Food Forest

Reporter: Kerry Staight

First Published: 06/04/2008

ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: One of the more interesting developments in Australian agriculture over the past decade has been the growing influence of the permaculture movement.

Whether you're talking sustainable water and land management, integrated pest control or organic fertilisers, this holistic approach is gradually moving into mainstream farming, from small holdings, right up to some of the largest operations in the country.

And there is now even official recognition for one of permaculture's pioneers.

KERRY STAIGHT: A quarter of a century ago, a bright young couple with big ideas but not much of a budget set out on a mission: to create a sustainable farm that was good for the planet as well as the purse.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN, PERMACULTURE FARMER: We got in the old kombi and we drove up and down the Gawler River because Annemarie said she wanted to live on a river. I dragged her out here from Holland and she sort of expected there'd be rivers and things so we found this block next to the Gawler River, which of course is dry about 99.9 per cent of the time.

(To Annemarie Brookman) The old block really has changed enormously, hasn't it?

KERRY STAIGHT: Graham and Annemarie Brookman, who had both studied agricultural science, borrowed money to buy what was then a blank and battered block.

ANNEMARIE BROOKMAN, PERMACULTURE FARMER: The first bit had one tree on it and one box thorn and it was used for annual cropping, so there were no perennial crops there other than those two and one of them was declared a noxious weed.

KERRY STAIGHT: The food forest, as it is known, is now an organic smorgasbord tucked between highways, housing and more conventional farms near Gawler, a 45-minute drive north of Adelaide.

150 different varieties of fruit, vegetables, nuts and cereals are crammed into 15 hectares, which in modern farming terms is not much more than a backyard.

The couple has concentrated on hardy perennial crops but handle semi-arid conditions and hunt out the underground aquifers.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: Pistachios have the capability of going down 20 metres looking for water, comfortably, and carob's the same, so we're after the tough ones.

KERRY STAIGHT: The main crop is pistachios, but growing nuts takes time. So in the early days, the Brookmans turned to pickles to prop up their profits.

ANNEMARIE BROOKMAN: Only once and we will never, ever do it again. We had 60 rows, 60 metres long each of them. It was the only time in our whole life I've been able to get Graham to come out for a cup of coffee first. It was hideous. We probably just broke even, but it was really backbreaking work.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: So, this is the original plan, Kerrie, done 25 years ago.

KERRY STAIGHT: The gherkins also didn't fit in with couple's plan to create a permaculture farm, which is all about saving energy not using it up.

(To Graham Brookman) You have kept to it pretty much as it is here? Absolutely. The only thing would be the occasional tree that's come and gone.

ANNEMARIE BROOKMAN: Initially, we didn't know about permaculture. I was very interested in organics and Graham was very interested in sustainable land use and it was not until after we bought our piece of land and had lots of ideas, which didn't really hang together very well, that we just happened to come across it.

KERRY STAIGHT: Permaculture is short for permanent agriculture and permanent culture. It is basically a designed system aimed at creating a sustainable environment and lifestyle where everything feeds into and off each other.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: Every element, every animal, plant is placed for a particular reason and every element serves a number of purposes, so these geese, for instance, will weed specific weeds, they will convert crop wastes like fallen apples, grain, et cetera, into absolutely beautiful goose meat.

KERRY STAIGHT: Another weeder the Brookmans have introduced into the mix is the bettong, and they have been surprised at just how productive the native animal is.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: South Australia is the mammal extinction capital of the universe. You know, we have absolutely monstered our fauna so it was a conscious effort to put native animals into a productive agricultural system and they have done absolutely magnificently. Things that we never would have thought of, like they love soursob bulbs, oxalis, one of the absolute biggest pests of organic systems and these little guys just dig up those bulbs and chomp them down so they're wonderful, wonderful creatures in our system. They also will not tolerate rats and so they've driven every rat off the place.

KERRY STAIGHT: While implementing such an intricate plan may sound tricky, the Brookmans insist that was the easy part. Generating a decent income from it has been more of a struggle.

Value-adding has been the key, with the couple setting up a certified organic processing plant so they can also dry fruit and nuts, which they then sell at farmers markets. The plant combines innovation and simple commonsense. With the nuts sent through a spin cycle before being transferred to a state of the art dehydrater.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: Australian farmers have really been pretty hopeless in terms of value-adding. Basically park the ship, pour the wheat in, say goodbye to the ship and get paid whatever. We know that, for instance, the average supermarket's buying fruit at $1.40 selling it as $5 something. Now, where did the value-adding happen there? Basically, just by putting it in the shop.

DAVID HOLMGREN, PERMACULTURE PIONEER: Permaculture's mostly influenced the sort of self-reliance scene rather than commercial agriculture. The Food Forest is an interesting combination in that there is strong elements of food self-reliance and self-sufficiency here, but it's clearly also a commercial agricultural enterprise.

Sometimes you can be seeing things in the landscape all the time but until you put a name to it you are somehow not aware of it.

KERRY STAIGHT: David Holmgren is one of the brains behind the permaculture movement, which started in Australia 30 years ago. He has been an inspiration for the Brookmans over the years and now his former students are passing on what they've learnt.

The couple has opened an education centre on their property which has also turned out to be their main moneymaker.

STUDENT: I think Annemarie was saying that it was like 20m deep soil.

ANNEMARIE BROOKMAN: We have certainly found over the last few years in the permaculture design courses that we run that there is a broader range of people doing permaculture design courses. We want to know how to live more sustainably, not just grow your own food but have a more energy-efficient house and behave in a much more sustainable way across the board in all the decisions that they make, and that there is definitely a shift.

KERRY STAIGHT: While the Food Forest now reaps steady financial returns, for the Brookmans, the real reward has been what they've returned to the land. They've improved soil fertility by quadrupling the level of carbon in it and have saved water by only using about one megalitre a hectare each year.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: So, it's deficit irrigation where we're saying to the trees, "Look, we'll give you a help at particular times of the year, like when you are flowering so you produce lots of potential fruit and right at the end to finish the fruit off so it's of good quality, but in between time you're kind of living in the desert if that's alright."

DAVID HOLMGREN: As a permaculture property I often say to people I see the Food Forest as the best permaculture demonstration site in Australia.


KERRY STAIGHT: The judges at the recent South Australian Premier's Food Awards agreed. The permaculture property picked up the top prize for environmental sustainability.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: And to those of you, the thousands of people who elect to use public transport, ride bikes, live in small environmentally designed houses and eat sustainably produced food, you are not crazy. Thank you!

KERRY STAIGHT: Despite the recognition and results, permaculture is still struggling to find its place in Australian farming circles. There is greater awareness about landcare and more interest in perennials and integrating different crops and animals. But Graham Brookman says bigger farms have pushed many of the smaller more environmentally sustainable ones out.

However, he predicts that will change in the next couple of decades as oil prices go up.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: Most of the nitrogenous fertiliser straight from natural gas. So those systems, whilst they seem so massive and impregnable and magnificent and so forth, are really going to be on the knife edge. Whereas you get a nice perennial system, whether it will be salt bush and kangaroos or whether it be pistachio nuts and bettongs, that sustainable design is the key to our future really in Australia.

KERRY STAIGHT: The Brookmans see their biggest challenge as climate change. This year many of their apples have literally stewed on the trees. The March heatwave even fried some of the more drought-tolerant crops, like carob.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: Since my mother was born, which is 85 years ago, the average maximum temperature in rural South Australia has gone up two degrees centigrade. I mean, this is totally horrifying stuff. If we allow that to go on, if we just keep consuming energy so profligately then we're really going to get ourselves into strife with climate change.

(To Annemarie Brookman) ...Probably jujubes if we can get the root stocks to perform properly.

ANNEMARIE BROOKMAN: (To Graham Brookman)They're horrible, prickly.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: (To Annemarie Brookman) I think probably we're just going to have to give apples the heave-ho and go for a more heat-hardy, low-chill variety.

KERRY STAIGHT: The Brookmans are proud of what they have done with their patch, but it's still a work in progress. They plan to plant even sturdier stock to ensure the place remains sustainable.

GRAHAM BROOKMAN: We've just got jujubes, which are a really drought-hardy species, that is salt-tolerant and frost-tolerant, and it doesn't have a high-chill requirement and we are just, I think, getting to the point where maybe someone has found a root stock that won't sort of race off into the middle distance, so we'd have a whole new crop that we could grow in the dry country in Australia. It's very exciting.

It's vital that we work out how to sustainably occupy this planet and for us to have just at small part in doing that and to teach others how to do it is immensely satisfying.

Food Forest


Graham and Annemarie Brookman, Owners, Food Forest
08 8522 6450


Food Forest