It’s time to show you care about farmers and do your bit to eat up the carrot backlog.  Pick your own carrots and help avoid a avoid a carrot-astrophe!

Australia’s carrot glut means that farmers are facing the unwelcome task of plowing their crop back into the ground because it is not economically viable to harvest it. The choice is harvest their carrots and lose money, or plough perfectly good food into the ground.

Say no to Carrot-astrophe!

The group of farmers’ wives who developed the Just Veg. range have decided to do something about that and have come up with the Carrot-astrophe Day.   They say it’s a great way for city consumers to connect with farmers and have a fun day on the farm.

“It’s always a good time to eat more veggies, but right now we’d be so happy if people could add some extra carrots to every meal! Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could eat our way out of this carrot-astrophe?” explains Kalfresh director and farmer Rob Hinrichsen.

“We’d much rather have people come out for a fun day picking their own carrots than have to plough them in.”

No carrot waste

So instead of wasting the carrots, farmers are inviting the public to come and pick their own carrots at a Carrot-astrophe Day on Saturday October 7 at Kalbar, a small town located near the Cunningham Highway and directly north of Mount French in the Fassifern Valley.

“We hate waste and we hate seeing the efforts of farming amount to nothing, so we decided to hold a second Carrot Day,” explains Kalfresh director and farmer Rob Hinrichsen.

“We are saying to people – come and visit our farm, have a country experience, meet the farmers, sit in the tractors and pick your own carrots. We hope people who love their carrots will come and support us through what is a pretty dire situation.”

Mr Hinrichsen says in his 25 years in the vegetable business, he’s never seen the carrot market as bad as it currently is. He blames a number of factors, including optimal Australian growing conditions, big crop yields and a Russian ban on European imports for having a domino effect on the world carrot market.

“It seems there’s been a perfect storm of events which have led to an absolutely flooded Australian carrot market,” says Mr Hinrichsen.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $2.50 for children.  There will be plenty of carrot products on sale plus food and drinks. They will give you a bag to fill with carrots for free. If you can’t get there on the day, support the farmers by purchasing the Just Veg. cut carrot range at Wooworths or Queensland carrots.  Tickets are available here. 

 

 

What are you going to do with all those carrots you harvest?  Make these Carrot & Ginger Bliss Balls and all the family will be happy. They can be are ready in less than five minutes and are a perfect sweet treat.

Carrot & Ginger Bliss Balls

Ingredients:

1 pkt Just Veg Carrot Shred or 300g grated carrot

125g dates – pitted

125g crystallised ginger – or glace ginger

225g almond meal

85g desiccated coconut (plus extra for rolling)

 

Method:

  •     Place dates and ginger into food processor and process until finely chopped
  •     Add Just Veg carrot shred, almond meal and desiccated coconut.  Mix until combined
  •     Roll mixture into balls and roll in coconut
  •     Store in fridge until you are ready to eat!

 

So get hopping to Kalbar! Here’s how to get there.

Kalbar