HOFC is a collaboration of diverse organic farmers who lease land on a single farm in Harcourt. We are passionate about learning our craft, feeding our community, and making direct and meaningful connections with our customers, for example through Community Supported Agriculture.

Current members are:

• Sellar Farmhouse Creamery —Tessa Sellar runs a micro-dairy with the help of her partner Oli, milking 10 cows using sustainable farming principles, processed on-site into fresh milk and yoghurt in return glass packaging. Sold locally through CSA subscriptions and Castlemaine weekly farmers markets.
• The Orchard Keepers— Led by Katie and Hugh Finlay and a crew of CSA members and volunteers dubbed ‘fruit crew’.
  We manage an organic fruit orchard growing cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, apples and pears. Selling through CSA shares, farmers’ markets, pick your own, farm shop, and custom orders.
• Carr’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery—Under the mentorship of Merv Carr, who has been grafting and budding heritage fruit trees for over 50 years, Katie Finlay and her sister Liz Carr are continuing the family tradition. Carr’s Organic Fruit Tree Nursery grows a huge variety of quality heritage fruit trees for sale in winter as barerooted trees.

The farm also hosts:

• Bushfoods plot run by Murnong Mammas

The aim of HOFC is to make the farm as productive and profitable as possible, within a collaborative framework and using regenerative and organic principles. We’re always on the lookout for new members! If you want to know more, get in touch here.

We reckon this new way of farming will be good for ageing farmers like Katie and Hugh who want to step back from active farming but don’t want to sell the family farm, for emerging farmers who want to get started but can’t afford land, and customers who are yearning for a connection to the farmers who produce their food. In time we plan to share our model (but first we have to figure out if it works!).

Previous members:

• Gung Hoe Growers—Mel Willard lead Gung Hoe Growers alongside a dedicated crew of passionate and skillful crew. They fed their local community through 12 monthly and seasonal CSA veggie boxes,  servicing select restaurants, cafes and caterers, local green grocers and the Wednesday weekly Farmers Markets in Castlemaine.
• Tellurian Fruit Gardens – Ant Wilson leased the orchard here for 3 years before leaving and contributed greatly to HOFC and local food in our region.