Futuresteading

56 Fiona Weir Walmsley of Buena Vista Farm: Living from scratch!


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If you consider yourself multipassionate, someone who entertains a vast array of interests (while regularly feeling overwhelmed), then we have the role model for you!

Fiona Weir Walmsley of Buena Vista Farm in Gerringong, NSW, has walked a quirky and colourful path, embodying the diversity and adaptability we so desperately need for a resilient future. 

From running a medieval catering company to earning her marketing stripes, living ‘from scratch’ and leading women in local food, keeping bees, tending goats and, gosh, writing a book while she’s at it… Fiona is our kind of renaissance farmer!

Hear how Fiona and her family have created a super diverse existence on 18 acres (think goats, chooks, cows, veggies, cheese, cut flowers + cooking school) -- and enjoyed the kind of riches money will never buy.

SHOW NOTES

  • She is writing a book! Cooking food from scratch.
  • Her “from scratch” life.
  • A background in commercial cookery, medieval history and marketing.
  • Why she locked the front door for this interview…
  • Buena Vista biscuits built a local presence
  • Transitioning back to her family farm
  • Farming succession planning: five generations of dairy farmers
  • Discovering Joel Salatin
  • Building a commercial kitchen to kick off cash flow
  • “We swore to ourselves we would never take being given a farm for granted.”
  • Diversifying to be financially viable: bees, chickens, goats, market gardening, cooking school, book writing.
  • “Sometimes our heads feel like they're going to fall off and my brains will come out of my ears.”
  • Creating a community of WWOOFers and watching them go on to do incredible things.
  • Getting practical with support from online apps to stay on top of everything.
  • Transitioning her market garden to cut flowers.
  • Ebbing and flowing the various business arms depending on who has the energy, what season it is, what the greater market forces are doing.
  • Her ‘farm native’ babies
  • Getting a local, weekly farmers market off the ground.
  • “When farmers markets are weekly, it changes peoples food buying habits.”
  • Actively participating in a female led, food-centric community.
  • Is her life photoshopped? How real is the grid?
  • The pain in the arse truth about sourdough.
  • Finding solidarity with others who have a collaborative vision.
  • Helping younger people get a leg up into regen ag.
  • Sourdough was the first “SLOW FOOD”.
  • Living this way is never going to make sense financially; you have to uncouple your thinking from capitalism ways and instead see the rewards as non-fiscal.

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

  • Buena Vista Farm
  • SAGE farmer's market
  • Joel Salatin + Polyface Farm
  • Deep Winter Agrarian Gathering
  • Gerringong farmer's market

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FuturesteadingBy Jade Miles

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