When the American military turned up at Ray Taylor’s family farm in southern Queensland on a search for salad during World War II it launched a business that continues today.
“[They] turned up looking for salad lines like lettuce, celery, and they couldn’t procure it, so we were asked to grow stuff for the American warships when they docked into Brisbane,” Ray said.
“We made really good money out [of] those times. [They were] paying excellent money.”
Now a fourth generation farmer, Ray said he was motivated by producing good quality food for other families to enjoy.
The farmer from Queensland’s Granite Belt has won the Farmer of the Year award for excellence in technology, and while he is proud of his innovations in farming the real reward was teaching the next generation.
Farming is in his blood.
After WWI, Ray’s great-grandfather bought a block on the creek behind Mitchelton State School, outside Brisbane.
It was handed down to his grandfather, who was growing pineapples and paw paws before the switch to salad during the war years.
Ray Taylor’s father Bill has used composting on farms for decades, something he continues.(ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor)
Ray’s father left school aged 14 when his father became unwell, and by the time he turned 18 he had saved enough money for a bigger parcel of land.
With winter production on the coast, Ray and his father diversified into the Stanthorpe area in the 1990s to grow summer crops.
“Every time a property came up in this district [the Granite Belt] we’d buy it, and if another opportunity would come up we’d buy it,” Ray said.
“We originally only grew a couple of semi loads a week of stuff for certain orders, and now we do probably eight to 10 semis a day.”
The Taylor family grow iceberg lettuce, wombok, celery silverbeet, cauliflowers, and twin pack mini cos. (ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor )
Tractor therapy
It is a true family affair, Ray’s wife Connie Taylor said.
“Ray’s father William Taylor, and Ray’s uncle Keith Taylor, are the head parts,” she said.
“Then there’s Ray Taylor, Jeff Taylor, and Wayne Taylor, and then a few offspring of the Taylor boys which is John Taylor, Ryan Taylor, Luke Taylor, and Sam Taylor.”
Like all families, they have had their difficulties from time to time, but Connie said the key was knowing each other’s strengths.
“Ray believes I’m a bit of a dreamer, there’s a positive in everyone,” she said.
When things get testy they have developed their own unique coping mechanisms.
“When they get cranky with other family members, they go and have tractor therapy,” she said.
“They sit in their tractors. They go for a while, and they come back with smiles on their faces”.
The future
The couple agreed the next generation are the real stars of the show.
“The young boys are also out there YouTubing all the time and TikToking and all the rest of it, and they’re finding all this stuff,” Connie said.
“So it’s great having that next generation, in that they are thinking ahead.”
Ray and Connie’s son John also works in the business, one of many family members working on-farm.(ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor)
Now in his mid-50s, Ray joked he was finding it a little bit hard to get out of bed as early as enthusiastically as he used to.
“The young ones have got that much drive and go in them, I want to work with them closer to bring new technology into our business, more efficiencies in the way we use labour, better marketing practices,” he said.
“I want to encourage them to grow the business to the next level and do it with technology and smarts.”
Good times and bad
The Taylor Family use PALM scheme workers to pick their crops.(ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor)
COVID brought challenges, with staff retention a concern for the whole region.
But the number one challenge remained the weather.
“The drought period, where we ran out of water as everyone knows, [saw] Stanthorpe’s dam running out of water,” Connie said.
“I’ve always really worked hard at water conservation, storing water ahead, trying to plan our business around not a one-year program but a three-year program, or further than that even if we can,” Ray said.
He said a pilot program on the farm was looking at dam covers to try and reduce evaporation.
“We’ve computerised irrigation where we’re monitoring our soil. The computers are really controlling how much we put on so we’re not wasting water,” he said.
“We’ve probably saved 15 to 20 per cent from probably five or 10 years ago, just on water conservation.”
Connie and Ray Taylor encourage Australians to eat more clean and green produce from their own country. (ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor)
Ray said some innovations were a “no brainer” while others were hard to justify with a longer-term pay off.
“A couple of things have failed, no question about it, but I reckon 80 per cent has been on the positive side,” he said.
Focusing on carbon
Ray said increasing carbon in the soil by adding a lot of compost and doing green manures between crops — where crops were ploughed back into the soil — had proved successful.
“We’re finding over the years that we’re bringing our carbon levels up two or three points, which is a lot, especially for the Granite Belt which is generally a very low carbon level being such granite soil,” he said.
“We’ve seen soil go from really white, porous sand, to a nice dark colour now.
“You see the difference in the crops too, healthy crops. More longevity and the product life on the shelf.
“Better yields, better weight, better colour. It’s a plus, plus, plus all the way once you get the balance, right.”
Looking out over a recently picked cauliflower field, Connie and Ray Taylor say they focus on soil carbon.(ABC Rural: Arlie Felton-Taylor)
Ray said the family had a lot of pride in what they do.
“It’s about us delivering something for other families to enjoy,” he said.
“We love doing it, we just love the industry and love the people we work with.”
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Posted 8h ago8 hours agoTue 20 Jun 2023 at 3:06am, updated 8h ago8 hours agoTue 20 Jun 2023 at 3:45am
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