Biodynamic treechange (homesteading)

New Farming Opportunity Now Open at Near River

2012-06-19T06:59:53+10:00

Applications for our first Smallholding Internship at Near River Produce are open, and will be wide ranging in the scope of areas covered.

For three and a half months two interns will spend their days involved in all aspects of our operations here at Near River, allowing them to experience life on a smallholding.

Primarily focusing on fresh vegetable and limited fruit production, over the four months all facets of a range of crops will be covered, from soil preparation, seedling production and succession planting, harvesting and preparing for market. Irrigation, nutrient cycling, composting and compost teas will also be discussed in depth.

Other areas that are intrinsically vital to our livelihood will be shared including pastured egg production, our valued added preserve and condiment range, and the beginnings of our pastured pork operations. Obviously as garlic is our main crop, it will form a large part of the activities.

The marketing side of our business will also be able to be experienced, as each team member will be able to participate in farmers markets, farm gate sales and on-farm events. Online marketing and sales also play a large part in our business.

Ideally these internships are for people who are keenly interested in learning about life on a smallholding and how to have that life produce a sustaining income whilst producing nutrient dense food for our community, and heal the land at the same time.

Our first intake commences on September 7th and runs through until December 21st and each week will consist of a variety of tasks spread across five days, with two days off aside from minor chores.

A stipend of $200 per month will be paid for incidentals, and room and board within the main house at Near River will be provided. Participation in cooking and cleaning will be expected. Limited broadband internet will also be available.

A $500 tool bond will be required upon acceptance of the internship, which will occur after a three day trial.

Profit sharing in a crop that the team raises and markets whilst at Near River will be available at the completion of each internship.

Near River Produce is a 8.5 hectare property located 4.5 hours north of Sydney, 45 kms inland from Port Macquarie. Wauchope is the nearest town.

We farm organically and follow many of the principles of Eliot Coleman and Joel Salatin. Our produce supplies some of the region’s leading restaurants, and we participate in a weekly Sydney market.

Applicants will need to be physically fit – this is hard work, but you will eat some of the best food you’ve ever grown and tasted, and at the end of each day you will be very aware of what you have accomplished. And your knowledge bank will be expanded enormously.

Contact us at info@nearriverproduce.com for an application form, or phone us on 02 6587 6004 for further details. Visit our website at www.nearriverproduce.com

Applications close August 20th 2012.

Spring Newsletter from Near River

2011-10-31T22:35:46+11:00

Follow this link to the Spring Newsletter from our farm Near River.

http://tinyurl.com/3kbsr7v
[Open in new window]

Pay the farmer now or the doctor later - you choose.

2011-09-28T18:05:23+10:00

This excellent short piece encapsulates exactly what we are doing at Near River Produce - no factory feed lot industrialised farming for us, more pasture raised free range petro-chemical free nutrient dense foods.

Into the bargin, the video has Willie Nelson's version of Coldplay's 'The Scientist'.

Enjoy.

Late Autumn newsletter out now

2011-06-15T13:25:03+10:00

We've had 3-4 days of continuous rain at here Near River. One of those east coast lows formed off the coast and is slowly moving south. Total rainfall since Sunday has exceeded 250mm, which means once the chooks are cared for each day, and the rain guage is emptied, there is not a lot else that can be done outside.

What to do then? Aarh, those tasks that occur at this desk can receive some attention, hence the first of our seasonal newsletters.

You can view the newsletter here.

Also, we've now got a Facebook page - click here to visit and like it.

Oh, for those readers who live on the top half of the planet, it's a Late Fall newsletter, and 250mm of rain is close to 10 inches in your language.

Enjoy.

Do you want fries with that?

2011-05-19T16:19:44+10:00

For those of you who visit McDonalds for more than coffee, you might want to think about your 'food' choice again.

Name this McDonalds menu item.

Soft serve ice cream, right?

No.

It’s Pre-Chicken Nugget Meat Paste

AKA Mechanically Separated Poultry or Mechanically Separated Chicken

The photo above has been extensively passed around recently, and for good reason: it's a peek into the rarely-seen world of mechanically separated meat, or Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR).

Fooducate writes:
Some American figured out in the 1960s that meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result. There's more: because it's crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavoured artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial colour.

But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?

The resulting paste goes on to become the main ingredient in many of Australia's favourite mass-produced and processed meat-like foods and snacks: bologna, hot dogs, salami, pepperoni, meat jerky, and of course the ever-polarizing chicken nugget, where the paste from the photo above was likely destined.

That late night/early morning feed at Macca’s doesn’t look so good now does it!

Our last harvest from the old rhubarb bed

2011-03-08T00:07:43+11:00

When we first arrived here at Near River, I was very keen to get some of the perennial vegetables planted as they can keep producing for many years. One of the best pieces of advice that we've been given is that for this enterprise to work you really need to grow what you love. Excellent - asparagus and rhubarb are two of my favourites, and while they can take some time to start producing, once they are settled, with the right care they'll keep giving for years. You can read about our asparagus escapades here and here, and see an earlier rhubarb story here.

We have a small range of preserves that we sell at markets, through a few key retailers in the Hastings and in Sydney, and at our online farmgate stall. Initially the idea was that we'd use excess production to provide the material for the preserve range, and that has more or less been the situation, until one of the preserves starts to sell quicker than you can grow it.

Such is the case of our delicious Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote.

Back in 2008, having created the first growing bed and planting a border row of lemongrass for protection, we planted our first rhubarb plants. Grown from seed in our polyhouse, it was pretty exciting nine months later to start 'pinching' some stems and using them in the kitchen for breakfasts and desserts. Not long after this, our good friend John Shelley from Red Hill at Telegraph Point offered us some excellent deep red rhubarb crowns - wild horses couldn't have kept me back. From memory, John gave us about 60 crowns, and for the last couple of years they've been providing us and our CSA customers with wonderful red rhubarb.

In the spring of 2010, we launched our Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote, which has gone extremely well, quickly gaining popularity here in the Hastings Valley, and farther afield thanks to our extensive network of agents (read family) and the joys of online marketing.

And then a happy dilemma - we need more plants, but we can't damage the production of our existing crop. Rhubarb is a plant that can be propogated very easily by division, indeed it's perfect for this form of reproduction as you end with identical 'offspring' from the parent plant, also ideal in our case of highly sort after red stem rhubarb. So to minimise the impact we chose to move and divide the existing crop in two sections.

The first 25 plants have been moved to the new, improved bed, giving us 125 plants - don't you like that math - and the remaining 50 plants were harvested last week, and will be moved over the coming few weeks. All up we should finish up with over 300 plants in the new bed, and that will keep us in rhubarb for a few years to come.

So with the red stems trimmed and washed, I headed into town and our chefs, Eric Robinson and Geoff at The Other Chef Fine Foods who produce all our preserves, and witnessed our fresh rhubarb, just harvested that morning, being processed, cooked and bottled. The following images say it all. Later this year, when the citrus trees reach the right age, we'll be using our limes and ginger too.

Add the rhubarb to the pot ...mix well ...simmer at 90 deg for 10 mins ...and presto!

Keen to try some of this for yourself? A couple of local cafes have it on their menu - Bent on Food in Wingham and Beetroot'd in Kendall - and the following stores have it on their shelves - in Port Macquarie head to Essential Ingredients, About Food, or The Visitor Info Centre at The Glasshouse, and in Coffs Harbour Essential Ingredients have it there too. Otherwise order it online at the Near River Farm Gate or come and see us this Saturday and every second Saturday of the month at the Port Macquarie Farmers Markets in WestPort; every fourth Saturday at the Wauchope Farmers Markets at the Showground; and each third Sunday at the Laurieton Riverside Walk Markets.

Stuck for how to use it? I love it with museli or stirred through yoghurt for breakfast, dolloped on banana bread with cream, or chocolate cake with mascapone, or best of all, simply partnered with ice cream. We've heard of customers using it with pork and duck dishes too!

Chef launches Near River Cafe with a superb degustation dinner

2011-01-23T22:42:44+11:00

For a while now we've harboured a desire to have a small cafe ...... no that's not true - maybe some ways down the track.

But we do enjoy sharing good produce, food and wine with our friends, and with a German chef on hand for a month or so as a Wwoofer (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) we jumped at this opportunity when Matthias suggested it.

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

The menu

The setting

Antipasto with ….

breads (chilli with honey, walnut, and herb) and ...

corn – the first from Near River.

potato salad w Raging River Wagyu meatballs

goats cheese cream w semi dried tomatoes

smoked salmon rolls w purple caviar (Near River finger lime segments soaked in beetroot juice)

chicken cottage pie

white wine pears w blue cheese sauce

orange and basil sorbet

sushi trilogy

coffee parfait w chocolate crumble

passionfruit sorbet

It was a great meal and a wonderful night, with thanks to Matthias for all his hard work, and our friends for sharing beautiful wine and food with us.

Yep it was yum. I can’t wait for the next one.

Say NO to GMO 20.01.11

2011-01-20T21:49:33+11:00

I can stay quiet no longer.

Two really important matters have come to light recently that warrant your attention.

The first is an application by Monsanto to FSANZ (Food Safety Australia New Zealand) to amend the Food Standard to permit the sale and use of food derived from soybean line MON87769. This is a new variety of soybean that is genetically modified (GM) to produce stearidonic acid (SDA), an omega-3 fatty acid, in the seeds of the plant.

FSANZ is calling for comments which close on Jan 25th.

The spin is that it is high in Omega 3. The best sources of Omega 3 is from grass fed meat, organic flax, organic Near River eggs, purslane and fish. In other words real food produced with care and respect.

To see the submission and lodge a comment, go here soon!

The second issue involves an organic farmer in WA who has had his crop 'polluted' by a neighbouring farmer growing GM canola. The organic farmer, David Kibble, has lost his certification and his crop. As you might expect this is turning into a debacle with WA farmers wanting their Minister for Agriculture to resign, legislation to protect non-GM farmers, and a full audit of GM farms and their neighbours. Behind all this are the deep pockets of Monsanto. To hear an interview with David and the Food Fight team from radio 3CR, click here

You can expect to see a continuing flurry of these types of posts - after all, earlier this month Monsanto was voted Most Evil Corporation of the Year by 51% of respondents to an online poll.

Guess the other 49% don't care about what they eat!

Just like letting kids into a lolly shop

2010-11-25T16:59:18+11:00

I'm a pretty optimistic kind of guy - heavens knows with Mother Nature as the majority shareholder in your enterprise you need to be.

But this article from The Guardian in the UK has left me gobsmacked. Surely they can't be serious - this is some sort of joke, right?

Read on and see what you think - I find it unbelievable.

If this is how the Governments of the 'developed' world are going to deal with the health issues that we as a race are facing, then we might as well give up now.

McDonald's and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy

Exclusive: Department of Health putting fast food companies at heart of policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease

McDonald's and other food companies will help write policy on obesity and diet-related diseases. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned.

In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five "responsibility deal" networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.

The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises. Working alongside them are public interest health and consumer groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health. The alcohol responsibility deal network is chaired by the head of the lobby group the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deal's sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The leading supermarkets are an equally strong presence, while the responsibility deal's physical activity group is chaired by the Fitness Industry Association, which is the lobby group for private gyms and personal trainers.

In early meetings, these commercial partners have been invited to draft priorities and identify barriers, such as EU legislation, that they would like removed. They have been assured by Lansley that he wants to explore voluntary not regulatory approaches, and to support them in removing obstacles. Using the pricing of food or alcohol to change consumption has been ruled out. One group was told that the health department did not want to lead, but rather hear from its members what should be done.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the leading liver specialist and until recently president of the Royal College of Physicians, said he was very concerned by the emphasis on voluntary partnerships with industry. A member of the alcohol responsibility deal network, Gilmore said he had decided to co-operate, but he doubted whether there could be "a meaningful convergence between the interests of industry and public health since the priority of the drinks industry was to make money for shareholders while public health demanded a cut in consumption".

He said: "On alcohol there is undoubtedly a need for regulation on price, availability and marketing and there is a risk that discussions will be deflected away from regulation that is likely to be effective but would affect sales. On food labelling we have listened too much to the supermarkets rather than going for traffic lights [warnings] which health experts recommend." Employers are being asked to take on more responsibility for employees in a fourth health at work deal. The fifth network is charged with changing behaviour, and is chaired by the National Heart Forum. This group is likely to be working with the new Cabinet Office behavioural insight unit, which is exploring ways of making people change their behaviour without new laws.

Lansley's public health reforms are seen as a test case for wider Conservative policies on replacing state intervention with private and corporate action.

While public interest groups are taking part in drawing up the deals, many have argued that robust regulation is needed to deal with junk food and alcohol misuse.

The Faculty of Public Health, represented on several of the deal networks, has called for a ban on trans fats and minimum alcohol pricing. Professor Lindsey Davies, FPH president, said: "We are hopeful that engaging with the food industry will lead to changes in the quality and healthiness of the products we and our children eat. It is possible to make progress on issues such as salt reduction through voluntary agreements, and we're keeping an open mind until we see what comes out of the meetings, but we do think that there is still a role for regulation."

Responding to criticism that industry was too prominent in the plans, the Department of Health said: "We are constantly in touch with expert bodies, including those in the public health field, to help inform all our work. For the forthcoming public health white paper we've engaged a wide range of people, as we are also doing to help us develop the responsibility deal drawn from business, the voluntary sector, other non-governmental organisations, local government, as well as public health bodies. A diverse range of experts are also involved."

He added that the government wanted to improve public health through voluntary agreements with business and other partners, rather than through regulation or top-down lectures because it believed this approach would be far more effective and ambitious than previous efforts.

An over-arching board, chaired by Lansley, has been set up to oversee the work of the five responsibility deal networks, with representatives of local government and a regional health director – but it too is dominated by the food, alcohol, advertising and retail industries. Gilmore called for a better balance of commercial interests and independent experts on it.

Other experts have also expressed concern at Lansley's approach. Professor Tim Lang, a member of the government's advisory committee on obesity, doubted the food and drink industry's ability to regulate itself. "In public health, the track record of industry has not been good. Obesity is a systemic problem, and industry is locked into thinking of its own narrow interests," said Lang.

"I am deeply troubled to be sent signals from the secretary of state about working 'with business' and that any action has got to be soft 'nudge' action."

Jeanette Longfield, head of the food campaign group Sustain, said: "This is the equivalent of putting the tobacco industry in charge of smoke-free spaces. We know this 'let's all get round the table approach' doesn't work, because we've all tried it before, including the last Conservative government. This isn't 'big society', it's big business."

Rapping the virtues of organic food

2010-11-19T10:10:00+11:00

Is this how to market organic produce?

Do you think it's fabulous or worrying? I can't decide.

What I do know though is that Yeo Valley have hit the mark so much better than this lame attempt by Woolworths.

But then what can you expect from a company that believes it's claim to sell fresh food is accurate.