Employing Locals
We are really proud to be employing locals in the Lockyer Valley region to work within our business! This helps to stimulate our local economy and also gives locals the opportunity to develop and grow within our business.

Lockyer Valley Growers Committee
The Lockyer Valley growers Group is a community of growers that have come together to promote and advance Horticulture in the Lockyer Valley. Anthony, Koala Farms CEO, has been a founding member within this group and was president & vice president at one point. Every quarter this group meets up to discuss any thing they may need advice on, what they may have learnt at an agriculture event and anything that may be happening within the industry in our local area.

Community product donations
If our local schools, community groups and sporting teams are throwing an event, we chip in and donate fresh produce. We love to deliver a box of fresh produce for everyone in our community to enjoy!

Gatton Soccer Club sponsorship
Every year we sponsor our local soccer club to help them cover the cost of ground upkeep, soccer jerseys, end of year break up and anything else that they might need. As active members of the club, it means we not only help the club maintain facilities, we also make sure our local community gets to enjoy a weekend game at the club

Irrigators in the central local
The Lockyer Valley has recently been challenging a proposed water management system lobbied by the government. In this proposed water allocation, framers would be allocated less water per hectare than what they would need to grow fresh produce. Anthony is representing local growers to negotiate with government representatives to ensure water allocations are fair and not going to send growers bankrupt. If you would like to read more on this topic, have a look at this article.

It is more important now than ever to start becoming more environmentally conscious. Our environmental strategy is built on four pillars, Sustainability, Biodiversity, Carbon reduction and Community. Under each of these pillars we have big long term goals to achieve. Some of our current day to day practices include:

Recycling
We recycle all of our cardboard, paper, trickle tape, tyres, scrap metal, pipes, chemical drums & soft plastics and mostly at our local recycling centre. We are also involved in containers for change, all of our employees can recycle bottles and we put the money back into a community fund to reward our employees.

Pest & resource management
We have implemented a laser system to keep ducks off of our lettuce paddocks (baby lettuce seem to be the favourite for them!) All of our dams are lined with thick commercial grade plastic that holds run off water on our properties. This means we aren’t contaminating any natural water resources around our farm.

Food waste
All of our food waste is donated to local livestock farmers! If we have any other product food waste, we donate it to food bank.

lONG TERM GOALS

Restoring our creek bank
As of 2019 we have started to restore our creek, which is the Lockyer Valley creek and runs into the Brisbane river. During the 2010 floods areas of our creek banks have experienced erosion damage and tree loss. We also have a lot of exotic weeds that have started to take over the area. We have partnered up with the Lockyer Valley Regional Council to do an assessment and make sure we are planting native trees to our creek. Through August 2019 we had a first tree planting day in our most vulnerable plot on the creek! We are so excited to keep the ball rolling and restore our creek banks for the next generation. Some of the added benefits of the projects are carbon sequestering & enhanced biodiversity. If you want to have a look at some photos from the day just click here.

Energy audit & solar
Through 2019 we are going through an energy audit to evaluate if we can reduce our electricity use and implement better technology to help. We are looking into solar to see if this is the best option for us environmentally and economically. We hope to have this project finalised by the end of 2020.