STORY BY MAHMOOD FAZAL, PHOTOS BY CHRIS TURNER

M

eraki is a word that modern Greeks often use to describe doing something with soul, creativity, or love — when you put “something of yourself” into what you’re doing, whatever it may be.

In Victoria's Hepburn Springs region, Daniele and Liv set out to live by their mantra and create a family owned 6-acre farm. 

Daniele was born in southern Italy in a town called Matera. He says, “On school breaks and stuff like that, I started to get into hospitality, into cooking.”

Since taking up the tools of the trade from the age of ten, Daniele built a fine dining career with stints at Gordon Ramsey’s Maze and earning the title of Head Chef at No. 8 by John Lawson where he was nominated as The Age Good Food Guide’s Young Chef of the Year.

“I got sick of hospitality for personal reasons,” says Daniele. “My wife started doing some organic auditing and certification. She was looking into organic gardening. We found this place and we wanted to turn it into a small farm.”

While working his last stint at Peppers restaurant, Daniele was sourcing produce from an organic farm in Bendigo. “I saw a massive difference in the quality of produce, especially the taste…sort of reminded me of the produce that I used to eat when I was growing up in Italy. A massive difference in flavour.”

It sparked something inside him. “I was sort of curious why the produce was so different from what I would normally get.” This coupled with his wife’s interest in organics, fuelled his passion for farming. 

“In hospitality if you get three people calling in sick, you still have to serve people and so in farming, it doesn't matter, the weather or the adversities, you still have to take care of the livestock and conclude your plans at a certain time to be able to harvest months down the track.”

The biggest struggle for Meraki Farm was the weather, adapting their knowledge to the growing inconsistencies from one season to the next.

“I found that the weather was so hard to predict,” says Daniele. So he decided to plant a variety of fruit and vegetables. “By having variety, I will always have a harvest of something. And I think it’s good to offer customers a variety. So we planted a whole heap of fruit trees, mainly apples. I've got olive trees. Eggs and seasonal vegetables depending on the season.”

For Daniele, the essence of good produce is tied to the farm’s name; Meraki - a preference to grow produce he loves.

“Generally I go by things that I like to eat as long as it’s possible to grow in this weather. The first things were potato because I love potatoes - being in Newlyn, you got to have potatoes, right?” Daniele laughs as he lists the mouth-watering offerings, “Carrots, Beetroots, Broccolini, Zucchini, Black Cabbage, Pumpkins, Basil, Parsley, Coriander.”

The surprising thing is how far customer expectations have been warped away from naturally grown organic produce. One customer’s reaction stays with Daniele, “she was like, ‘I don't like your lettuce not because it's not good, it's got too much flavour.”

But at the core of his work, there’s a deeper philosophy, a mindful passion for agroecology, it’s not about what Daniele and Liz take from the land - it’s what they put back into it. 

“I was very conscious of for leaving the soil building up the soil and improving the soil year after year and leaving you know, like in 20 years time having a much better soil and much more productive and much more healthy then I found it. So creating a system that is not necessarily targeted at the yields. A long term project to improve the overall farm system.”

Meraki Organic Farm 

0404 117 268   

www.merakifarm.com.au  

31 Shea Rd, Newlyn North