farm raiser
The Farm Raiser crew first met while studying at the University of Melbourne’s Burnley Horticultural College, and bonded over a desire to grow food in the city. After uni, they each went their separate ways to gain experience before regrouping and starting their not-for-profit farm in 2018, in the Melbourne suburb of Bellfield.
Tell us about this piece of land. Patrick Turnbull: The farm itself is on Department of Education land, at Waratah Special Developmental School. I was living around the corner and for a uni assignment, approached them about how they irrigated the school. I noticed this 1.5-acre patch out the back and thought of growing there – they were really happy to back any plan that increases the community of the school. Now a group of senior students come and pack veggie boxes with us as work experience. In future we want to provide more experiences to help students gain employment post-school.
What do you grow here? PT: Mostly salad greens and brassicas like broccoli and cauliflower. Most of our produce goes through a box program. Charlotte Bartlett-Wynne: We make our boxes from a combination of our own produce and other Victorian farms that are either organic, biodynamic or spray free – that way we can get a good variety and it’s not repetitive.
We essentially try to operate within capitalism without subscribing to its standard structures and practices. So we have cooperative management, a sliding scale for our boxes, and we don’t ask anyone to prove their status in order to access concession prices. Then we have sovereign boxes, which are for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and community boxes, which are for people who
