Two farming couples that originated from Melbourne have created their own paddock-to-plate enterprise as a way of avoiding fluctuating markets.
Ally and James Paterson and Jono and Kara Newmarch run Tekoa Farms at Rokewood Junction, where they sell lamb directly to customers.
Ms Paterson said their journey began in mid-2020 with a "handful of cattle" on a property north of Melbourne.
"We had a vision of restoring landscapes and producing amazingly-healthy food through regenerative farming practices," she said.
They were presented with an opportunity to expand the enterprise on a property at Rokewood Junction, but soon realised the land was more suited to sheep production than cattle.
More than three years later, they now work with family-owned butcher MeatCrew at Colac East and aim to "breed as many lambs as possible" for a monthly delivery to clients in the Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat areas.
Customers simply buy their box on the Tekoa Farms website and it is delivered at the next-available time slot.
"At the moment we're just doing 20 lambs a month," she said.
"It's half a lamb in each box and they're all cut and packed the same way."
She said they planned to increase capacity and even start supplying beef.
Ms Paterson said the reason they wanted to go direct was to "have more control of the process", particularly amidst a climate of increased uncertainty on issues like live exports.
"The banning of live sheep exports in Australia has flooded the market, and given we can't sell our animals for good prices, we've had to create our own enterprise so we can sell directly to customers," she said.
"It is rewarding but it's a lot more work.
"It would be much easier if we could just sell our lambs through the market and get a good price for them."
She said the live-export ban was "extremely shortsighted and unwise" and dismissive of the impact it would have on farmers.
"Particularly in Western Australia, they are having to freight their stock interstate and suffer the financial loss, it's tragic," she said.
"It's affected all of us, anyone growing animals."
Ms Paterson said she was pleased "a big lobby group" in the National Farmers' Federation was advocating on behalf of farmers on important issues like live exports in their Keep Farmers Farming campaign.
- ACM Agri, the publisher of this masthead, is proud to be the media partner for this campaign
Joely Mitchell
Joely started her career at Stock & Land as a cadet journalist in 2016. She is now the editor of the paper.
Joely started her career at Stock & Land as a cadet journalist in 2016. She is now the editor of the paper.
