Jodi James
Hatch Program 4
6 Feb 2023
About
Jodi and her husband, Ian operate a broad-acre dry-land certified organic grain operation. Jodi has a degree in Agribusiness Management and a Masters in Business Law. She is currently studying Marketing and is a certified organic grain farmer, currently running 4500 acres of certified land, with an upcoming horticulture olive plantation.
The Idea
Jodi is working with a micro on-farm mobile grain processing facility. She has discovered that organic farming in WA does not have the processing capacity for organic grain because of its limited scale and restrictions in the state. Similarly the cost of freight has continued to increase and the operation has found it difficult to maintain bulk grain market access to Eastern States. The producer team wants to solve this problem by acquiring and developing a compact, mobile processing facility on-farm with the capacity to capture market enquiries from domestic and export consumers. This facility’s technology would be able to support farmers’ needs and have the capacity for export, should the opportunity arise.
Jodi and her husband also identified that the Lupin grain was a unique opportunity to value-add due to its high natural, plant protein source and being a soybean alternative. However, a barrier to dehulling and milling the kernel for consumption existed in Western Australia with limited processing facilities able to maintain or invest in organic certification. This has similarly resulted in local customers having to import organic Lupin product from Eastern States back to Western Australia which has been grown in the state.
The Hatch program inspired me to look further outside my comfort zone and feel I was capable of being part of the group online. A great confidence builder for future ideas and meetings.
What's Next?
Jodi registered her brand "Mums Organics" in 2022 and since participating in the Hatch program, she has been promoting the benefits of the faba bean as an alternative protein and raising the brand brand awareness in her local communities in WA. Jodi can see the opportunity to export her product to South-East Asia hopes to participate in the upcoming Hone program to continue her pre-accelerator journey.