ON a 15-hectare property in the heart of Gawler, The Food Forest grows an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, wine and produce, totalling almost 150 varieties of goodness.

And it is a sight to behold. 

For the past 40 years, Graham and Annemarie Brookman have grown their passion for food, sustainability and caring for the planet. 

These values have transferred into their work, ensuring the way The Food Forest is run is as clean and as efficient as possible. 

The pair have evolved over the past four decades, introducing new technologies and assets to their farm.

Upon returning to Australia after their global travel many decades ago, discovering permaculture changed Graham and Annemarie’s lives and farming mindset forever.

“It’s rather unusual that it’s not a whole series of technologies… it’s an attitude about how humans and the planet can get on together,” Graham said.

When you make any decision you would start with, is this good for the planet? Then you would say well, is it good for the community? 

“And then you would say well I better get on with doing something about it… they’re sort of the three ethics that would inform any decision you make.”

In recent years, the duo have made some big changes to their farm, all for the better.

Newly constructed hail and bird netting has proven a brilliant investment, with technology to catch any hail stones on the netting and drop them away from the plants.

This is vital when testing out a brand new fruit from overseas.

“Starting to use all of the technology we have at our disposal, like the move to scare birds with lasers and our new growing area that are bird proof, hail proof, blocks fierce winds, improves the humidity, gives a bit of shade and acts as a trellis,” Graham said.

“We can actually grow incredibly large crops of stone fruit, and in that we have got one of the new crops Australia is playing with: jujubes.

“They’re also called Chinese dates…. when they’re smallish and green they taste like a granny smith, when they’re a bit bigger they’re shiny, the size of a kiwi fruit, crunchy and sweet.

“And if you leave them hanging on the tree until they get really ripe and almost want to fall off, well then they look and taste like dates.”

Graham and Annemarie do it all, constantly hard at work improving their passion and business.

And, they have now successfully created a new breed of self-shedding sheep.

“Up until now we have been cross-breeding sheep to get that all sorted out, so this is the second year that we have actually mated our own breed with our own breed,” Graham said.

“We are starting to get quite a few now.”

With other matters on their minds, like the future of Gawler, the future of the earth and climate change, as well as the land becoming scarce in regional areas, Graham and Annemarie just hope to continue making the world a better place.

The pair often host school and university students, teaching them about permaculture, about how to run a farm sustainability, and that agriculture makes the world go around in one way or another.

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEA MILLER-PICKERSGILL