Julian Lee has been considering questions of food and sustainability for years.

"I helped establish a number of organic buyers groups in Sydney and worked with councils to promote sustainable agriculture. Most of the farmers I spoke to thought organics were either a lie or impossible," he says.

Lee found he was starting to question the system he was promoting. Was organic farming sustainable? "I wanted to be able to look farmers in the eye and say from my own personal experience I knew organics was possible. But I also wanted to answer the question about if it's financially viable."

Using his bush block in the Hunter Valley as a testing ground, Lee left the city and became a farmer. "I'd been growing things off and on for a long time but I was new to doing it commercially," he says.

With a government grant for small-business owners, Lee enrolled in an intensive horticulture course at TAFE and began farming. He soon learnt he could grow some things quickly - "radishes take four weeks, bok choy takes six weeks", he says - but as a small producer hoping to sell to locals, he needed diversity.

"People get sick of bok choy week after week," he says.

He also learnt he wasn't alone in his struggle to scrape out an income from farming. "The market situation for farmers is just not right. Agribusiness is getting bigger and more destructive," he says.

After two years, Lee decommercialised the farm and looked for another solution.

The founder of Food Connect, in Brisbane, was setting up operations in Sydney and Lee became general manager of a social enterprise that connects city dwellers with food from local growers.

"Food Connect offers farmers a different market opportunity. It's not just another buyer, it's about respect for food that is good quality," Lee says, noting that Food Connect's suppliers are paid fairly so their efforts are sustainable in the long term.

Sydney's Food Connect has been running for two years. It provides more than 350 boxes of chemical-free, locally grown produce a week to locals — a figure that is expected to grow to 500 boxes this year.

"We set it up as a social enterprise, which has the motivations of a not-for-profit combined with the benefits of a business model. This means you're not constantly reliant on grants or government money; instead, you're forced to find something buyers want," he says.

Being part of the market means people can be paid.

"It frustrates me that if you want to work in a job you are passionate about and does good in the world, very often you have to take a significant pay cut," Lee says.

"We want to work our way up to full market rates [for staff]. We have 10 paid employees [some part-time] and from the day we started delivering boxes the volunteers went to being employees."

Although his job used to be very hands-on, Lee now spends his time on business development, strategic partnerships, long-term planning and human resources.

"At the end of the day, I know I've worked in something I passionately believe in," he says.

Then:
Salary: "I earned about $10,000 a year from the farming! The [New Enterprise Incentive Scheme] gave me some income too."
Work-life balance: "Terrible because I was trying to figure out how to make it viable. Physically, it's incredibly hard."
Hours: "If you speak to most farmers, they don't take time off. There's always stuff to do."

Now:
Salary: $60,000 full time. "However, I work four days a week, so I am paid pro rata."
Work-life balance: "I still get woken at 3am by my brain saying I need to figure something out about work. However, I'm deliberately working four days a week as I have a small child."
Hours: 8.30am to 5.30pm.
Miss: "Having my office in such a beautiful environment and stopping at any time to go for a swim in the dam."
Challenges: "It's starting a new business, which means getting the operations, team, financials and marketing right."