Beauty in the beast

James Pearson candidly admits that when he first started converting his beef cattle business to organics, it was something he almost confessed to in a whisper. “I’m pretty sure most people expected me to have a bushy beard and long hair in a ponytail,” he says. “That was back in the early 2000s, but these days the appreciation of organics is much more mainstream and people are much more aware that you are what you eat. I read recently that nine million Australians include organics in their regular shop.”

James and his wife, Sarah, live on Boorara station north of Blackall in central-western Queensland. Their oldest