The Farmers
Angela Escolme and Josh Phillips have called Tasmania home for over 10 years after they met through the University while studying their PhD’s in ore deposit geology. Both hailing independently from the rural parts of the UK, rocks brought them to Australia but the Tassie lifestyle kept them here! Sharing a love of travel and adventure, they decided to put all that to one side and spend all their ‘spare time’ establishing Underwood Park, their sustainable beef farm, and raising a family.
The farm is a labour of love that is starting to bear fruit. The property required significant improvements to infrastructure (including fencing, water lines and dam repairs) before they could begin rejuvenating the tired pastures with carefully managed animal impact. Whilst taking maternity leave, Angela has thrown herself into the day-to-day activities including moving cattle around the property with kids in tow. Drawing on her childhood experience on a dairy and sheep farm and learning something new every day about pasture and animal husbandry. Josh keeps the lights with his day job but mucks in whenever extra hands are required and has championed the major farm infrastructure improvements.
Angela and Josh have a shared vision for Underwood Park to be a truly sustainable part of the local landscape, food system and their family life.
The Farm
Underwood Park is a 110 acre farm nestled in the Snug Tiers south of Hobart, Southern Tasmania. Surrounded by towering native eucalypt forests, the region is rich in native fauna. Since 2020, Angela and Josh have been working to restore the farm’s ecological function and biodiversity through regenerative agriculture practices – specifically holistic cattle grazing.
Through ‘farming with nature’ they aim to produce delicious and nutrient-rich beef for the local community in a kind and sustainable manner whilst building biodiversity above and below ground. Regenerative grazing involves moving cattle onto fresh pasture daily with grazed areas left to recover for sufficiently long periods before grazing again. In keeping with their sustainability principles, no synthetic fertilisers are used on the farm and animals are free of growth hormones and antibiotics. The couple are also currently working to protect and enhance the farm’s native vegetation, creeks and dams by fencing livestock out of these areas and other revegetation projects.
Underwood Park offered farm-direct spring beef boxes for the first time in 2023 from their mob of carefully sourced traditional Beef Shorthorn cattle. The farm caters to the growing demand for sustainable, local, grass-fed beef from customers who are seeking paddock-to-plate traceability and ethical practices when feeding their family.