THE REGENERATORS Richard Cornish @foodcornish
There's a dry clatter of dragonflies cutting through the air as they hunt down destructive cabbage moths, one white menace at a time.
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lsewhere on Brooklands Free Range Farm, there is the sound of frogs, birds warbling in the trees, and the occasional bellow from a cow and a grunt from a pig. Over the past 12 years since Natalie Hardy and Jono Hurst bought their Blampied farm, west of Daylesford, they have slowly turned their backs on modern farming practices. Instead they have embraced methods that use natural environmental cycles to improve soil health and water quality, and biodiversity. It is called regenerative farming, a practice gaining ground globally as farmers work to repair the damage done to farmland and increase the productivity of their land without chemical fertilisers and pest control.
grass into valuable nutrition," says Natalie. "This feeds the grass – which creates more leaf matter through photosynthesis – which feeds the animals. Their manure feeds the underground army," she explains. "When we started, we had soil carbon under 0.5%; now it's 4.5%."
Natalie and Jono raise rare breed Berkshire pigs and British White Cattle, producing exceptional pork and beef. "We have enlisted an underground army of naturally occurring microscopic bugs, bacteria, fungus, and other living creatures that turn manure and dead
Brooklands Freerange Farms beef and pork is available at the Sunday Daylesford Market.
Daylesford Macedon Life | 6
"What we have in this region is a high number of like-minded regenerative farmers," says Natalie. "We produce some of the best, and can I say award-winning, produce in the country. You'll find our food on the menus of our top restaurants, in the markets, and the shelves of local stores. Our farms are better, our animals are healthier, and the produce is more nutrient-dense than conventionally farmed food. And it tastes so good."
Another of the Daylesford Macedon's regenerative farmers is Sam White from Sidonia Beef in the Cobaw
Ranges east of Kyneton. Sam raises Angus cattle, but runs them to emulate the massive herbivore herds of the African savannah. "We have one mob of 200, and we put them all into one paddock," he explains. "It may sound counterintuitive, but the cattle eat the grass and knock down the stalks, so the soil microbes break it down. They manure the paddock at the same time. After a few days, we move the herd on." Sam has been farming this way since 2016, the farm is now entirely covered in perennial and native flora and no longer has parasite problems. Buy Sidonia Beef boxes online at sidoniabeef.com.au. While growing vegetables is one of the most intensive forms of farming, Josh Williams and his business partners, Nick Judkin and Rex Chalmers from Tumpinyeri Growers at Captains Creek, believe they are doing the right thing for the environment. "It is all about letting the natural processes go about their course," he says. He and his team protect the creek nearby, home to
