On The Land
24 July, 2024
Sustainability focus
TABLELANDS coffee farms are wrapping up their seasonal harvest and at Skybury’s acreage at Paddy’s Green, sustainability is front and centre.
It has been 20 years between the images shown here, and a generation has passed but the farm continues to bear excellent coffee amidst a culture of sustainability throughout its operations.
While the property’s founders, Ian and Marion MacLaughlin, are still involved as Skybury directors, their children Mark, general manager farming, and Candy, general manager operations, are running the business daily.
Mark, an agronomist, says he inherited a sustainable approach to agricultural management principles.
“Ian and Marion’s commitment to research and development, as well as their longer-term view for sustainable farming, led to fundamental changes to how they farmed in the last two decades,” he said.
“It’s about farming for tomorrow, practising agriculture that is both environmentally sound and economically dynamic so we include water conservation, renewable power, erosion control, integrated pest management and dual cropping.”
This season’s Skybury harvest has matched expectations in quality and volume, with the price per kilogram set to hold for farmgate buyers.
“It has shaped up to be an excellent season,” Mark said.
“With coffee, everything affects the taste – the maturity of the coffee at the time of harvesting, the time between picking and processing, the washing and drying processes, storage conditions and the cleanliness and purity of the coffee being processed.
“We were extremely fortunate that our coffee was completely unaffected by the flooding after Cyclone Jasper.”
Mark says Skybury continues to invest in coffee production year in, year out, in every aspect from their plant nurseries to the field.
“We constantly open the farm up to international and domestic coffee producers and are happy to share our knowledge with them as well as learn from the industry’s innovators who are also attracted to our operation,” he said.
“Australian coffee has been nominated as an emerging industry by federal research foundation Horticulture Innovation Australia and we look forward to working with them and new farmers to see if we can double the Australian coffee industry from its current level (1% of consumption) by breaking the trend of café owners using imported coffees.
“For example, why don’t we all commit to using only Australian coffee for one week a year – wouldn’t that be great?”
Skybury’s Café and Roastery at Ivicevic Road serves their single origin Bourbon Arabica coffee five days a week, Monday to Friday.
