I headed out of Brisbane this week to Camp Mountain, to learn about some of the regenerative work being done around there. One of the outstanding places I visited nearby was where Loop Growers happens. Alice Star and Phil Garozzo, hairdresser and marketing graduate respectively, are its founders.

They call it a ‘bio-intensive market garden’, which produces a wide range of chemical free fruit and veg that feeds their growing community of households and local businesses. The loop they refer to comprises 15 cafes, restaurants, bars and brewers who provide their excess organic materials (read, not waste) to feed the worms at the farm, which the farm in turn, cycles back as fresh produce. A functional loop at one level, and at another, a paradigm change in the heart of the places we gather.

With tiny houses, event space and seed bank also emerging onsite, that initial loop is just the start of it. Though it could also have been the end, as the biblical-scale floods of last year almost wiped them out entirely. How this community is rebounding together says so much about what’s possible everywhere.

This conversation was recorded at Loop Growers in the Samford Valley around 30 kilometres outside of Brisbane, on 31 March 2023.

Title slide: Phil & Alice by the creek where we had our conversation.

See more photos including behind the scenes by becoming a subscriber via the Patreon page.

Music:
No Such Thing As Waste, by Formidable Vegetable.

Find more:
Loop Growers.

Broadsheet piece with a series of photos at Loop Growers from before and after the flood.

Bush Tekniq.

Upcoming launch of Sustainable Table report on Regenerating Investment in Food & Farming.

GoFundMe page set up by the family of Carol Sanford (our guest in ep 150).

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