Good to Grow

Peppermint Magazine

We asked ourselves, ‘How can we create a ripple effect, not just about health and wellbeing, but also getting people excited about farmers and make farming a kind of sexy profession again?’

“We call it ‘the farmily’,” Tom Lane says, referring to the collection of horticulturists, bakers, restaurateurs and others with whom he and wife Emma have built their unique enterprise. The Farm at Byron Bay is – you guessed it – a farm. But it’s one like no other: the business model is so revolutionary that Tom and Emma struggle to properly label it. “People have called it an incubator, others have called it a collaborative community approach to business,” says Tom. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone’s really done anything quite like it.”