The invisible farmers
Quietly over the past two months our IPM Fruit and Veg Box has become one of Fair Food’s top three most popular offerings.
Likewise, demand for individual IPM produce has increased week after week as we’ve introduced new lines like beans, avocados, carrots, ginger, apples and pears.
It started when customers began talking about the cost of living making organics harder to afford.
We knew there had to be a sustainable but affordable next option out there and decided to go looking.
It turned out to be something called IPM.
IPM produce isn’t organic but it does tick a lot of sustainable boxes – it also fits a lot more people’s budgets.
IPM produce, if you haven’t heard, stands for Integrated Pest Management. It’s farming that does everything possible to encourage beneficial insects like ladybirds and lacewings which keep pests like caterpillars and aphids under control.
The end result is a lot less spraying. And when IPM farmers do have to spray they prefer biologically based products and they specifically target only the pest insect.
IPM also includes farming techniques like rotating crops and green manuring which confuses pests and keeps soils and plants healthy.
IPM farmers have been surprisingly hard for Fair Food’s produce buyer Joshua Arzt to track down.
The supermarket sector don’t promote IPM farmers lest it draw attention to the bulk of their fruit and veg growers who depend heavily on broad-spectrum insecticides.
It’s meant Joshua has spent a lot of time chasing up IPM leads; searching for an avocado farmer from an industry newsletter or a brassica grower recommended by an agronomist like Stuart Grigg (hiding up there in the broccoli).
The IPM farmers Joshua finds are always surprised to hear from him and also really proud to talk about the sustainable techniques they’ve introduced to their farms.
We’re really happy to be helping IPM farmers and their produce to become visible.
You can find our IPM range here
Olives to Oil cracks 20 tonnes!
Here’s a message from Olives to Oil manager Merrin Layden, who I don’t think has sat down since last Sunday’s olive-o-lanche.
Whew… that was a big one!
Thank you Melbourne for showing us what a community working together can achieve:
Thank you to the people who travelled from all over Victoria to drop off their olives, a record 20 tonnes!
Thank you to the volunteers across Brunswick East, Preston & Oakleigh who gave up their Sunday (and upper body strength) to get all those olives weighed.
Thank you to Barfold Olives, Cockatoo Grove and Kyneton Olives who stepped up to press an unexpectedly gigantic olive haul! Watch it all happening here
Merrin
If you missed out and want to be part of the fun, Hobson’s Bay Olives to Oil is on next Sunday June 4th.
Last Friday was the 25th Sorry Day.
One year after the anniversary of the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report a coalition of Australian community groups invited Australians to remember the Stolen Generations, their descendants, communities and begin a healing process that is still ongoing.
Sorry Day leads into National Reconciliation Week, this year’s theme is ‘Be a Voice for Generations’ which can sometimes also mean just listening.
Here’s a link to NRW events happening across Victoria.
Have a great week
Chris
