The best laid plans
AT YANGET
This Spelt Project began small with the modest imaginings
of backyard plots and a bit of pleasant organic activity,
and rapidly got out of hand after I made a phone call to
Billy Kerr, stockman, farmer and friend, formerly of Ajana
(north of Geraldton) in January 2014.
The Spelt Project has its roots in the
desire to create a loaf of bread from
scratch that ticks all the boxes for fine
food, 21st-century style. It must be
delicious, nutritious, and from paddock
to plate aim to enhance soil, plant
and human nutrition while working
with notions of self-sufficiency and
sustainability.
Bill had been hired by Rod O’Bree on the basis of his long
experience with stock for his property Yanget on 3800
acres east of Geraldton, and I wanted to run the idea of
growing spelt by them both.
Before buying Yanget, Rod hooked up with Peter Andrews,
the creator of Natural Sequence Farming and a hydrologist
and farmer, whose techniques of land management have
been the cause of much discussion and controversy in
Australia.
That was the plan, but you know what
they say about plans ... By the growing
season of 2014, the idea began taking
off in directions I would never have
envisaged.
Rod and Peter were drawn together by a mutual love of
horses and a vision of land regeneration that started with
the simple idea of holding the moisture and fertility in the
landscape so it doesn’t get washed into the Indian Ocean
in a great muddy roil in the winter rains.
Based in Geraldton and the Midwest,