There is a small tin shed sitting in the shade of a river red gum not far from the banks of the Murray River. Inside is a woman, tall and athletic, a boning knife in one hand. She works the tip of the blade in and around bones transforming a whole pig, weighing almost as much as her, into little cuts of pork. Lauren Mathers is a mother of two. She is also a pig farmer with 40 breeding sows grazing at Bundarra Berkshires, the farm she owns with her husband Lachlan, just outside of Barham in southern New South Wales, about 100km north-west of Echuca.
There, for the past four years, she has raised Berkshire pigs. The large black English pigs, known for their marbled flesh and full flavour, are raised on pasture, sheltering under the gums by day and sleeping in pig houses at night. Each year she ''turns off'' (farmer speak for ''sends to the abattoir'') 480 pigs.
Her decision to become a farmer was made when she owned the local cafe. "I was making my own pate and sausages but the quality of pork was inconsistent," says Mathers. "So I thought, 'I am going to have to do this myself'."
She was granted a Rural Ambassador Award and was able to travel to France to see how farmers there interact with their communities. "French farmers are a respected part of society," she says. "In a culture dominated by food, local farmers come to the towns to [sell at] the markets which are a normal part of everyday life. There, a farmers' market is not something fancy or elitist. There, farmers' market are just 'normal'."
Lauren and Lachlan Mathers bought a handful of sows and a boar in 2010 and within six months she was selling possibly the best fresh pork in the country into restaurants and farmers' markets. She was working with a local butcher who cut her meat and made her sausages. But as good as his butchery was, Mathers not only needed to reduce costs but to improve the quality and range of smallgoods she was offering. "So at 33 I learned to butcher pigs," she says. She worked with Tom McGillivray from G. & G. McGillivray butchers in Gunbower and had lessons from local lad Troy Wheeler, who works with one of Melbourne's top butchers, Toorak's Peter Bouchier. "I was up night after night working until 2am boning out shoulders of pork," she says.
Mathers annexed husband Lachlan's shed for a butchery, refitting it to health authority specifications, and opened almost a year ago, selling meat directly to the public. She also now smokes her hams and bacons and makes rillettes and fricandeaux - seasoned balls of pork mince in caul fat that are cooked in the glass jar in which they are sold. She makes capocollo, preserved pork shoulder and other salted pork smallgoods.
"I wanted to start small but if we get this right I want to move on to fermented smallgoods such as salami and saucisson sec." She now employees another butcher and a local woman to help with packing. Soon she will train a neighbouring farmer's wife to prepare charcuterie. With a further 30 sows, they will will produce 1200 pigs a year.
"There's no reason why we farmers can't make a decent living and be rewarded for our hard work," she says. "There is huge demand for what we are doing here. It's sustainable. It's ethical. It's jobs in the bush," she says. "And it's delicious."
Bundarra Berkshires, 929 East Barham Road, Barham, NSW, (03) 5453 2392, bundarraberkshires.com.
Pork and charcuterie available from farmers' markets including: Castlemaine; Coburg; Fairfield and Koondrook. Also from the Butchers Block, Clifton Hill; Hams and Bacon, Brunswick East; IGA, Barham and Phillippa's, Armadale, Brighton and CBD.
