Meet the farmer growing your vegetables

MEET the Tassie farmer who’s behind the delicious vegetables sitting in your freezer.

MEET the Tassie farmer who’s behind the delicious vegetables sitting in your freezer.

HE’S the first to admit it sounds kind of daggy. But Tasmanian farmer Stuart Greenhill says he “absolutely loves growing vegetables”.

“Even as a child I had a veggie garden,” he said.

Now, he’s the chef-of-the-house who whips up a butter-infused mashed potato and a wickedly creamy cauliflower cheese, all with fresh produce from the garden, or the freezer.

Mr Greenhill and his wife, Kelly, own farms in Tasmania, growing peas, beans, broad beans, carrots, cauliflowers and potatoes that are snap frozen so they’re served extra fresh for Aussie favourite Birds Eye.

Next time you sit down to a meal of crisp green beans, betacarotene-rich carrots, or minty peas, imagine him doing the rounds of his 300 hectares, tending to the veggies like children.

Kitted out in his work boots, Mr Greenhill begins his day at 7am, after he’s said goodbye to his wife, Kelly, and four daughters, and checked on the family’s little pony Bandit.

Armed with his morning coffee, he meets with his hand-picked team – Noel, Tony, Kordell and Cheryl - to decide what needs to be done that day.

“Today Noel’s preparing a new site where we’re about to plant cauliflowers, and Tony and Kordell are looking after the irrigation, while Cheryl is paying the accounts,” he said.

“We also have people hand-weeding beans, although nearly all the other work on the farms is done by machinery.”

A typical day runs until 6pm but, in busy times, to 9pm, after a break for “teatime” with the family.

Two to three times a week a Birds Eye field officer walks the crops with Mr Greenhill and talks about harvesting.

Throughout the year he is assisted by up to 20 valued contractors such as local Joe Cook, who may employ up to 50 people to harvest cauliflowers in minus three-degree Celsius temperatures with sleeting rain.

“They deliver a very high standard of hard work so we maintain the quality of the produce and meet deadlines,” says Mr Greenhill.

Birds Eye also owns and operates all the harvesters that harvest the peas, beans and sweet corn to ensure timely and efficient harvesting.

Phil O’Keeffe, General Manager of Agricultural Services for Simplot, the company which owns Birds Eye, said they also invest heavily in research and development to supply farmers with new varieties that have improved yield and quality potential.

It’s Mr Greenhill and his team who watch out for small problems that may need addressing, constantly checking on the veggie crops to see if they need more water or are nearing readiness to pick, for example.

“It’s crucial farm events like fertilising or harvesting happen on time,” he says.

Close to maturity, pea and bean crops are sampled daily to ensure they are harvested at the peak of maturity.

Mr Greenhill has been in the business 28 years, taught by his father, Fred, and his uncle Rob.

He is one of 146 vegetable growers in Tasmania who produce a farm gate value of $35 million worth of vegetables a year (the net value of the product when it leaves the farm).

He is also one of 164 potato growers who produce $93 million in farm gate value or nearly 300,000 tonnes of starchy veggies, according to Mr O’Keeffe.

“There are about 160,000 potatoes harvested for every hectare of 5,100 hectares so that’s about 765 million to 816 million potatoes Simplot buys,” he said.

Birds Eye uses mainly the Russet Burbank and Ranger Russet potato because of the superior quality of the end product, although Mr Greenhill also reckons it’s his liberal dashings of butter than make his own mash a favourite with his family.

As well as the other crops he grows, he is one of five growers in Tasmania who produce 6,400 tonnes of crunchy, white cauliflowers a year that end up on our dinner table. The biggest crop is peas - 24,000 tonnes grown by 110 farms – and he helps produce these too.

Mr O’Keeffe said: “All peas and beans are grown within 120km of our Tasmanian plant which enables us to harvest, transport and process fresh Birds Eye veggies within four hours. How fresh is that?!”

Mr Greenhill’s own farms are within half an hour of the processing factory so they couldn’t be any fresher.

According to nutritionists, veggies snap frozen close to picking are equally vitamin and mineral rich compared to fresh supermarket vegetables that could have been held in cold storage for weeks.

Because Birds Eye supports Aussie farmers, all money goes back into the community and buyers know that they’re getting goodness that was produced right here in Australia.

“I do look in supermarket trolleys to see if people are buying Australian peas and beans,” laughs Mr Greenhill.

“It’s fair to say I am a proud Australian grower of fresh, good quality, safe food.

“We are a very small part of a proud industry that enjoys working with people like Birds Eye and working together to make and market healthy food for the fantastic Australian consumer makes it a pleasure as well as a career.”

Originally published as Meet the farmer growing your vegetables