The couple are the owners and farmers of Living Earth Farm in High Range and are growing vegetables to feed the Highlands community, while building personal relationships with the shire’s residents. 

The couple turned their first sod in August 2016, after moving from Canada. 

“We met while working on a farm in Canada in 2013 and we moved here two years later after a farming opportunity came up,” Falani said. 

“Things with that project changed a little bit and we decided to start our own farm.”

The couple didn’t own any land and were searching for a good block to lease, then they met Melissa and David Saville. 

“They are the most wonderful people and they offered us a small piece of land to get our farm started,” Falani said. 

“They just really wanted to see us do well.”

So the first crops were planted in the chilly Highlands winter of 2016. 

“We were really getting to know the land and the weather, so that was a huge learning curve,” Falani said. 

But after two full seasons, the farm is growing from strength to strength. 

“When we moved here we knew one person, so we worked really hard to grow healthy food in alignment with growing our relationships in the community," Olivier said. 

“Our philosophy from a social aspect is to feed the community and ground ourselves in the the families of this area.”

The Sofo’s grow a huge variety of vegetables not limited to beets, zucchinis, tomatoes, corn, peppers, eggplants, carrots and potatoes, and deliver boxes of fresh produce to homes across the region every week. 

“We engage with 170 families a week and we thought this was really needed in the community because no one is doing anything like this,” Olivier said. 

The couple plant, grow and harvest everything they sell and are passionate about transparency with their customers. 

“We send out a newsletter every week which is a very personal thing and we think that’s important because we want to create those really personal relationships with people,” Olivier said. 

The couple also features in a new Australian farming book, titled Small Farm Success Australia – How to Make a Life and a Living on the Land.

“We interviewed Falani and Olivier because of their passion for farming and as an example of their unique approaches to agriculture and life,” the book’s co-author, Anna Featherstone said.

“Their experience is as relevant to established farmers as it is to tree changers who are just starting out. They’re quite inspirational.”

Falani said it was exciting to be part of a book that was gaining a lot of traction within the farming community. 

“A lot of farmers are excited about it because there’s not a lot of literature written about farming in the Southern Hemisphere,” Falani said. 

“There’s not a lot that is contextualised to our climate, the light is different, the sun is different so to have some literature is really great,” Olivier said. 

Unlike a lot of parents, Olivier and Falani get to take their one-and-a-half year old daughter, Naia to work with them everyday. 

“She loves it, she wanderers around and she’ll help us harvest,” Falani said. 

“It’s really special that we get to share this with her.” 

To find out more about Living Earth Farm visit https://livingearthfarm.com.au/.