Mark Brown and Kate Beveridge operate Purple Pear Farm Education Centre and Biodynamic farm. It has over 20 years of experience in teaching, farming, sustainability, permaculture, biodynamics, and community building.
Located on a productive 14-acre property on the outskirts of Maitland, the farm offers visitors an opportunity to learn about their techniques through field days, onsite courses, and farm tours for adults, school groups, and children. Purple Pear Farm has facilities to cater for groups in a hands-on and supported learning environment.
Both Mark and Kate share a passion for feeding people, particularly children, healthy organic food, and walk and talk about what they teach. They grow food in the mandala market garden using permaculture, organic, and biodynamic principles. This produce is distributed to the local community using the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box system, where customers can purchase weekly food boxes of seasonally grown produce.
Community members can also rent allotments to grow their own food.