Yep – that is so my life! Sigh, despite my best efforts for it not to be so. Anyway, a lovely, very wet, very quiet day today means a chance to get a blog post done, so here’s a quick catch up post.
March has been all about work, work, work for Matt and I. A very busy few weeks of Blue Sky Produce avocado season have meant Matt has been up at five am every day and not home before 8pm most nights. Continue reading
Helloooooooooo Everybody!
There is an update coming tomorrow about what we have been up to here at Fealy Family HQ over the last 8 or so months (eeeeek) since we last posted, but today I want to share a post that has been desperate to hit the blog for months now!
Here goes …………………………………….. Continue reading
This is an article I wrote for the Queensland Country Life “View From The Paddock” Segment
My view from the paddock hasn’t been mango trees recently, instead it has been city lights and busy streets as I have been fortunate enough to attend both the Nuffield Australia farming conference and the GrowAg summit over the last few weeks.
At the risk of sounding corny – my take home from my time away from the farm, is that it is an incredibly exciting time to be involved in Agriculture.
The global trends of a rural to urban migration wave, combined with a hungrier world, a wealthier world, choosy customers and transformative technology make for a ripe mix in the Agriculture arena.
Innovation is a real buzz word at the moment, but that is rightly so and the challenge for Agriculture is how be involved in this ‘knowledge revolution’. 65% of kids in school today will work in jobs in the future that currently don’t exist. Rural communities need entrepreneurs who will combat the ‘brain drain’ and build global businesses from their bedrooms, creating jobs and boosting rural economies.
Innovation is about putting ideas and knowledge to good use.
Worldwide, agricultural productivity growth is slowing – the key to making the most of future agriculture opportunities is efficiency in production. For this to occur, we need new technology coupled with an innovative culture. There is much passion, talent and ideas in agriculture but not enough commercialisation, patents or venture capital to bring these innovations to market.
We need to build an eco-system that supports an entrepreneurial mindset in rural Australia.
However – we must not lose sight of the fact that before you can innovate, you must get the basics right. Production (ground prep, weed control, livestock management, timing) and business fundamentals must come before value adding, there is no ‘magic tool’ for sustainable and profitable farming. The drivers of production and productivity in farming won’t change but there is huge potential for productivity growth – driven by technology, precision agriculture and big data collection.
Xavier Rizos, from the Westpac Innovation Garage was a highlight from the GrowAg conference. Rizos said ‘the next Steve Jobs will be a farmer’, and explained to delegates that one of the biggest innovations Steve Jobs delivered was not the technology itself…it was providing the product at a price people could afford.
We need to look beyond our borders for innovation and inspiration in ag so as not to run the risk of re-inventing the wheel.
Equally important is the fact that we will have to take our consumers on this agri innovation journey with us to ensure they are informed of the benefits of increased quality, less waste and enriched sustainability due to innovations in their food and fibre production.
During one of the breakout sessions at the GrowAg event, we were asked to visualize Australian Agriculture in 2026 as robust, innovative, successful, well funded, abundant, affordable, and healthy. We were then asked to figure out how, specifically, this future came to be.
My answer? We, the farmers of today, must commit and get involved in our industries, we must collaborate, we must converse with our consumers and we must embrace being creative.
The farms of the future will be owned by the farmers who get it right today.
Hello everyone! So, I’m feeling like a total fraud at the moment – doing lots of blogging stuff like taking on the volunteer role of ‘Country to Canberra Blogging Team Director’ which I’ve already told you about in this post, but there is not a lot of blogging going on here, on the actual “Are We There Yet?” blog! Aaaaargh, I know, I know – I have to make time for the stuff that matters most – the important things – which this blog is – but there just seems to be sooooooo much important stuff going on in the Fealy Family these days.
Anyway – I thought an update post was loooooooong overdue, so time to fill you in on what’s been happening in the Fealy Family/Blue Sky Produce world. Continue reading
Tonight’s Sunday Snapshot is a photo of Kipp and I, up in the avocado orchard with Matt late this afternoon. It was my favourite part of the day today, riding through the rows with Matt, checking out the fruit on the trees and trying to decide if we have enough avocados ready for us to head in and do a spot pick of any fruit big enough to be packed. It was peaceful, not too hot and just lovely – Blue Sky Beau the dog racing the bike up the rows, chasing the kangaroos and the sun just starting to set – the best time of day in the orchard. Continue reading
Welcome to Farming Friday on the Fealy Family blog! I’m going to kick off the first of our farming posts this year by sharing some information about a tour happening next week, which I am a little bit excited about!
As most of you know, we are currently in our second year of our “Farm Apprenticeship” here at Blue Sky Produce. We have learnt a lot in twelve months, probably the most of which is that there is still a lot we don’t know! The nature of farming is very hands on, with little time to get away from ‘the tools’ but we are very conscious of the fact, that to be the best farmers we can be, we need to be open-minded and take up as many opportunities as we can to learn as much as we can about farming and the issues facing the wider agricultural industry. So, when we saw the advertisement for the Joel Salatin Tour organised by local community based, family business RegenAg, we knew we had to make an effort to try to get along to some of the events being offered. Continue reading
I’m bringing back the Sunday Snapshot post this year too. Here’s this week’s pic taken late on Friday afternoon, up in the Keitt mango orchard here at Blue Sky Produce. Matt was sweeping up excess, unused crates along to the next row, ahead of the pickers. I’m posting this photo of my farmer boy in honour of Valentines day. Continue reading
Oh dear. I have just realised that it has been over a month since our last post – aaaargh – how did that happen! I’m really sorry if we actually have any readers who missed us! I have no idea if anybody is even following our blog any more, but I’m going to keep posting anyway – just cause I love it and this is our family record keeping place.
So. What’s been happening with the Fealy Family you ask? Continue reading
A few weeks back now, we had a visit from the high profile Melbourne food blogger ‘I Eat Melbourne’. We gave them the backstage pass tour of the Blue Sky Produce orchards and chatted about all sorts of things food and social media related! Continue reading
We’ve been lucky enough over the past month to be featured on a couple of different platforms in the media. It has been an exciting time, but also very nerve-wracking and a definite learning experience into the ‘behind the scenes’ of how things operate in the media world.
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