Tenderground: Young farmers combine in new marketing force

A group of young farmers in the northeast has teamed up to market their produce as one, saving time and money. Here’s how.

Five young farmers in north east Victoria have formed an innovative new collective to market their produce and get it to customers, saving time and money.

Tenderground, which includes Allt Farm in Beechworth, Why Farm in Porepunkah, and Woodstock Flour in Rutherglen, sells organic lamb, free range pork and grass fed beef from members’ farms via farmers markets and an online shop.

Woodstock Flour’s Courtney Young said with the high cost of farm land, value adding farm produce was crucial for small-scale farmers but the cost of infrastructure, logistics and marketing was often prohibitive for those starting out.

The united group are challenging the ‘go it alone’ paradigm in farming and rather than doing farmers markets and delivery runs solo, will be sharing the cost, time and energy required to get their produce to market. By collaborating, they hope to be more efficient, productive and resilient.

The founding farmers of Tenderground include Lachy Hamilton and Hannah McCreath from Allt Farm in Beechworth, Dom Walker from Why Farm in Porepunkah, and Ian Congdon and Courtney Young from Woodstock Flour in Rutherglen.

“We formed this collective because we noticed we all had pretty similar obstacles in terms of how to market our meat and so we figured it would be a lot easier if we could work it out together,” Courtney said.

“It’s also fun to be doing this with friends because farming can be quite lonely and stressful. You need that community around you.”

All three farms are dedicated to agroecology and regenerative farming practices.

One of the offerings at Tenderground’s launch at Carlton on December 4 and Albury Farmers Market on December 17 will be a mixed box of meat with lamb, pork and beef.

Pork is ethically raised on Lachy Hamilton and Hannah McCreath's Allt Farm in Beechworth, which is part of the Tenderground collective.