2 minute read
Producer profile: Cockatoo Creek Farm
Above: Bridgett and Chris Day of Cockatoo Creek Farm.
New hands on tired land Story by Annabel Bowles. Photo courtesy of T. Pearce.
Three minutes from Yankalilla’s Main Street and I’m at Cockatoo Creek Farm. Atop the eighty-acre property I see the dune-fringed Normanville coastline in one direction; in the other, Mount Hayfield blanketed in dense scrub.
In January 2018, during the region’s driest summer in a hundred years, Chris and Bridgett Day moved here to establish a regenerative farm. The October afternoon I visit is warm and uncharacteristically calm, and sitting between tin sheds and twisted gums, we notice the hills have already started to undergo their summer bleaching.
Anticipating another harsh season, Chris tells me last year they had significantly less rainfall than the annual average. ‘It was a tough year to start, however we are thankful as much of the rest of the state had basically desert climate conditions,’ he says.
The ‘usually reliable’ rainfall and good soil were two of the Fleurieu’s draw-cards, along with the peninsula’s beaches, communities and conservation areas. And the couple seem to be pretty happy here, as do their co-habitants: a flock of sheep, a dozen Angus cattle (affectionately described as ‘500kg puppies’), some chooks, a few alpacas, and Wombat, their stumpy-tail red heeler.
With a background in urban permaculture and a penchant for overlyambitious veggie gardens, Bridgett and Chris always wanted to transition to acreage. It was their vision to build a diverse regenerative farm and provide quality food direct to locals that earned them the Willunga Farmers Market (WFM) Farmers Scholarship. Supported by the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board, the annual scholarship assists emerging farmers with start-up capital, mentorship and a two-year licence to trade primary produce at WFM.
Market-goers can now find Cockatoo Creek Farm’s own grass-fed lamb, garlic and olive oil on the third Saturday of each month. The produce isn’t just an obvious marriage of flavours, but an ‘environmental service.’ Chris and Bridgett regularly move their shedding composite sheep (the shaggy ones that don’t need shearing), cattle and chickens to build nutrient-rich soil, sequester carbon, and improve pasture biodiversity. With strategic land and water management, the property remains noticeably greener than its surrounds.
‘You could say we’re grass farmers. We spent most of our first year here actively observing and interacting with our pasture and farm’s ecosystems. We try to work within the limits of nature and enhance what’s already here,’ Bridgett tells me. But the pair know that a sound understanding of the land isn’t enough in an increasingly unpredictable climate. To diversify their crops and income, they’ve planted 140 fruit and nut trees of all different varieties (as well as 1000 indigenous trees for native wildlife to enjoy). Chris also runs a permaculture installation and education business, Every Day Sustainable Living.
Bridgett and Chris are grateful to work within a region they say is ‘leading with entrepreneurs at the forefront of trying new things in agriculture.’ For them, this involves ‘small and slow solutions’ and combining new knowledge with long-learnt lessons, to simultaneously grow nutrient-dense food and restore natural ecosystems.
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