Everywhere you look around Northern Tasmania at this time of the year, there are farmers of one kind or another bringing in their harvest. Multiple hectares of grass was sown in the spring and most of it has now been cut and formed into huge round bales, most of it destined to be cattle feed through the winter months. One farmer on Illawarra Road plants a different kind of grass and it is harvested later. His bales are square and litter his paddocks; a new sign has appeared at his gate ‘Pea Straw’ with a telephone number.
On our last trip to the north-west we passed through the area where the prime vegetables are grown. McCain’s have a factory here for processing the peas and beans and cauliflowers into plastic bags for the freezer. It’s great potato country and every other imaginable vegetable grows there too. Successful farmers only plant their crop when they have a contracted buyer. One season they might plant carrots, the next might be onions. Last season we had a crop of broccoli on Illawarra Road and the same paddock has another crop in it this year. We’re not sure, yet, what it is but it’s dark green and low to the ground: cabbages, perhaps or broccoli again. When we drove past yestarday a heap of large orange boxes had been delivered and the white bus which transports the pickers was parked at the side of the paddock. Work might start there today.
In the paddock next to that is a planting of poppies. Soon we’ll see the machines arrive which lop the tops off and transfers them to trucks for transport to the mill in Westbury. The variety grown here produces codeine bound for markets all over the world.
Every now and then, as you drive around, there will be a small paddock of wheat. We don’t have the climate to grow vast acres like they do in South Australia but we can cultivate an ancient species of wheat called Spelt. Apparently, small quantities are still added to the flour we buy from the supermarkets, and there is still a working flour mill in Oatlands powered by wind. Closer to Deloraine there are more exotic crops like hazelnuts and truffles and not far away, they grow wasabi in beds of gravel.
The berry season started in January. This is highly labour-intensive with teams of pickers travelling here from all over the world. Some pickers might go home after the berries finish or they might stay on for the vegetables or other fruit. Most of the cherries grown here are in high demand in China and Japan but they have finished now. Apples come on in March and, even though we don’t export the quantities we once did, Tasmanian apples are still in demand locally. Much of the crop now goes into cider, alcoholic and otherwise. Grapes, too, need to be picked. Most of our grapes end up as wine and this region has developed a very good reputation for its cool climate varieties. In recent years Brown Brothers moved a lot of its operation to the Tamar Valley.
It's good to be reminded that we live in an area where generations of farmers have been generating income for their families on their little plots of land. Large multi-nationals now have a toehold in the market but the family-owned farm is still the backbone of the industry in this area. Long may it continue.
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