Not many families can say they have a town named after them, but for local farmer David Trevor-Jones that’s the case. In fact, his maternal great-grandfather, JJ Hayter, became one of the first landowners in Byron Bay after establishing a farm at Hayters Hill in 1881.
‘Back in the 1800s, the government was offering land for selection in this area and my great-grandfather and his uncle, who were dairy farmers on the south coast, came up and cleared the one square mile of land to establish a dairy farm here,’ David says.
‘Back then, they were just taking the cream off the milk and turning it into butter which was canned and sent back to England.’
Today, the farm, which sits on the winding ridge of Bangalow Road overlooking Byron Bay, is still very much a family affair, with David, his brother and their parents all living on and working the land.
However, the family have moved from dairying and sending produce overseas to running beef cattle and pigs, which they sell locally at Byron and Bangalow Farmers Markets every week.
‘Attending the markets and getting to know our customers – being part of their lives and watching their kids grow up – is pretty rewarding,’ David says. ‘And the markets have really allowed us to establish a viable family business and keep everything local.’
Being a multi-generational family farm, the focus has always been on maintaining the health of the land for future generations.
‘We have the farm divided into about 40 paddocks and we move the cows every day into a new paddock so they always have fresh grass,’ David says. ‘This means they leave all the parasites behind and the pasture gets a chance to recover and regenerate before the cows return to that paddock. The pigs have a number of pens and they are moved weekly.’
David says that all the butchery is also done on the farm. ‘Everything we bring to the market we produce on the farm. We age the beef here before we butcher it and we offer a large range of sausages and smoked goods – all original recipes – as well as nitrate-free bacon.’
You can find Dave and his regeneratively raised beef and pork at Byron Farmers Market every Thursday morning and at Bangalow every Saturday morning.
Byron Farmers Market is held Thursdays 7–11am at Butler St Reserve and Bangalow Farmers Market is Saturdays 7–11am behind the Bangalow pub.
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