During the bushfires, Eurobodalla chain supermarkets were run bare as supply systems faltered. Food from outside the Eurobodalla could not be shipped in.
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The SAGE project is a Moruya-based not-for-profit aiming to create a resilient and secure local food community.
The fires highlighted food needed to be grown locally. SAGE did something about it, and began brainstorming ways to create a local farm fit for training and growing. The concept of Stepping Stones Farm was formed - a single stepping stone in the progression of future farmers.
A two hour drive north west, on her family farm near Gundaroo, Dr Joyce Wilkie was excited when she heard about the initiative.
With more than 40 years of farming experience, she applied for the job as farm manager and trainer at Stepping Stones Farm, and moved to Moruya shortly afterwards to accept the position in 2020.
She left her blossoming farm full of mixed vegetables, fruit, hens and Berkshire pigs to arrive at a 1.5 acre Kikuyu paddock on the Deua River with no boundary fences and no flat land - "a blank slate," she said.
She was tasked with transforming the 1.5 acre block into a fertile and functioning farm.
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It was a tough move, but one Dr Wilkie felt compelled to make in order to equip the next generation of farmers with the skills to ensure a secure food system into the future.
Food security more important now than ever before
When Stepping Stones Farm was formed in 2020, nobody anticipated COVID nor Russia invading the Ukraine, however both have further underlined the importance of local food supply, according to Ms Wilkie.
She said the solution to food security was more small-scale farmers producing food locally.
"That is what Stepping Stones is really all about," she said.
Dr Wilkie's role includes training SAGE interns and Eco-Crew members who work as farmhands at Stepping Stones Farm to be equipped with the skills to start their own farm.
"There is no course you can do that will qualify you to go out and start a farm," she said. "It doesn't exist. You have to learn on the job. That is how farmers have learnt for centuries."
For Dr Wilkie, growing vegetables is a subversive act, reclaiming power over the food one eats.
"There is an opportunity to change the world through food," she said.
It's about being deeply connected to land and the food we eat.
- Dr Joyce Wilkie
She sees the work of Stepping Stones Farm as "powerful, productive and beautiful," and a beacon of hope in times of uncertainty.
Growing local demand
Stepping Stones Farm grows as great a variety of vegetables as possible, sometimes piling a rainbow of up to 30 different types of vegetables onto their table at the weekly SAGE farmer's markets.
Such is the demand for local vegetables, Dr Wilkie will often sell out of $1000 worth of vegetables within the first 30 minutes of the markets.
She said Stepping Stone Farm needed to triple in production output, and herein lies her love for her work.
Dr Wilkie sees farming as "a mountain without a top," and "really challenging", but yet she has loved it ever since she first started.
"I love food," she said. "I love eating. I love cooking. I love the idea of having a secure life in terms of food production. I love the intellectual challenge. I love being outside working in the fresh air.
"There is nothing bad. My life is the opposite of boring.
"You aren't selling things people don't need.
"You go to bed exhausted and you sleep well because all you have to worry about is the weather. You go to bed knowing you've done good work and you've provided good food for people."
James Tugwell
james.tugwell@austcommunitymedia.com.au
0447 189 738
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