Margie Maccoll
Noosa Farmers Market expansion attracted the interest of Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Minister Mark Furner who drove up from Brisbane Sunday morning to wander the market, chat with local food producers and launch its foray into online sales through Click and Collect and home delivery services.
Three years ago Mr Furner was in Noosa to launch the Local Farmers brand which aims to reinforce the bond between community well being, healthy and nutritional food and local food security and the markets expansion online builds on that stance.
“People need to have access to clean, healthy food and have food security,” Mr Furner said.
“What you see in a lot of places, people want food direct from producers. This is giving them the option of delivering it or picking it up.
“Supporting your local farmers market means supporting local farmers and local jobs, so it’s fantastic that you can now do that from home at the touch of a button.”
Shane and Ish Stanley recently celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the market that now boasts about 100 stalls selling local produce and this week marked its expanded trading online.
“It started with a small business grant from the state government. We were able to build a website and expand our services to create more opportunity,” Shane said.
“We created a platform for farmers and the farmers get 100 per cent of profits with market stall fees covering all expenses.”
The Noosa Farmers Market Click and Collect and home delivery kicked off on Sunday with about 10 customers and 35 stall holders.
Shane expects within about two weeks every stall in the market should be onboard and click and collect pickups will occur from 11am to avoid clashing with morning market traffic.
“We expect 100 deliveries a day and we can supply restaurants. It’s all local produce,” he said.
Noosa MP Sandy Bolton said it was good to have the Minister in the community and for him to be able to talk to growers to hear not only the benefits of the market expansion but some of the difficulties faced by growers such as staff shortages and, as one producer raised, the issue of mobile abattoirs.
As the Minister visited stalls, turkey and chicken farmer Ewart Sylvester of GreenAg, raised with him the problems small produces have in being able to slaughter their animals for market.
Having been a cattle farmer for most of his life Mr Sylvester said his biggest challenge had been having to transport cattle hundreds of kilometres to an abattoir and losing the condition of the meat in the journey.
He began farming turkeys and chickens about 12 years ago on a property outside of Gympie.
While he now has the advantage of being able to kill his own animals on his property many small growers do not and he had looked at introducing a portable abattoir, he said. “We’ve got people who want to do this,” he said.
When he first raised the proposition he’d been told it was not allowed in Queensland, but rules had since changed, he said.
Ms Bolton said the local interest from people in the community wanting to eat local produce, wanting reduced travel distances from grower to buyer and being involved in diverse farming methods such as regenerative farming had grown substantially since she’d organised a stakeholder meeting for local growers about 10 years ago.
“Who doesn’t want to eat what’s grown in the community? More and more we know people want to eat local.”
Orders can be placed now at www.noosafarmersmarket.com.au regardless of the number of farmers or producers customers choose to purchase from it is all handled in one transaction.
“It’s easy, affordable and it’s fresh healthy food,” Shane said.
In a few weeks the service will expand to the Stanley’s Kawana Waters Farmers Markets which operates on Saturdays.
