Almost 70 farmers and producers from around the shire were given the chance to let their hair down for the evening on Sunday while showcasing some of our best local produce.
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The 'Love a Farmer' event was run at Mogendoura Farm near Moruya on Sunday, May 22, with support from COORDINAIRE and Eurobodalla Shire Council.
Emma Lipscombe, Director/Owner of Mogendoura Farm, said she was approached by council to run the evening after several successful events on the farm.
"They very kindly asked me to host it out here at the farm last year, but COVID has got in the way, so this is the fourth time lucky," she said.
"They gave me a budget and basically my goal was to use all local produce and provide a really nice environment for everyone to come together and take a breather.
"We had Chris McGrath come and play, and Council purchased some prizes from local businesses for the night.
"All of the food was provided by local producers: the SAGE Project did the soup, salads and vegetarian options, Les Gourmandises provided a fabulous chocolate cake, I provided some barbecue beef brisket, and Dewsbury Pork did a massive 50-kilogram pig on the spit which was put on at 1am and cooked all day.
"People were playing quoits, we had fire pits, it was just a lovely evening."
After the event, members of Community Kitchen packaged up 18 meals from the leftovers that were delivered to families around the Moruya area
Ms Lipscombe and her partner Rob Bradley breed cattle on Mogendoura Farm which was impacted by the Black Summer bushfires.
"We almost lost the buildings in the fires, and ever since then I said I wanted to do good stuff here, so that's why I've held workshops and book launches to try to bring some good cheer back to the farm," Ms Lipscombe said.
"We breed Belted Galloways and they're 100 per cent grass fed. They're bred on farm and finished on farm.
"We sell the meat at the markets around the place, but unfortunately we lost 30 head in the fires, so we're almost back to square one in building up the herd.
"We breed all-year around so we've always got a beast ready."
Ms Lipscombe said she was happy to have provided a reason for people to "get off the farm".
"It provides a few hours to take you away from everything that's been going on in the past couple of years," she said.
"We all need a bit of time out, but unfortunately it's hard for farmers to get away to do anything, so we provided an incentive to get together to get out of that working pattern.
"It was so wonderful to have the banter, the music, and such a wonderful range of demographics there."