Organic Certifying around Tropical Townsville
by Mary Meadows

In the middle of September, Co-op member Anne Buff and I caught a Virgin flight to Townsville. For me, it was a combination of organic certification work and a mini-holiday. For Anne, it was a break from the rigours of teaching. The first eye-opener was the computer system that allows you to input your flight details and then produces a boarding pass, although you are still required to communicate with a human to check in your luggage. When it gets to a stage where robots are flying the planes, I might stay Earthbound.

We stayed at Saunders Beach, approximately 20 km north of Townsville. It's a small hamlet with kilometres of nearly deserted beach, lined with coconut palms and a view of Magnetic Island. Staying in this environment for 10 days negated the need to visit any islands. We incorporated our sightseeing with farm visits. Except for the river and creek flood plains, the countryside is harsh and scrubby.

Towns like Charters Towers are really worth a visit, especially if you appreciate heritage buildings. The Heritage Trust and the Charters Towers Visitors Information Centre have organised a heritage trail. This walk covers an area of about one square kilometre and includes buildings such as the Charters Towers Stock Exchange, built in 1888. We visited on 21 September, and this being the International Day of Peace we headed for Towers Hill, which is covered in bunkers from the Second World War. It seemed appropriate to meditate for peace at that particular spot. An Aboriginal boy called Jupiter first discovered gold at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871 (I guess that's where the casino gets its name from).

Strategies at Alligator Creek Farm

I had seven farms for which to do an annual organic certification inspection, but for this article I felt it appropriate to focus on only one – Alligator Creek Farm. This is the farm of Greg Messer, who has been growing vegetables for over 20 years and supplies Maple Street Co-op via the Brisbane Markets. For Greg, climate dictates the growing of summer crops over the winter period; for example, he has just completed the growing of his red capsicum, and his zucchini and beans are not far off from being harvested. Once these and other crops are finished, Greg plants sorghum as a green manure crop. The summer months are too hot and humid for growing most vegetables; in fact, the germination of seed to produce new vegetable seedlings won't occur until February. However, mangoes and pawpaw (papaya) can still be cropped.

Greg's method of controlling pests attacking his crops is one of total exclusion. He and a couple of other farmers in the area import a container-load of protective fabric and biodegradable weed mat; it's finely woven but very strong. They use it in such a way that each length of cloth completely covers seven beds as the plants are growing. When the plants are at the flowering stage, they remove the cloth to allow the bees in. A local beekeeper has placed hives at both ends of the veggie beds. The bees can also access the flowering mango and native trees. This season, the mangoes have thrown two sets of flowers. I noticed this at every farm I visited that grew mangoes, and it's most unusual.

Interestingly, I observed plovers romping around on top of the exclusion cloth without doing any harm to the plants below. As an aside, the brush turkeys at Saunders Beach are so numerous and active that the garden around the motel where we stayed is contained in large concrete and terracotta pots. I also spotted five silky black cockatoos in the casuarina trees that line the beach.

Alligator Creek Farm is located next to a creek, but Greg does not irrigate from this creek, even though it offers a permanent water supply. Instead, Greg pumps up water from a bore. The water tasted very sweet to me. In Greg's 20-odd years of living on this farm, he has never had a problem with corrosion of his water pipes. He uses "T-Tape" drip-feed irrigation, which is in sharp contrast to the cane farmers who flood their open fields and pour a massive amount of water over their cane. I noticed that the sugarcane trucks and trains were very active transporting the harvested cane to any one of the many mills that we passed in our travels. Greg mentioned that one of the mills, located near a place called Giru, burns the excess bagasse (the crushed, juiceless remains of sugar cane after processsing) to supply the electricity grid.

Saunders Beach is located close to Queensland Nickel, which processes nickel mined in Mauritius – but that is another story...

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", December 2005/January 2006; published by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au, website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]