modest.
“We have no aspirations to control huge tracts of land or buy a Maserati,” Holliday says. “We just want to have good jobs and pay ourselves a decent white-collar salary, feed people and heal the country.”