WHILE Covid put a strain on many different industries, for husband and wife team Steele and Juanita Bosel, the pandemic kick-started the beginning of a brand new agricultural venture.
Fourth-generation cattle grazier Mr Bosel and Mrs Bosel first stumbled across their Dows Creek property six years ago.
While the property was initially barren, a downpour of rain saw a scourge of weeds (including three-metre high pink burr, giant rat's tail and three-feet high sensitive weed) explode across their 160 acres.
So, to manage their infestation in a more environmentally-friendly way (opting away from chemicals), they introduced goats to help mow down the weeds.
The horned occupants made quick work of the issue and while the Bosels were happy with the new additions, queries about purchasing goat meat began to trickle in from friends, family and people driving by the Pioneer Valley property.
"We started selling goats whole, bulk to customers. We take the animals to (JS McGill Kuttabul Abbatoir), 12km down the road. They butcher them and cut them up for our customers to collect," Mrs Bosel said.
"The people buying the goats wanted to know if we had lambs. We had the place fenced for goats so we thought we'd buy lambs as well...and we did the same with our cattle - (selling them bulk first) for three years.
The couple run 100 breeders, with Senepol and Droughtmaster bulls joined to Droughtmaster Charbray, Brangus cows and a couple of Speckle Park.
The couple run the bulls with the cows 24/7, ensuring different sizes throughout the year for slaughter and a year-round supply.
"We don't have them all come on the same size at the same time. Otherwise you'll have 30 head all at 500kg," Mr Bosel said.
In addition, they have 100 goats (bucks purchased from Mount Roy Stud, Kuttabul and does from Townsville), which they are currently breeding, and around 50 lambs (purchased from Claudette Rolfe at Springsure).
They purchase cattle from Saint Perry's, Bloomsbury and the local Pioneer Valley region.
"Tropic adaptability is one of the things we want. We want animals that are able to handle the wet, humid conditions," Mrs Bosel said.
While Bush Lemon Farm is not fully organic, the Bosels have strong leanings towards regenerative practices, managing weeds with goats followed by cattle and ensuring the health and animal husbandry by managing parasite burdens and worming needs through faecal egg counting.
"We will rotate the cattle behind the goats...and they'll clean up the parasites and not be affected in the same way the goats are. We're doing bits and pieces like that to reduce our reliance on synthetic imports," Mrs Bosel said.
Mr Bosel, who was raised in the Eungella range area, spent his life in agriculture, and said customers' increased health awareness had been a bit driving factor behind the success of their pasture-raised, grass-fed, paddock to plate meat.
They distribute to markets across Mackay and Jubilee Pocket every fortnight, and also do farm gate sales for passers-by.
In the last 18 months, they have expanded into retail, running a refrigerated display trailer at farmers markets where customers can buy by the kilo.
"What we found interesting, an aspect we're really enjoying is talking to customers. People who live in town want to know what we're doing. Some people want to buy grass fed and know they're supporting a farmer...but some people talk for an hour...they want to know what we do, about farming, the good and the bad," Mrs Bosel said.
"We get a lot of people coming to us, telling us they're not with that buying from supermarkets and they want to support local.
"We've got a very good repeat customer base. That's growing.
"It's just us two doing the work... we send animals to the butchers fortnightly. Depending on what orders we got, at the moment we sending at least 1-2 steers every fortnight, 2-3 lambs per fortnight and if we've got them, we send a couple of goats as well.
"But we can't keep up with demand, we can't breed them fast enough."
Bush Lemon Farm believes in respecting their animals by using every part through a "nose-to-tail" method.
"There's a strong push from people that are conscious about eating more health-food to incorporate some of the (organ meats into their diet)," Mrs Bosel said.
"The organ meats are actually very popular, we often sell out of offal cuts first. We sell out of the prime cuts, eye and rib fillet, porterhouse, but people want liver, kidney, heart, they want to incorporate into their diets."
One of the biggest problems within the paddock-to-plate industry of late has been the reduction in small abattoirs.
"We're lucky McGills is just down the road...so we can go to them and keep it fairly local," Mrs Bosel said.
"There used to be butcher shops with a slaughterhouse at the back.
"Now it's a production system. It's massive. You have all these animals in feed lots and they go to big slaughter yards, huge massive abattoirs and the rumps get put in one box and shipped off to whose ordering rumps...it's not nose-to-tail.
The Bosels are also involved with Queensland Goat Producers with president Glenda Henry from Clermont.
"Part of their activities is promoting farmed goat meat as an alternative protein source and also...getting the right funding to develop small animal abattoirs," Mrs Bosel said.
"There's a group down at Rockhampton. Their closest abattoir is at Monto. There is an awareness that this is a problem and there is a growing (need)...and groups (like QGoat) are looking at ways to mitigate that."
For the future, moving into more wholesale arrangements is on the cards.
"Working with other producers is something...we'd enjoy," Mrs Bosel said.
And as for those cuts of meat, the Bosels are advocates of their own supply.
"We won't buy meat from anyone else. You can't compare home grown...you never go back (to supermarket meat)," she said.
You can place your order and keep up with any updates at Bush Lemon Farm on Facebook.
