Northern Rivers Local News
Farm to Fork visit local Macadamia Orchard
Farm to Fork visit local Macadamia Orchard
The Farm to Fork team recently visited the Dorey family macadamia orchard “ Plantation Lorna “ at Knockrow to film a new episode of the popular channel 10 series Farm to Fork.
This episode of Farm to Fork hosted by Courtney Roulston will go to air this afternoon 2 February at 4 pm on channel 10.
Farm to Fork takes the cameras to different farms around Australia to bring the farmers story and their produce to the general public. At the end of the farm walk and talk the produce from that farm is then used in a recipe cooked up by Courtney with help from the farmer to complete the story. This gives the consumer an insight into how the farm produce is grown and how it can be used.
Plantation Lorna was established in 1989 by 6 Dorey brothers who called their new orchard after their mother Lorna. The Dorey brothers were long time sugar cane growers who diversified into growing macadamias pioneering the growing of macadamias on the coastal floodplain using their unique farming method.
Col Dorey who was interviewed by Courtney in the farm walk and talk said they did take a risk in planting macadamias on the coastal floodplain however we were confident we could overcome any obstacle as we had farmed the floodplain all our lives as had our parents.
Col said we were advised the macadamia trees would die on the coastal floodplain. Now those first plantings are over 30 years of age and have won numerous awards including being awarded the best producing orchard in Australia 5 times by the Australian Macadamia Society.
Col said it was the best thing the family had ever done by diversifying into macadamias on the coastal floodplain, it has been life changing in many ways. The return on macadamias once established have been up to 20 times more per ha net then if we were still growing sugar cane. We owe the macadamia nut for what it has done for us so it was an easy decision when asked if we would participate in the Farm to Fork series after all it is not very hard to promote macadamias.
