From driving to sustainable agriculture in 10 minutes

A random right turn off a corrugated gravel road onto a white sand road in the Grampians of Victoria took us unexpectedly to the delightful oasis of Mount Zero Olives in the middle of the bush.

Contrary to all expectation, in the farm shop we got a frosty reception from the proprietor. Short, choppy answers to our questions and a sharp half-already-answered-for-you-in-the-negative question about whether we wanted to taste any olives followed by an intake of breath when we said yes.

Ten minutes later after we'd munched some olives and she'd established that we weren't Americans nor supporters of GM crops and Monsanto and after I started to talk about the problem of Roundup resistant Canola in Canada, Saskatchewan farmers, gene flow, the evils of terminator seed technology, sustainable agriculture and the growth versus no-growth paradigms in the economics of sustainability, Jane as we now knew her, had backpedalled to the point of graciously inviting us for a coffee in her delightful cafe converted from an old one-room school house

A WWOOFER [organic farm volunteer] from near Padua, Italy made delightful espresso [in the bush it's important to have both a photovoltaic powered espresso maker and an authentic Italian to operate it] and we talked about solar power, sustainable architecture, Mount Zero's olive production, Mount Zero's cooperative venture with the Aborigines to produce pink salt from a nearby lake, her interest in distilling eucalyptus oil and soap making and her activism against GM seed companies and for local, sustainable agriculture.

We happily left with a bag of Jane's bio-dynamic oranges, a jar of olives, some falafel mix, a bag of organic red lentils and an offer to stay and volunteer on the farm as WWOOFERS. In turn, Jane waved us goodbye with an Earthscan reading list in hand for Agri-Culture, Prosperity Without Growth and Factor Five and my promise to send her [which I later did] the link to the website of our our Kiwi friends Shay and Jo who are building a zero energy house in Auckland.

Great coffee and conversation and to think I could have driven straight on.