Quality Assured Certified, Australian grown sweet potatoes
With industry leaders Matthew and Henry at the helm, Cudgen Road Farms remain committed to achieving the highest quality, ethically produced, food safe sweet potatoes through environmentally sustainable farming practices and the adoption of new farming techniques and technologies.
Matthew and Henry Prichard head up the 3rd generation sweet potato farming family that are Cudgen Road Farms. With 6 farms in Cudgen in the Northern Rivers of NSW, Cudgen Road Farms grows the gold sweet potato variety Orleans, over 35ha of the 70ha of farmland with the remaining under cover cropping rotation.
Cudgen – the heartland of sweet potato farming
The volcanic, rich, red soil of Cudgen located in Northern NSW is renowned as the most productive sweet potato farming land in Australia. Boasting 35% greater productivity than the Australian industry average, thanks to the unique combination of ideal climate, soil and skilled farmers.
A hands-on management team dedicated to the growth of the industry
Matthew and Henry lead a 100% hands-on management team. With degrees in Horticultural Science, they bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise between them from land preparation, planting, cover crop, irrigation, fertiliser, quality control, pesticide application, harvest, packing, cool storage to business development and marketing.
Industry-led and research-driven, highest quality food safe sweet potatoes
Cudgen Road Farms is the only sweet potato producer that is HARPS certified in NSW for quality assurance and Sedex ethical business practice approved. Their high industry acclaim has seen them take out Tweed Shire Council’s People’s Choice Sustainability Award for Regenerative Agriculture in November 2019, retain 20 years plus supply to Hydro Produce Sydney and commenced direct supply with Coles in July 2020.
The team pride themselves on their close industry ties as members of Hort Innovation’s Strategic Investment Advisory Panel for sweet potatoes and the Australian Sweet Potato Growers Association and their involvement in an industry-wide strategic plan. Additionally, the farm has close links with Louisianna State University sweet potato research team and the Centre for International Potato research (CIP) based in Peru.
Committed to environmental sustainability
Our commitment to environmentally sustainable practices include:
- Reduced till techniques
- Cover cropping to increase Carbon to drive the soil food web
- Investing in reduced emissions tractors
- 30kW Solar system
- Drip irrigation system for efficient water usage
- 2 year crop rotations
- Strategic pesticide application via drip irrigation system
- Soil erosion – contour banks and soil traps
- Controlled release fertiliser
- Strategic use of herbicides over tillage
- Grid Farm soil testing system, and GPS guided soil amendment application
- Involvement in Tweed Shire Council environmental projects
