Garry Kadwell named finalist in 2025 delicious produce awards - Produce Awards

Jul 09, 2025

How do you grow prize-winning produce? For 2025 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards National Finalist Garry Kadwell of Kadwell & Co Gourmet Potatoes, it all starts with letting nature take the reins.

When Garry Kadwell was a young boy, his grandfather would take him out to plant trees on the family farm, near Crookwell in the NSW Southern Tablelands.

“I asked him, ‘Pop, why are we planting trees? We got hundreds of them,” he says. “His comment was – and I still remember it quite clearly – ‘It takes a wise man a lifetime to grow a tree, and a fool five minutes to kill one’. That sort of stuck in my mind.”

Later, as a young farmer, Kadwell was growing up in a time when artificial fertilisers were becoming popular in farming, and were seen as a ‘game-changer’.

“Chemicals [were] becoming more predominant, and were used widely and regularly,” Kadwell says. “But when I first started off growing potatoes, I can clearly remember taking the lid off a drum of chemicals, and the smell made me sick, like, physically.

“I thought, I just don’t wanna farm like this. And that was, I think, the first time I made a conscious decision to change.”

The fourth-generation farmer took what he had learned from his ‘Pop’ and his father, and began to transform his property. “I started to look at the place very differently,” he says.

Garry Kadwell — Kadwell knew he wanted to try farming his own way.

Kadwell began fencing off areas of vegetation, to encourage the growth of ‘understory’ plants – shrubs, ferns, herbs, grasses. “All of the things that I’ve learnt have to be there to make the ecology work,” he says. He also used techniques like cold burning and scarification to help improve soil health. Within a few years, the difference was noticeable.

“I could see it was the right way to go,” he says. “So after that it’s just become a lifetime obsession.”

Forty percent of the Kadwell property is now what Kadwell calls ‘ecological zones’ – the land has basically been handed back to nature. Lush greenery flourishes as far as the eye can see. There is also a large wetland area that has become a safe haven and breeding ground for migratory birds, and has even led to species like platypus taking up residence.

And for all his hard work, the land has thanked Kadwell in return.

Garry Kadwell farm — Sheep have plenty of shelter, and the wetlands are thriving.

Working with nature

The proud farmer says he has transformed his family property because it was “the right thing to do”, but also marvels at the transformation this change has brought about in himself and his growing techniques.

“As I learned more about nutrition and health of plants, by watching nature and how it works, what I found was when I got that right, we didn’t get the fungus attacks; we didn’t get the insect attacks because the plants had natural immunity… and [with] the ecological zones all around my production paddocks, I get a massive increase in beneficial insects, which is taking away our reliance on insecticides.”

The increased vegetation also provides more shelter for the farm’s 4000 sheep who lamb on the property each winter, which means fewer losses, while the compost that Kadwell makes from chicken manure that he collects from farms across the region has made the soil so healthy, the grass remains green for almost the entire year.

Kadwell & Co Andean Sunrise Potatoes — Kadwell’s award-winning Andean Sunrise potatoes

Prize-winning potatoes

But the true crowning glory here on this little patch of paradise is the potatoes. While Kadwell grows seed stock potatoes for some of the country’s largest growers, he also made the decision to start growing new and interesting varieties of gourmet potatoes. Purple Passion. Maris Piper. King Edward. Red Rouge. Gourmet potatoes so glorious, chef, restaurateur and delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards National Judge Matt Moran cannot wax lyrical about them enough.

“They are the best I’ve ever tasted, hands down,” Moran says.

“What I admire most about Garry is his commitment to regenerative farming. You only need to visit his farm to see the results. It’s honestly one of the most beautiful farms I’ve ever come across. Crookwell, where he’s based, has some of the best soil in the country, but it’s Garry’s care and approach that sets him apart. He gives back to the community, he’s deeply respected by other growers, and the results are clear – his potatoes are just exceptional.”

In recognition of this “exceptional” work, Kadwell was named as the 2020 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards Producer of the Year for his Andean Sunrise potatoes. This year, he’s a National Finalist in the From the Earth category.

Kadwell & Co purple passion potatoes — Kadwell’s Purple Passion potatoes

Potatoes with purpose

It should come as no surprise that once again, Kadwell’s decision to create something so special had altruistic roots.

“All the nutrition; all the flavour comes from the soil,” the farmer says. “We need the big commercial growers to feed the population, but all the production now has gone into sand country – sand and inert substance that doesn’t hold any nutrition. It doesn’t have any of the goodness in it.

“I’d seen some magnificent varieties – ones with health benefits [that] are exponential, and I thought, I want to give the general public access to what we used to have. Good, healthy nutritious food. And that’s what led me into gourmet potatoes.”

Kadwell speaks excitedly about scientific evidence that showed the compounds found in purple-fleshed potatoes, which he produces, may help to prevent certain types of cancer, including bowel cancer.

“I think the older you get, you think about things a lot differently than you do when you’re young,” he reflects. “You realise what the real value of things in life are. And to me, the real value of what I can do for people is give them good, nutritious food.”