Dargaville family proves paddock to plate more than a philosophy
This family of butchers from central Victoria are now producing their own beef, taking ‘paddock to plate’ to a new level, writes Madeleine Stuchbery.
PRODUCING your own beef to furnish the cabinets of your family butcher shop really expands on the traditional concept of ‘paddock to plate’.
But that’s exactly what the Dargaville family have done, when brothers Jackson and Tom, along with their father David, established their own beef farm, Paradise Park, at Eddington in central Victoria.
Their sole focus is to produce grass-beef which they then sell at their family butcher shop, Flora Hill Meats, a half-an-hour drive away in Bendigo.
Butchers by trade, the Dargaville family don’t have an established connection to farming. And at just 26 years old, youngest son Jackson bucks a number of trends. He is a young person with a desire to work in close connection to the land. He has no farming background, and is a fourth-generation butcher.
But Jackson says he is driven by a desire to control the narrative over the meat he sells to his customers. He says the journey from the shop floor to the paddock has been an “education of information” since buying the 100ha farm seven years ago.
“When we first bought the property, it was on old sheep grazing country … and we had to start from scratch, working from a blank canvas,” Jackson says.
“We were butchers before we were farmers. So it took a lot of investigation and planning to work out what was needed, what we wanted, what our vision was for the property, and how we wanted to go forward.”
DARGAVILLE FAMILY
EDDINGTON
RUN 100 Angus cattle on 100ha
OPERATE Flora Hill Meats in Bendigo
PURCHASE bulls from Campaspe River Angus
FOCUS on creating links between paddock and the plate
BLACK MAGIC
THE family run about 100 purebred Angus cattle, buying bulls from Campaspe Rocks Angus stud at Axedale.
Jackson says working with stud principal John Knight has been invaluable for his fledgling farm.
“He’s been really good, helping us with our breeding program, we’ve bought heifers off him, and we’ve been using his bulls for five to six years,” Jackson says.
“The herd is all purebred Angus. At present we have about 100 head, and half of that is breeding stock. Every year we’re working to expand our breeding stock, keeping heifers from previous years, and only using the steers for the butcher shop until we’ve grown our herd.”
In the beginning, the Dargaville family used a Limousin bull, but the results weren’t what Jackson was looking for.
“We chose to go with Campaspe Rocks Angus, and we’ve had nearly 95 per cent calving rates for the last few years. That’s a great result, and something John wasn’t expecting either.”
Paradise Park sits on sandy loam soil. Rainfall for the year has been “above average” for the season. Nearby Maryborough receives about 525mm of rain a year with June and August traditionally the wettest months. To the end of July, it had recorded 290mm.
“We definitely get all seasons here, and those great springs and autumns,” Jackson says.
“We are trying to calve and finish our cattle during that time, hitting the ground with really good feed. We put in a forage barley crop every year, to try and have that ready for them to finish on before they come into the shop.
“We keep them on their mothers for as long as possible, making that old fashioned milk vealer. That’s something that we like to do.”
SPRING FLING
THE herd calves in spring. This year the first calves are due to hit the deck on September 1.
Jackson said they targeted birthweights of 32-38kg. Calves are weaned at about nine months of age, and then grown out to 380-410kg.
“We’ve been getting yield rates back from our carcass weights, and we’re sitting at about 54-59 per cent. We can calculate that between the farm and the butcher shop,” Jackson says.
The stock are processed at Hardwicks abattoir at Kyneton, and are returned to the Dargavilles for butchering. Having his cattle processed locally is another link in the chain for Jackson, connecting farmer to consumer.
“With on-farm processing being recently licensed in Victoria, we’re looking at that as something to add into our vision,” Jackson says.
“It’s low-stress processing, and it’s something we’ve always been interested in. The main take away of it is it’s eliminating the transport stress for our cattle.”
It’s all a part of a long-term vision Jackson has for maintaining control and quality in his meat, from the moment the calves are born, to processing and being sold onto the customer.
“It’s putting that story behind the product,” he said.
“Me and my brother have used that behind what we want to achieve, and where we want to take that business our father built. Being young people in the industry, we are into trends, and it’s about picking up on those trends. We went into the butchers shop, and we learnt a lot that way. We know exactly what we want to do interns of getting a high end product at a consistent quality.”
In coming years, Jackson and his family have visions of expanding the farm as well as the butcher shop, both organically growing with time and knowledge.
“A really good way for us to expand is to buy more land, more productive land, and we’ve got plans to expand infrastructure at the farm such as more shedding, more fencing … as well as just learning more about farming,” Jackson says.
“It’s exciting. We’ve known about butchering all our lives. But to get into agriculture is an exciting thing.”
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