Humungous Fungus Award: Leesa’s Little Farm wins soil health prize, helps engage city consumers

Deception Bay farmer, Leesa Cornford, has taken home the trophy in an annual SEQLD competition promoting the importance of soil health and biodiversity, and recognising the grower who nurtures it. 

The ‘Humungous Fungus Award’ is run by the Food Connect Foundation, and sees farmers send in a sample of soil from a typical productive area of their property for a free soil test. The farm with the highest microbial carbon count takes the prize and is celebrated at an annual event in Brisbane. 

The Award is the final piece in Food Connect Foundation’s Farming Healthy Soils Program where over 80 farmers across South East Queensland were invited to workshops, and have their soil samples tested, thanks to funding from a federal government Smart Farms Small Grant round. The program enlisted the expertise of David Hardwick from Soil Land Food to expand growers' knowledge of their soil biology.

Separate from the formal testing regime, soil scientist Dr Gillian Kopittke, was engaged to run her own simplified test specific to the awards event. She says that although the field of entrants was much larger this year, so too was Leesa's already-impressive microbial carbon count.

“Leesa certainly wasn’t resting on her laurels - she blew the field away, with 665.5 micrograms of carbon per gram of soil,” she said.

“She’s done some absolutely fantastic work and you can see it in the quality of her dragon fruit.”

Leesa humbly attributes part of the soil’s vitality to her years of hard work in building up her soil carbon levels with compost and lots of care.

Executive Director of the Food Connect Foundation, Robert Pekin, says the award has generated lots of excitement and conversation - not only among participating growers, but promisingly, among urban eaters.

“It gives a whole other part of the community the chance to learn about the importance of fungi, bacteria and soil health,” he said.

“And it's been phenomenal to see them get excited about this whole other aspect to their food, and more appreciative of what people like Leesa do to give us such fantastic produce, sequester carbon and look after the land.”

Pekin acknowledges that microbial carbon count isn’t a complete picture of soil health or the hard work put into it, but the Humungous Fungus Award’s simplicity is what makes it effective.

“Land managers who submitted soil samples as part of Food Connect’s Healthy Soils program received detailed test results from Soil Land Food, as well as follow up learning on where and how to improve practices based on their results. It provides a fantastic benchmark for the farmers, and a fun way to learn with fellow farmers,” he said.

The Food Connect Foundation is the not-for-profit arm sister of Food Connect Shed, a community-owned and run food hub working with farmers and makers to relocalise South East Queensland’s food system. The Foundation advocates for a fairer, more resilient food system by hosting eater and grower events and education programs.

The event was celebrated online in September. You can view the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xm0Q2rKb7Q

The Food Connect Healthy Soils Project was funded by Food Connect Foundation and the National Landcare Program, This project is jointly funded through the Food Connect Foundation and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program. Principal content delivery provided by Soil Land Food. #landcare