Our story
Shakespeare Hills Beef is part of the Gunningham Family Farms enterprise. We are fortunate to farm on such a magnificent swathe of beautifully rich, and relatively untouched land, right on the edge of the Tarkine. After migrating the UK to Tasmania in 2000, and we established Gunningham Family Farms in 2001. And have been farming right here in the North West Tasmania from the very start.
Shakespeare Hills Beef and Shakespeare Hills Eggs are named after The Shakespeare Hills that surround and divide our farms. We love these hills, and they are such a dominant feature in our lives. This where we live, farm, and have raised our five children.
Over the years, what started purely as a dairy farm, our business has grown to include two certified organic dairy herds, a 4,000-bird flock of pasture-raised laying hens in mobile coops, in addition to our newest addition to farming: our dairy beef cross cattle herd.
All of our animals are raised outdoors on pastures rich in species, using rotational management grazing. This type of management allows our pastures to recover before the animals return to graze again, ensuring we graze at the optimum time for the animal and the pastures, mimicking the behaviour of massive herds of herbivores that historically thrived across the world.
Large herbivores and pastures co-evolved, they literally need each other. Farming in tune with nature, reduces and eliminates the need for ecologically damaging herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, synthetic fertilisers, wormers and other animal treatments.
Consumer interest in the environment and animal welfare has been growing steadily. People are increasingly concerned about the use of synthetic nitrogen, herbicides, and pesticides in many farming systems, as well as things like growth hormones and routine antibiotics in intensive livestock production. They want to buy food they can trust from farms that are managing their land and animals with the environment and animal welfare in mind.
Having started our career as conventional farmers, we have now been farming organically for eight years, and we have never looked back. It has definitely changed our mindset, and how we look at farming. We try to look at our farm holistically, and how we can do things inline with nature. The more aligned we can be with the way the nature works, the fewer problems we have as farmers.
Farms are one of the basic components of healthy society. As a family farming business in a regional area, we really appreciate you buying directly from us. We feel it is so important to keep supporting local businesses, rather than sending your money to big companies
where the money disappears out of the area for ever. Locally spent money means that we can employ local people, meaning they can build their lives and their careers right here, and they can raise their families in our local community. It also means we can invest back into our business to ensure it has a strong, resilient future: providing local jobs and thoughtfully stewarding our land and our animals.
Thank you, helping to make this happen!
Matthew and Pippa Gunningham
