Glam Adelaide Members

Does Knowing Your Food Source Make You Feel Secure?

When you head to the shops, are you thinking about where your produce is coming from? Does it even really matter to you? We ask a local farmer to share their perspective on the questions you should be asking.

Australian farmers are garnering a lot of attention lately for different reasons. While everyone is ready to toast local produce, it seems at the same time the vast majority of distributors aren’t willing to pay a reasonable price for products that are a year-round labour to create livelihood for families and businesses working off the land.

Well, Glam Adelaide wants to open the conversation with local producers so we can all learn a bit more about their perspectives on the current state of things. Robyn Verrall operates a farm in the Upper South East of South Australia with her husband producing grassfed lamb and beef both locally and in domestic and international markets. Their business, Bullys Beef, raise Dorper Sheep and Angus Cattle on pasture, meaning there are no grain fed short cuts, hormones or confined growing conditions. It’s a natural farming process which is important to them, but does it matter to us? Robyn asks some straight forward questions of how we approach our produce.

If you know where your food comes from does that make you feel secure? Does it make you purchase more or less? If you went to the farm gate to meet the farmer that grew your food, would you only visit the fresh fruit and produce or would you also visit the Chicken, Beef, Lamb and pork farm to name a few?

Would you find that intimidating? There are plenty of businesses that let you “pick your own”and I totally agree it should be on a family’s list of things to do. Pick a Saturday or Sunday and go visit one of them, pick a basket of strawberries is not only a great outdoor exercise it is fun, exhausting and there is no one looking to see if you eat and cheat. By that I mean eating whilst you are working and not paying for the food.

In my local area there is a farmer who grows corn as a sub crop and they advertise once they are ready for people to come and pick the ears of corn, all fresh, all organic and direct from the paddock. They charge $1.00 an ear and it is the freshest corn you could find, it also assists them by removing the corn instead of ploughing it into the ground or letting them go rotten.

As far as being the cook in the family goes, are we the gatekeepers of family meals? Or are we general managers of the oven, fridge and stove? Do we classify ourselves as warriors of food sources to our friends and family and as decision makers of food sources and stuff for our children, do we take the correct amount of care that we should? In the hustle and bustle of being the family meal maker, are grass fed, paddock fed and organic foods part of your plan? This relates to fresh fruit & produce as well as meat.

What would you like to see more of in your family meals and on the plate? It doesn’t have to be large servings of meat, it needs to only be enough for good protein, growing muscles and holding off hunger.

What do you know about your local district Farmers Markets? Are they places that you go?

Would they be places where you would go if it was appealing or are you like me, and not really sure where they are and when they are on? Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like to respond to Robyn, she can be reached via email here. For more information on Bully’s Beef, visit their website.

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