Chasing the dream

A year ago I quit my job to pursue a new dream - to grow food and explore Australia.

One chapter was three months working on farms near Lismore with my partner Tanja. With these jobs I peered beneath the mulch which hides Australia's food production systems from the grocery store experience. I saw for myself how industrialised our food has become.

There are many problems with how food is grown in Australia and I could write essays on these topics. I recommend learning about it from the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.

I found this chapter of my year to be very emotionally challenging. Anxiety about having a place to sleep and liveable income was, at times, overwhelming. But when these challenges were overcome I was rewarded with new friends, new skills, greater mental resilience and better appreciation for my body. With some perspective I can see how much I grew during this time.

I've often been told that finding farm work is easy. Media and governments love saying that there are thousands of jobs outside the cities for anyone who wants them. But in my experience, moving to a region and getting farm jobs is far from easy.

To start with, good luck finding vacancies. They usually aren't advertised anywhere. We spent weeks emailing and cold calling farmers with no results. What worked (as it always does) was to build a new network. We started with a family member in the area, and worked through contacts until we found the best jobs we had during this time - growing flowers with Field and Flowers and bagging compost with Living Farm Australia. The other jobs, found via Facebook, were blueberry picking and maintaining trees on a macadamia farm.

Once we had work we needed to find somewhere to live. As seasonal workers, affordable rental options were extremely limited. For seasonal farm workers, you are best to invest in camping equipment and ask your boss to camp behind their tractor shed. This is what we did for a couple of weeks. Thanks also my cousin and his partner who shared their homes with us.

We proved it's possible to find and secure farm work in regional Australia but it's hard work.