Sky’s the limit for new farm pioneers

Broadacre cropping in the Wheatbelt, large orchards across the South West, and row upon row of leafy greens and root vegetables to Perth’s north and east: that’s what we generally consider to be ‘farming’ in Western Australia.

A farm tour at Christian Prokscha and Julia Prichodko’s Eden Towers operation shows how things can be run differently.

Their mushroom farm is in Perth’s premier growing region, the Swan Valley, among the vineyards and provedores that give the region its identity.

There are no backhoes, barns or balers here.

Eden Towers’ farm sits behind the doors of a 40-foot freight container out the back of the Swan Settlers Market.

It is a change of scenery for the farm’s founders, both having escaped from the corporate world.

Prior to Eden Towers, ex-Deloitte consultant Mr Prokscha and Ms Prichodko, a former tax accountant and management consultant, were living in Jakarta where they were involved in real estate, digital, and agriculture investments.

“A vertical farm was one of those projects in that portfolio, but then COVID happened and it [the project] stopped, so we then decided for the sake of the family we would come back to Perth,” Mr Prokscha told Business News.

“In 2020, at Christmas, I surprised Julie … I said, ‘You just need to transfer some money to these guys in Scotland because I just bought a farm’.

“That’s how it all started.”

That approach may sound a touch cavalier, but the pair undertook extensive research on farm economics before the purchase.

“The supply chain is very complicated. The farmer normally gets screwed, right? They have all the risk, all the capital upfront, all the work,” Mr Prokscha said.

“They sell it at farm gate for a very low price, maybe make five to ten per cent margin, and then the rest of the margin is made by the people who grade, who wash it, who process it, and then the wholesaler.

“If we can condense that whole supply chain into our little operation, we can actually still make a margin even though inputs like power are going to be high and the upfront capex is going to be high.”

He said the vertical farm system was forgiving to those not experienced in the agriculture industry.

Faster growth cycles and fewer inputs compared to traditional farms made problem-solving easier and faster, while scaling up required a fraction of the land.

A smart system developed in Sweden could also make Eden Towers self-sustaining, Mr Prokscha said.

It would capture carbon dioxide produced by mushrooms to feed to leafy greens.

The leafy greens would turn that CO2 into oxygen, which can then be fed back into the mushroom tower.

There are, however, some similarities to traditional farming.

“You still have to wake up at three in the morning, you still have to be here, you still have to pack, you still have to stand, so there is a lot of manual labour still,” Mr Prokscha said.

The Swan Valley mushroom farm is a taste of what is to come.

Eden Towers has purchased land at the Food Innovation Precinct WA near Mandurah to build the state’s first commercial-scale vertical farm.

Work on what is expected to be a $10 million block of towers is pencilled in to start by early 2025 Moving the existing shipping container setup to the FIPWA will come earlier and is partially dependent on a potential new supermarket deal.

“If we run at 100 per cent capacity, we would be looking at about ten tonnes a year,” Mr Prokscha said.

“What we’re looking to do is around two or three to four times that.”

Eden Towers is among the first of the next-generation farming enterprises in Australia.

Gold Coast-based Stacked Farm is understood to be the first major commercial-scale operation of its kind in the nation.

Its 4,000 square metre automated facility on the east coast can churn out up to 440t of produce per year, and the company plans to build a further 12,000sqm of vertical farms in Melbourne this year.

Sydney’s Urban Green is hidden among the towers of Darling Harbour, where it grows microgreens and sprouts.

Founded in 2016, Urban Green’s products are mostly sold to restaurants.

Eden Towers has plans beyond WA, too.

In 2023, it touted the potential of a 600sqm vertical farm in Adelaide churning out 200t of produce per year and has already set up a five-tonne facility in the South Australian capital.

One of the big roadblocks to the growth of vertical farm industries worldwide has been the significantly higher power costs.

For Eden Towers, this is where the Food Innovation Precinct WA comes in.

Solar power

FIPWA in the Shire of Murray is powered entirely by Enwave Australia’s on-site solar array, allowing customers to take advantage of a 30 per cent lower tariff.

“Seventy per cent of our cost of goods sold is electricity,” Mr Prokscha said.

“Having a solar farm serves a purpose of a much better tariff, but also it is a much greener approach than buying electricity on the grid.”

The precinct was opened a little over one year ago and, so far, Eden Towers, Aryzta Bakery, and Spinifex Brewing Company have signed up to the precinct (Spinifex being the only established facility to date).

FIPWA general manager Chris Vas said the first year had been spent finding the precinct’s place in the agriculture, food, and beverage ecosystems.

“WA doesn’t have any entities yet where we can complete the entire spectrum of getting businesses to engage with researchers, to commercialise product, for them to be able to walk across into a manufacturing facility and scale-up production, get their products into market, get some wraparound services all being available in one place,” Mr Vas told Business News.

“So, that’s what the precinct does.

“No-one has done this before in WA.”

Among the technology FIPWA plans to incorporate are drones for use on farms, waste management, value-add, and wastewater treatment.

Mr Vas hopes the precinct takes some positive steps this year.

“Runs on the board are quite important for us to be able to demonstrate not only to the various levels of government that have provided funding into getting the Food Innovation precinct up and running, but also the businesses,” he said.

“To be able to demonstrate you can create a product or you can grow by accessing infrastructure and services in the precinct.

“What Spinifex is doing, for them to be able to come and produce and get their first export shipment into Peru, that is a big score on the board for us.

“This year will be critical in that regard to be able to say that, by the end of the year, have we helped five, six, seven businesses.”

The goal for the precinct is for business ideas incubated on the premises to grow to a scale where they can purchase land for a factory in the surrounding Peel Business Park.

SIFT through

 To that end, the newly launched $12.2 million Sustainable Innovative Food Technologies Centre hopes to turn ideas brewed by creative minds in backyard sheds into full-blown commercial operations.

The Murdoch University-operated facility’s remit could have added its benefit in addressing long-term youth unemployment issues in the Peel region.

“Unlike a lot of WA where mining has soaked up every person, there are some people locally who can be absorbed into a food manufacturing sector,” SIFT Centre managing director Stuart Johnston said.

The centre houses a wide variety of food and beverage manufacturing machinery available for use by those who are genuine about turning their idea into a business.

Budding businesspeople will be able to use the centre to test, develop and produce value-added food products at commercial scale to determine market demand and find buyers.

From there, it will be incumbent on such businesses to invest in their own facilities for long-term production.

“In this facility, you can make enough product to get on sale in supermarkets, you can get repeat sales, you can also work out what your cost of your product is to make, and you can look at how much you can earn when you sell it in the stores,” Mr Johnston told Business News.

“That economic or financial information is enough for you to go to the bank.

“We are expecting to help about five to ten businesses per year and … I can tell you we have already had one new business create an Australian Business Number.”

The requirements to use SIFT are simple: a product and an ABN.

“If you are doing it as a hobby at the farmers’ market or if you are doing it for fun because you love your chili sauce, you are probably going to stay there,” Mr Johnston said.

“But if you actually have a vision that you want to start a food business … then we are here to support people on that journey.”

Mr Johnston used a family sauce recipe as an anecdote to explain the kind of projects the centre was looking for.

If someone wanted to turn their mum’s Sunday roast recipe from a kilo batch in a crockpot into a product sold at farmers’ markets, supermarkets, or hospitals, the SIFT Centre was the place that could make it happen.

The centre and wider precinct are, to a degree, seeking to turn back the clock to a time when WA-made products were common on supermarket shelves.

Decades of globalisation and downwards price pressure have shrunk the state’s manufacturing industry.

“For us to continue in food manufacturing, given we haven’t got that major scale in the state, we have to be about premium products that have a good shelf life, that attracts gourmet consumers and higher-end consumers,” Mr Johnston said.

“This facility is targeting shelf life and premium products with a view that, in the long term, food manufacturing will return home.”

The levers turning the dial back toward local manufacturing, Mr Johnston said, included food miles, sustainability, and food security.

“During COVID, we ran out of a lot of proteins,” he said.

“Canned meat was gone, canned tuna was gone, pasta was gone, the Nullarbor got flooded, the train line got derailed across the Nullarbor.

“Food security was something people talked about as affecting third world countries and all of a sudden, when COVID came on, people thought ‘oh, hang on, food security is us’.”