Most of us don't look at growing plants and think of their development in terms of economic exchange, but most of us aren't Phil Lavers.
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A former mathematician and trader of financial derivatives in Japan, he is fascinated by how soil nutrients and plants interact, characterising their give and take as a trade contingent on supply and demand.
"The exchange rate varies depending on availability - if the plant really needs it, it'll pay more sugar," he said.
"If it doesn't really need it, the price goes down."
Although he summarises it as "green is nitrogen, brown is carbon - that's all you need to know to be an organic farmer", there's really not much about soil that Mr Lavers hasn't pondered deeply.
In fact, he has put the study of soil at the heart of his life's work: Moonacres Farm at Wildes Meadow, an organic vegetable supplier to some of the best restaurants in Sydney and the well-spring of Moonacres Cafe at Robertson and the soon-to-be completed Hearth by Moonacres at newly opened Bowral art gallery Ngununggula.
In his 16 productive acres of vegetables (which he has set up in rows and columns like a spreadsheet), Mr Lavers points to how few of the patches are brown.
"We regard ourselves as soil microbe farmers.
"We have a carefully worked-out schedule of planting and one of the keys is to use cover crops, which are then mulched down into the soil to give you soil microbes."
Ten years into Mr Lavers farming career, which started in 2006 upon his family's return to Australia from Japan, he toured commercial vegetable farms in the Sydney area, and was put off their methods for life.
"Commercial vegetable croppers grow five to six crops per year on each patch of land, which means the ground is rotary hoed 30-60 times a year," he said.
"When I saw that, I cut out all rotary hoeing on my farm.
"The soil is a living thing, but in commercial agriculture, and horticulture in particular, they think the only reason you have soil is so plants don't fall over.
"And they use Round Up all the time, which is a registered antibiotic - in terms of keeping microbes going, it's not a real winner."
In Mr Lavers' thinking, the soil of his farm is part of a living system, intimately connected with the bodies it nourishes.
"I feel like I am this soil," he said.
"I look at the field and see myself, given that I'm mostly eating food grown in it."
In a world suffering the effects of climate change, over-farming, soil depletion and ecosystem eradication, Mr Lavers sees his farming methods as his mission in life.
"I want to be able to look in my grandkids eyes and say, 'I did my bit to look after things'," he said, adding that we've literally "eaten our grandkids' future, and it will show in their bodies".
"So when people ask, 'Who's standing up and doing anything?', this is my answer.
"This is my mission, this is why I get up every day, and I feel privileged to have such a mission.
"How lucky am I! Most people wonder what they're doing in their life, but I never wonder that."
Mr Lavers passion for organic methods, and the quality of the resulting produce, has seen Moonacres vegetables grace tables at restaurants such as Firedoor, Lankan Filling Station and Fred's.
He grows a range of vegetables and fruit, from the standard potatoes and cabbage to more exotic cavalo nero, kohlrabi and fennel.
There's even a couple of rows of kiwi fruit just coming into flower, the result of five years of planning.
"You've got to be patient in this game," Mr Lavers pointed out.
While the process starts with soil improvement, there's no end of other matters to keep Mr Lavers and his staff busy, from hand planting and weeding to delivering produce to restaurants or to Sydney Markets, where they are then sold via wholesalers.
In fact, if you look at it from another angle, selling the vegetables is often the first step.
"You don't grow it until you've sold it," said Mr Lavers, a truism he says he came to after making many mistakes.
"That's how you make money - there's no point having all this produce if you can't sell it, or deliver it.
"In fact, a large part of my job is just working out transport systems to get stuff to the people who want it, which is why you need consolidators like wholesalers."
Looking ahead, Mr Lavers next passion project won't see him putting anything in the ground.
Instead, he intends to 'farm the sun', placing solar panels on a hill and the roof of his house.
"We'll be able to use that to partially power the cafe - we'll put power into the grid and the cafe will pull it out, a virtual solar farm," he said.
As with everything he aims to do, it's an exchange in which the environment will be the winner.
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