Organic Certified
Bonnie Doone is a 20,000 acre organic certified property
Nestled west of the Coominglah range near Monto. The beautiful North Burnett boasts landscapes rich in national parks, grazing and farming.
A wide range of soil types exist at Bonnie Doone; decomposed granite, alluvial black cracking clay, red volcanic soils and humous rich black basalt scrub soils. All life begins with the soil as it is the foundation for nutrients and works in unison with plants, sunshine and the atmosphere to produce life and food.
Our organic certification is a regulated standard which provides a quality assurance of no chemical use or synthetic inputs. At Bonnie Doone we consider ourselves soil farmers – which means our practices are focussed on the regeneration of the earth and improvement of our soils. How we do this is through blending ancient wisdom and contemporary technologies which enhances the ecological health of the land.
We move our cattle regularly and gently to ensure they are eating the greenest, freshest grass available. This method is called ‘time controlled grazing’ and is essential for resting the pasture and enabling recovery for the soils.
The soil is fed through this action whereby photosynthesis of growing plants delivers sugars to the living microbes in the soil, in return for minerals and nutrients provided to the plant by the microbes. The regular resting of the plants (taking the cattle’s mouths off the pasture) allows the leaves and roots to regenerate which accelerates the cycling process.
A lifetime of connection to the land
Added Benefits
Nature as the foundation
Our holistic approach means all animal and plant life is at its optimum health and wellbeing.
Another added benefit to this cycle is storing carbon from our atmosphere in our soils through natural sugars and root biomass. This regular growing and pruning of plants is essential for this process to happen. Cattle who love to eat grass and were made to eat grass are required to cycle the carbon. These processes take place all around us each day.
We have learned to harness our animals’ habits to assist nature and ensure ecological health. Working with the rhythm of nature and working with natural processes means our livestock have minimal parasites and illness. Flora and fauna is abundant at Bonnie Doone and play a large role in enhancing the good bugs and reducing the problem bugs.
Our Vision
Learning and sharing is essential to our growth
And the growth of the industry. We have hosted many groups from farmers to university students to environmental advisors.
We care about our families health, our animals health and our customers health. We believe food is best fresh from the earth with minimal intervention and as natural as possible. For more than two decades we have adopted regenerative, holistic and organic practices. We are proud of the health and abundance at Bonnie Doone and love to share it with our community.
We think beyond our own backyard and have a vision for all of agriculture to be transformed and the ecological health of the planet be first on the agenda of our fellow humans.
Our Diverse Activities
Diversity is the key to a stable and resilient natural world
We aim to mimic nature in our livestock and pasture enterprise. We also have a diverse range of activities on Bonnie Doone.
- Nature grows trees and we manage them through Silvi-culture practices ensuring optimum density, heights and balance.
- Timber stands are a valuable resource as they store carbon also, provide shelter for livestock and habit for native animals. We regeneratively harvest the timber and use it for building purposes once we have prepared it with our sawmill.
- Bloodwood Cabin is a bespoke farmstay accommodation which is built with natural hardwoods from the property.
- Our water for livestock is pumped from underground via solar technology. We aim to conserve water as much as possible and capture as much running over the landscape to ensure it is made available to the plants and soil.
- We aim for any running water on our property to be clear of sediment and nutrients so as not to contaminate downstream water systems. Local water courses on our property Spring Creek, Cattle Creek and The Nogo River run into the Burnett river which enters the ocean at Bundaberg, the most southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It is very important to us to protect this world heritage natural ecosystem – we can all do our bit.
- We love our veggies as much as our beef! A one acre patch near our homestead is the home of abundant vegetables and flowers which compliment our broad acre beef operation. Biodynamic, organic and natural is the essence of our market garden lead by our 15 year old son Knox and his dependable and experienced off sider Barry. We eat what we can and love to share excess with neighbours and friends. We also supply a local community store called Harvest & Co Collective.