Eumundi Beef & Baranbali Farm Feature in QantasLink Spirit

Courtesy QantasLink Spirit Magazine

Baranbali Farm

Where: Conondale

Friday afternoon is a busy time for Yvonne Ellis at Baranbali Farm, as it’s when locals and visitors come to pick up supplies of organic meat from the farm shop. A former nurse who grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland, Yvonne greets each visitor as they crunch up the drive. Observing the proceedings is a trio of protective, shaggy Maremma dogs, whose job is to guard the farm’s small flock of sheep.

Yvonne and her husband, David, bought the 32-hectare farm six years ago. “The first thing we did was start the process of gaining organic certification and getting the soil back to a healthy state,” she says.

As well as Murray Grey cows, they have rare Wessex saddleback pigs that wallow happily in cooling mud. The pigs provide pork cuts, nitrate-free ham and bacon, sausages and mince, which is sold alongside beef from the farm. Despite the presence of sooty-faced Suffolk sheep, there’s no lamb for sale. Instead, says Yvonne, the long-term plan is to produce hogget (the meat of sheep aged one to two years old).

Baranbali Farm Shop is open on Fridays, 2pm to 6pm, or by appointment.

Eumundi Beef

Where: Belli Park

It’s not the kind of country you’d normally associate with cattle – there are no feedlots, flies or dust at Onyx Park farm and, even with rain a distant memory at the time of our visit, the land surrounding the farmhouse looks healthy.

Seven years ago, Susan Rodger bought the 107-hectare property between Eumundi and Kenilworth, where she farms biodynamically and sells grass-finished beef from her Ausline Angus and Ausline Angus-Murray Grey cattle under the Eumundi Beef brand.

From the original farm cottage, repurposed as a shop, Susan sells nose-to-tail cuts, including osso buco, porterhouse steak, gravy beef and brisket.

“I always encourage people to take something they haven’t tried before, too, like kidneys, heart or tongue, and give them a recipe. It’s important to try to use every part of the animal.”

Eumundi Beef’s farm shop is open on Fridays, 3pm to 6pm.

https://www.eumundibeef.com.au/