The highly organised kitchens of television cooking shows might seem a long way from vegetable paddocks.
But for Greg Lerch, the more people use vegetables on TV the better.
“A bit of exposure certainly goes a long way and we are also supplying Lite n’ Easy with caulis which is a niche market but a good back fall,” Mr Lerch said.
Together with his wife Linda and son Andrew, Mr Lerch runs run a 130 hectare diversified farm across Blenheim, Laidley and Lake Clarendon in the Lockyer Valley.
“The three farms are around equal size and we grow crops of broccoli, cauliflower, beetroot, wombok and parsnips,” he said.
His family has been farming for more than four generations with wife Linda handling the administration of the business while his son Andrew is now also following in the footsteps of the family tradition.
“The home place has got bore water and dams but the bore water is brackish so we grow beetroot here as it handles the brackish water more,” Mr Lerch said.
“That’s why we always had a beetroot contract with the factories however now that we don’t have the contract I’m still finding we’re selling as much beetroot fresh into the market as we sold to the canneries.
“Broccoli, cauliflower and beetroot are our main crops with wombok to a lesser extent. I also grow a bit of gold beetroot just as a something extra but there’s not a big market for that.”
Vegetables often feature on various television cooking shows and with beetroot being one of the trendy items at the moment, this can translate into increased interest and sales.
All of the Lerch’s produce is sold into the fresh market in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. The family is also doing a small amount of export into Singapore.
Mr Lerch said the formation of the Lockyer Valley Growers group was a good idea, as was the re-invigoration of the expo which he said “is going to be a good promotional thing as it’s creating a lot of interest”.
Mr Lerch said he was worried about the impact of government allocations on the volume of bore water, particularly as there were no summer rains this year.
“I didn’t have any water in my dams and we really need the summer rains for next year. This year however there were more people looking for work which has been good for the field and packing shed,” he said.
Mr Lerch sees the future of the business as staying pretty much the same size.
“I think we’re at a level where we should be; you can get too big and if you’re too small you don’t survive. I’m pretty happy with where we are with a good steady income stream,” he said.
