This farm does not specialise in one thing. Its strength is diversity. Different animals, crops, water systems, and by-products all play a role while also feeding one another.

The approach draws on biomimicry by paying attention to how living systems work: through interdependence, variation, reuse, and adaptation.

There is no claim here of a perfect or closed system. The aim is practical: healthier soil, healthier animals, healthier food, and more life on the land.

Ned trained and worked as a chef before turning more to farming. Eight years in the kitchen with Hugh Wennerbom, followed by seven years in Tasmania on organic salad, pig, and cattle farms. There, he began consulting on passive watering systems for farms that wanted to hold and use water more effectively across their land.

Over time, he realised that if he wanted more impact on the quality of ingredients, he needed to move further into production rather than stay only in the kitchen. Farming offered a way to shape the whole path from seed in the ground to food on the plate.

By taking responsibility for the entire process, he could put his touch on each step without breaking the link between them.

At the beginning of 2023, Ned moved to Bilpin. The farm was already set up for a farmer-chef, with mixed paddocks, dams, and a working kitchen, which meant he could start farming and cooking straight away.

Ned’s influences include Peter Andrews on water management and landscape hydrology; Charles Dowding on no-dig gardening and soil health; Dan Barber on farm-to-table practice; and Sean Moran, whose work has reinforced for him the elegance of simplicity and the importance of local provenance in food.