Moondarra Blueberries
When the Department of Agriculture released the first batch of blueberry bushes in the late 1970s Malcolm Deveson was one of the first in line to give the blueberries a go. Today Malcolm and his son Joel run one of the country’s most respected farms.
Producers of the finest certified organic blueberries and propagators of quality blueberry plants, Moondarra Bluberries began more than 30 years ago when Malcolm, who had no history of farming, was inspired by the work of Louis Bromfield, an early exponent of sustainable farming, and bought some land at the foothills of the Great Dividing Range without really knowing quite what he wanted to do with it.
Scouting around an for eco-friendly and innovative idea, Mal was introduced to blueberries at a public meeting hosted by the Department of Agriculture to explain the findings of an overseas research trip into the fruit’s potential in Australia. In 1979 he obtained 600 of the first plants to be released to growers here.
Listening to Mal you can tell he is proud of what he has achieved, and rightly so too.