Top Harvest Moon growers awarded

North-west vegetable growers the Craigie family have been recognised for the exceptional produce that is grown on their Heathermoor and Springbanks farms for Harvest Moon.

At Thursday night’s Harvest Moon annual growers’ dinner at Forth, Andrew Craigie accepted the Excellence in Agriculture award as well as the brown onion production award.

Awards were also presented to Neil Johnson, who has been cropping and managing farmland in the Kindred region for more than 40 years, for carrot production, Gawler farmers Stuart and Chelsea Applebee who operate Esandsea Farming, for beans, Talandra Trading’s Perry family at Sassafras for broccoli and Justin and Cathy Shephard of Shephard Holdings for “snackables” carrots.

The Encouragement Award, presented to a rising star of vegetable growing, went to Naris Samarasinghe, operating under NJS Family Trust.

Harvest Moon managing director Mark Kable said that it’s vitally important to recognise the hard work of the grower base and extended team and efforts they put in each year to grown “these magic vegetables that we sell around the world”.

With growers in every state of Australia, he reiterated that Tasmania is the biggest and most important supplier.

Recognising it has been one of the toughest seasons on record, he commended growers for maintaining supplies.

“I don’t think consumers realise how lucky they are to have such quality produce year-round and at such cheap prices,” he said.