Who’s who in 2022, Environment: Loop Growers

Loop Growers owners Phil Garozzo and Alice Star are ending the year on a brighter note than it began, thanks to support from the community who have rallied to help them rebuild and plant new crops.

It was a horror start to 2022 for the closed-loop farmers, with floods and storms at the end of February obliterating much of their Draper farm.

Phil and Alice managed to save the farm’s animals, but raging waters destroyed all buildings on the site including a seed house and spray sheds.

The farm’s new processing shed and kitchen fell victim to a shipping container that lost its footings, slamming into the building.

“The rain really stripped us bare - we’ll have to start from the start again,” Phil said at the time.

“All of the roads have been drastically damaged so we have to repair them before we can do anything else.”

In the months since the floods, Phil and Alice have been buoyed by supporters, who have helped build a dam to buffer the blow from future droughts.

In October work began on rebuilding the farm’s physical structures, with a new nursery and seed production house first on the agenda.

They also celebrated picking little fingers and purple dragon carrots in September after the floods wiped out crops planted using seeds sourced from Transition Farms in Victoria that had been salvaged after the deluge.

Loop Growers was also the setting for Samford Harvest Winter event that was hosted by renowned chef and champion of local produce Alistair McLeod as part of the Tastes of Moreton Bay Feastival.

About Loop Growers

Alice and Phil collect fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells and other organic matter from cafes and restaurants, and use it for their worms as a compost or as food.

The compost is then used to nurture the soil on their bio-intensive market garden, which in turn produces an array of crops that are sold to those same cafes and restaurants – thereby closing the ‘loop’.